What is a port mirroring capability of a switch?

What is a port mirroring capability of a switch?

Port mirroring is the network switch ability to send a copy of network data packets being transmitted over a switch port to a network monitoring or inspection device that is itself connected to the port mirror – a dedicated port on the switch.

What is port mirroring in Cisco switch?

Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN), which is also called port mirroring, or traffic mirroring enables you to monitor network traffic passing in, or out of, a set of ports. You can then pass this traffic to a destination port on the same router.

How do I mirror a port on a Cisco switch?

Configuring the Cisco SGxxx Series for Port Mirroring

1. On the device, select Administration > Diagnostics > Port and VLAN Mirroring.
2. If your switch supports RSPAN, complete these steps:
3. Click Add to add a SPAN or RSPAN mirroring session.
4. Provide the mirror session information:

What is the purpose of port mirroring?

Port mirroring is used on a network switch to send a copy of network packets seen on one switch port (or an entire VLAN) to a network monitoring connection on another switch port.

How does port mirroring on a switch work?

Basically, with Port Mirroring, packets sent/received on a port/VLAN are copied to another port. This feature is available on many switch models including Cisco, Juniper, Netgear, and so on. Also, it is known by different names apart from Port Mirroring depending on what vendor you are dealing with.

Where are source ports located in port mirroring?

All source ports are located on the same network device as the destination ports. As figure 1 shows, local port mirroring enables the network switch to forward the copy of the packet on the source port (Eth 1/1) to the destination port (Eth 1/2). Then the monitoring device connected with the destination port can monitor and analyze the packet.

How is port mirroring different from packet capture?

Port mirroring is a packet capture technique. Packet capture requires a hardware element, which is called a TAP (test access point ). Fortunately, you already have hardware that channels all of your network traffic: switches and hubs.

Which is the most basic form of port mirroring?

Local port mirroring is the most basic form of mirroring. All source ports are located on the same network device as the destination ports. As figure 1 shows, local port mirroring enables the network switch to forward the copy of the packet on the source port (Eth 1/1) to the destination port (Eth 1/2).