The NetScaler ADC is a fantastic appliance for doing a host of different things as we all know. But did you know that the NetScaler has a wide range of counters and other detail that can be used to troubleshoot various systems on the appliance?

Simply log into the NetScaler via your favorite SSH client, drop to the SHELL, navigate to the /var/nslog directory, and then use the following ‘nsconmsg’ command to see comprehensive statistics via the different counters available.

Example:

For this example I used the popular and free PUTTY SSH client to log into the NetScaler.

LOGIN to the NetScaler CLI:

Using username “nsroot”.

Using keyboard-interactive authentication.

Password:

Last login: Fri May  2 18:23:05 2014 from 10.54.156.40

Copyright (c) 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994

The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.

Done

Drop to the SHELL:

> shell

Copyright (c) 1992-2008 The FreeBSD Project.

Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994

The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

Change to the /var/nslog directory with the following command:

root@netscaler# cd /var/nslog

Issue the following ‘nsconmsg’ command to look at NIC-related statistics:

root@netscaler# nsconmsg -g nic_err -d current

Displaying performance information

NetScaler V20 Performance Data

NetScaler NS10.1: Build 122.17.nc, Date: Dec  5 2013, 17:46:04

reltime:mili second between two records Fri May  2 19:14:46 2014

Index   rtime totalcount-val      delta rate/sec symbol-name&device-no

0    7000      159248567         50        7 nic_err_dropped_pkts interface(0/1)

1       0      256797467        146       20 nic_err_dropped_pkts interface(0/2)

From the above example you can see live statistics about the NIC. There are a host of different counters for each respective system that can yield excellent data to help you understand the health of your appliance, or even give you critical insight when troubleshooting an issue.

As a note, the counters will refresh every (7) seconds with new data for stats averaged over the (7) second interval.

Finding different NetScaler counters is rather simple just by leveraging a Google search for an appropriate CTX article. But to make it easier for you, I’ve put together a really helpful list of the most common counters that you may be interested in examining.

The Most Common Counters:

NetScaler AppFlow Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX132769

NetScaler Compression (CMP) Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX131798

NetScaler Internet Protocol (IP) Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX131805

NetScaler SSL Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX132779

NetScaler System Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX133887

NetScaler TCP Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX133888

NetScaler UDP Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX133889

NetScaler Virtual Server Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX133891

NetScaler Audit Log Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX132770

NetScaler SNMP Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/ctx132778

Netscaler IPv6 Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX131806

NetScaler Logging Facility

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX123977

NetScaler SSLVPN Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX133884

NetScaler Priority Queuing Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX132774

Netscaler High Availability Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX131802

Netscaler HTTP Denial of Service Protection Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX131800

NetScaler Integrated Caching Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX131793

NetScaler ICMP Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX131804

How to Determine the Time Since the Last High Availability Node State Change from a NetScaler Newnslog File

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX121847

NetScaler High Availability Synchronization Failure Counter – ha_err_sync_failure

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX135217

FAQ: Can the NetScaler Generate an HTTP 503 Response?

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX120240

Port Allocation Error not Caused by Port Exhaustion

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX122808

Netscaler NIC Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX125102

HTTP Reuse and Non-Trackable Connections

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX120674

NetScaler DNS Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX131799

NetScaler RNAT Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX132775

NetScaler HTTP Counters

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX131803