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Networking Fundamentals · Intermediate

Runt

An Ethernet frame smaller than the 64-byte minimum, usually the result of collisions or faults.

Definition

Runts are discarded by receivers and counted as interface errors. They are typical on half-duplex links with collisions and on the full-duplex side of a duplex mismatch. A high runt count suggests bad cabling, a failing NIC or duplex problems.

Example

show interfaces reports "52 runts" on a port connected to a misconfigured server.

Exam tip

Runts are too small (<64 bytes); giants are too big (>1518 bytes, without jumbo support).

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