Remote Port Mirroring - 3Com 4200G 12-Port Configuration Manual

Remote Port Mirroring

Remote port mirroring does not require the source and destination ports to be on the same
device. The source and destination ports can be located on multiple devices across the
network. This allows an administrator to monitor traffic on remote devices conveniently.
To implement remote port mirroring, a special VLAN, called remote-probe VLAN, is used.
All mirrored packets are sent from the reflector port of the source switch to the monitor port
on the destination switch through the remote-probe VLAN.
implementation of remote port mirroring.
Figure 1-2 Remote port mirroring application
The switches involved in remote port mirroring function as follows:
Source switch
The source switch is the device where the monitored port is located. It copies traffic
passing through the monitored port to the reflector port. The reflector port then transmits
the traffic to an intermediate switch (if any) or destination switch through the remote-probe
VLAN.
Intermediate switch
Intermediate switches are switches between the source switch and destination switch on
the network. An intermediate switch forwards mirrored traffic flows to the next intermediate
switch or the destination switch through the remote-probe VLAN. No intermediate switch is
present if the source and destination switches directly connect to each other.
Destination switch
The destination switch is where the monitor port is located. The destination switch
forwards the mirrored traffic flows it received from the remote-probe VLAN to the
monitoring device through the destination port.
Table 1-1 describes how the ports on various switches are involved in the mirroring
operation.
1-2
Figure 1-2 illustrates the