Dell PowerConnect 8100 CLI Reference Guide - Page 631

30 Port Monitor Commands PowerConnect switches allow the user to monitor traffic with an external network analyzer. The external network analyzer can use any of the Ethernet ports as a probe port. The probe port transmits a mirror copy of the traffic being probed. Network traffic transmission is always disrupted whenever a configuration change is made for port monitoring. Therefore, whenever port monitoring is enabled, the probe port does not always forward traffic as a normal port. When diagnosing problems, an operator should always check the status of port monitoring. The port monitoring feature allows the user to configure a single probe session. A session consists of one destination port and multiple source ports. When a session is enabled, any traffic entering or leaving the source ports of that session is copied (mirrored) onto the corresponding destination port. A network traffic analyzer can be attached to destination ports to analyze the traffic patterns of source ports. A session is operationally active only if both a destination port and at least one source port are configured. If neither is true, the session is inactive. A port configured as a destination port acts as a mirroring port when the session is operationally active. If it is not, the port acts as a normal port and participates in all normal operation with respect to transmitting traffic. Any Ethernet port may be configured as a source port. Caveats: • Platforms may behave unpredictably if an attempt is made to mirror a port of greater speed than the probe port. • Once configured, there is no network connectivity on the probe port. The probe port does not forward any traffic and does not receive any traffic. The probe tool attached to the probe port is generally unable to ping the networking device or ping through the networking device, and nobody is able to ping the probe tool. Commands in this Chapter This chapter explains the following commands: Port Monitor Commands 631