KVM: How to get virtio_net NIC statistics to diagnose the rx_dropped counter

Issue

• ip -s link or netstat -i show that the rx_dropped counter is increasing.

$ ip -s link

3: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP mode DEFAULT qlen 1000
    .
    RX: bytes  packets  errors  dropped overrun mcast   
    4339384    60007    0       35      0       0      

• ethtool -S ethX fails for virtio_net NICs:

# ethtool -i eth0
driver: virtio_net
version: 1.0.0
firmware-version: 
bus-info: 0000:00:08.0
supports-statistics: no
supports-test: no
supports-eeprom-access: no
supports-register-dump: no
supports-priv-flags: no

# ethtool -S eth0
no stats available