SwitchProbe - Interfaces Section

The Interfaces section collects data and presents it on one line per interface.

The Interface Number, Description if present, Type, Speed in bits per second (bps), and MAC Address are displayed. Newer switches may also report their Speed in Megabits per second (see below).

The type value is a number for the type of Interface. The normal value is 6 representing ethernet. Another value you may find is 53 which represents a virtual interface. A complete list of values can be found here.

In the last few years transmission rates have been increasing so that muliti-gigabit switch ports are now capable of sending data so fast it causes the 32-bit counter normally used to store the number of bytes sent and received to wrap in less than 1 minute. An additional counter has been added to the MIB to handle this situation.

The 'old' counter, Speed (bps), reported the maximum speed as the bits per second that could be transmitted or received. If you see the number 4294967295, that is a special number that is really a -1 when a 32-bit number wraps. The new counter is shown in the column Speed (Mps).