Chapter 10: Packet Deduplication; How To Deduplicate Packets; How To Direct The Matrix To Identify Duplicate Packets - Network Instruments Matrix User Manual

Chapter 10: Packet Deduplication

How to deduplicate packets

You can remove duplicate packets that reach the Matrix. This ensures that tool ports only send unique packets
to analysis tools, increasing the accuracy and efficiency of analysis.
Packet deduplication requires two steps:
1. Enable packet deduplication in a rule.
2. Direct the Matrix to identify duplicate packets.

How to direct the Matrix to identify duplicate packets

You must direct the Matrix which packet fields to ignore when determining duplicate packets. For example,
doing so ensures that packets with different Time to Live (TTL) values—yet are otherwise identical—are
deduplicated.
The packet fields to ignore, for determining duplicate packets, are configurable in the layout properties. Unlike
other settings, these settings affect the entire layout because the hardware-accelerated deduplication engines in
the Matrix must work in parallel.
To direct the Matrix to identify duplicate packets according to your definition, complete the following steps:
1. Starting in the dashboard, click Ports.
The layout designer appears, where connections between network and tool ports can be created.
2. Click Properties.
3. In the Deduplicate Ignored Fields area, select which fields to ignore.
If selected, the criteria is ignored and not evaluated when determining duplicate packets.
Note: These options do not enable packet deduplication. Enable or disable packet deduplication within a rule.
4. Click OK
You successfully directed the Matrix to identify duplicate packets according to your definition. Remember, these
settings affect the deduplication behavior of the entire layout, but packet deduplication is still enabled and
disabled in individual rules.
40 | Matrix™ (pub. 25.Apr.2014)