Monitoring Traffic

This section describes how to set up the unit for monitoring pass-through traffic using the monitor ports. The units have a versatile monitoring capability that can be tailored to the specific troubleshooting you may need.

The Skylight element: GX can use one monitor port: Monitor-2 is set to port 8.

There are two basic modes of monitoring:

• Separate monitor port for each traffic direction: One monitor port is used for the client-side port, while the other is used for the network-side port. This mode is used when a fixed relative timing monitoring is required, i.e. the receive time on the user traffic port being monitored and the transmit time on the monitor port is fixed and very small (0.8 μs at 1000 Mbps).
• Combined traffic mode using a single monitor port: In this mode, the traffic from both directions is monitored on the same monitor port. It is used for analyzing bidirectional communication.

You can select and direct the traffic to monitor by using filter rules. In many cases, the ability to select the traffic to monitor is essential when the frame analyzer is not able to sustain the complete traffic bandwidth present on the user connection. This is even more important with 1000 Mbps link. However, in situations where the traffic is known to not exceed the capability of the frame analyzer, all the traffic can be directed to a monitor port by using a “catch-all” filter rule.

To set up a monitor port

1. Access the page Traffic ▶Monitors.

2. Click a monitor Name to edit its settings.

3. Select the Enable check box.

4. Select the Destination port to assign to this monitor, then click Apply.

5. Repeat all previous steps to set up a second monitor port, if needed.

For more information on specific parameters, refer to the following table.

To set up the unit for monitoring traffic using the monitor ports

1. Access either Traffic ▶Filters ▶L2 Filters, Traffic ▶Filters ▶IPv4 Filters, Traffic ▶ Filters ▶IPv6 Filter.

2. Add a new filter or select an existing filter to catch the type of traffic you want to monitor. Refer to Defining Filters on page 157 for more information on how to setup L2, IPv4, or IPv6 filters.

3. Access the page Traffic ▶Policies and click the entry in the list corresponding to the port for which you want to monitor traffic (it is the incoming traffic for that port that will be monitored).

4. Set the policy for monitoring the traffic caught with the filter you configured above:

• Enable the policy.
• Select the appropriate Filter Type.
• Select the Filter you defined in the previous steps from the drop-down list.
• Set the Action to Permit Traffic.
• Enable monitoring.
• Set the monitor port toMonitor-2.
• Then, click Apply.

Refer to the table "Setting Up Traffic Policies" for more information on how to set up the policy.