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IDP 50, 200, 600, 1100 Installer's Guide
Traffic Ports (Forwarding Interfaces)
The IDP 50, 200, 600, and 1100 have traffic ports (forwarding interfaces) located on
the right side of each device. Some devices have copper ports only, while others
have a mixture of copper and fiber.
Figure 7: Copper and Fiber Ports
NIC Bypass Mode (Internal Bypass)
Copper ports on the IDP 50, 200, 600, and 1100 all have built-in port bypass. Port
bypass only works if the sensor is configured for transparent mode. If a Sensor fails
while in transparent mode, the pair of ports will automatically fail into a
"connected" state, and traffic will flow through them to and from the rest of the
network, without being analyzed.
NIC Bypass works using a watchdog timer. Each pair of ports has a timer. The
Sensor sends each timer a reset signal every second. If a timer does not receive a
reset signal for three seconds, bypass activates. After bypass activates, the timer
continues listening for a reset signal. When the timer receives a reset signal, bypass
deactivates automatically and the Sensor goes back to normal operation.
Bypass mode only activates if the Sensor fails (power loss, system crash). If the
Sensor (or Sensor software) is shut down gracefully, Internal Bypass is
deactivated and traffic does not flow through the device. Use of service idp
stop, shutdown -r now, or shutdown -h stop in the CLI all produce a graceful
shutdown and deactivates Internal Bypass.
The fiber Gigabit ports are standard interfaces and do not incorporate the
integrated bypass feature. Automatic bypass is available for fiber ports via
third-party devices.
NIC Bypass and Cable Choices
When NIC Bypass activates, it physically connects the pair of forwarding interfaces
to each other, with a crossover. From the network's point of view, the two cables
connected to the Sensor have become one, long crossover cable.
If you are connecting devices that support auto-MDIX, then you can use whatever
cables you want, because auto-MDIX will negotiate the correct connection.
However, if neither of the devices support auto-MDIX, then you need to take special
care to choose the right cables.
4
Sensor Components
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