From ab2d30a05b7079bb80955a8dbc24042c19707a25 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: d00f <8052722+DrDoof@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 2026 10:08:11 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] doc: describe the health command

What each line of the dump means, how two dumps give rates, and the
two things worth knowing before trusting the numbers: the command
inflates its own cmd phase counters by the cost of printing, and the
untouched figure is a high-water mark, not a live level.
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 doc/health.md | 68 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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+# The health command
+
+`health` prints a one-page snapshot of the firmware's vital signs on the
+serial console. It exists for the situations where the switch misbehaves and
+every probe from the network measures the network instead of the device: the
+dump is taken from inside, costs one command, and works while HTTP does not.
+
+```
+> health
+up 0000001f ticks 0x00001f4c loops 0x000016da rx 0x024e
+link max 01 slow 0x0000
+sfp  max 74 slow 0x0001
+rx   max 00 slow 0x0000
+tx   max 00 slow 0x0000
+stp  max 04 slow 0x0001
+cmd  max 02 slow 0x0001
+sp 80 untouched 62
+tcp st 00 tmr 00 rtx 00 rto 00 len 0x0000 mss 0x05b4
+  lport 0x0000 rport 0x0000 rip 0x0000 0x0000
+httpd left 0x0000 entry 00 stp 01 mvlan 0x0002
+```
+
+All figures are raw hex. The counters are cumulative: take two dumps a known
+time apart and the differences give the rates.
+
+## The first line
+
+`up` is the seconds counter, `ticks` the system tick (200 per second),
+`loops` the number of main-loop passes and `rx` the frames handle_rx has
+taken off the NIC. A healthy loop completes one pass per tick, so the
+difference in `loops` tracks the difference in `ticks`; a loop that falls
+behind is being held up by one of the phases below. The `rx` rate separates
+a flooded CPU port from a stalled loop, which look identical from outside.
+
+## Phases
+
+Each line is one section of the main loop: the link poll, SFP handling,
+frame reception, TCP transmission, the STP timers and the command dispatch.
+`max` is the worst time that section has taken, in ticks of 5 ms; `slow`
+counts the passes that took two ticks or more. A misbehaving subsystem
+names itself here, which is the difference between knowing that the loop is
+slow and knowing why.
+
+A dump of its own output takes the console some milliseconds, so running
+`health` repeatedly increments the `cmd` counters by itself. That is the
+instrument observing itself, not a fault.
+
+## Stack
+
+At boot the free stack area is painted with a pattern. `sp` is the live
+stack pointer; `untouched` counts the painted bytes still intact at the top,
+which is the closest thing to a high-water mark this hardware offers. A
+shrinking `untouched` across dumps means something is reaching deeper than
+anything before it.
+
+## The TCP slot
+
+The connection table is printed whole, one slot per pair of lines: TCP
+state (3 is ESTABLISHED, 0 closed), retransmission timer and counter, bytes
+in flight, negotiated MSS, then the ports and the peer address. With a
+single slot serving the entire web interface, one glance answers the
+question every management outage starts with: who is holding it. A slot
+showing state 3 with nothing in flight and a peer that no longer answers is
+a connection whose owner went away.
+
+`httpd left` and `entry` describe the file transfer the web server believes
+it is in the middle of, and the trailing flags show whether STP is running
+and which VLAN carries management.