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Port Monitoring
Page 19-61
Port Monitoring
An essential tool of the network engineer is a network packet capture device. A packet
capture device is usually a PC-based computer, such as the Sniffer
®
, that provides a means for
understanding and measuring data traffic of a network. Understanding data flow in a VLAN-
based switch presents unique challenges primarily because traffic takes place inside the
switch, especially on dedicated devices.
The port monitoring feature built into OmniS/R software allows the network engineer to
examine packets to and from a specific Ethernet 10BaseT port. Port monitoring has the
following features:
• Software commands to enable and display captured port data.
• Captures data in Network General
®
file format.
• Limited protocol parsing (basic IP protocols and IPX) in console dump display.
• Data packets time stamped.
• One port monitored at a time.
• RAM-based file system.
• Memory buffer space from
1 MB to 8 MB.
• Statistics gathering and display
• Monitors only Ethernet 10BaseT ports
• Filtering limited to basic packet type—broadcast, multicast or unicast.
You can select to dump real-time packets to the terminal screen, or send captured data to a
file. Once a file is captured, you can FTP it to a Sniffer for viewing.
Port Mirroring
An alternate method of monitoring ports is Port Mirroring, which allows a network engineer
to attach a Sniffer to one Ethernet port and mirror traffic to and from any other Ethernet port.
Port mirroring is described in Port Mirroring on page 19-57.
Port Monitoring Menu
The port monitoring commands are contained on the port monitoring menu, which is a sub-
menu of the Networking menu. The port monitoring menu displays as follows:
Command Port Monitoring Menu
pmon Port monitor utility
pmcfg Configure port monitor parameters
pmstat View port monitor statistics
pmd Port monitor disable
pmp Port monitor pause
Main File Summary VLAN Networking
Interface Security System Services Help
/Networking/Monitor %
The commands in this menu are described in the following sections.