netstat output - diff between 'link' and 'inet' counters

[Nathan Kinkade]

I delved into trying to determine the cause of an unreasonably high
number of Ierrs on a few FreeBSD routers we have setup on campus.  While
probing through the netstat output on the machines I realized that I
don't understand the exact difference between the 'inet' and 'link'
protocol families.  Now, I understand the difference between IP and
ethernet, but the byte and packet counts for 'inet' and 'link' don't
seem to match what I would expect for those protocols, respectively.
This tells me that the numbers being logged must differ from my
expectations.  Generally I notice that the 'inet' counts for an
interface are a relatively small fraction of that for the 'link'
counts for the same interface.  However, on our main FreeBSD router that
provides NAT and access to the internet the numbers are somewhat
reversed, with 'inet' counts being much higher than the 'link' counts.
Is there someone who can explain to me exactly what packet and byte
counts actually represent for the 'inet' and 'link' families?

Thanks,
Nathan
-- 
gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys D8527E49
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