How can I mirror two separate traffics flows to two monitor ports on the switch?

SCENARIO DESCRIPTION:

In order to troubleshoot specific problems in the administrative network, it is necessary to monitor two separate traffic flows on a single switch.

 

dualmirror_1.jpg

 

However, using simple Port Mirroring will not allow monitoring of two separate traffic flows since the Zyxel switch only allows one "monitor port" at any given time.

dualmirror_2.jpg

 

The solution is to use "RMirror". RMirror allows the creation of a single monitor port for each RMirror VLAN ID. The idea is to encapsulate traffic between Host-A1 and Host-A2 as shown below in one RMirror VLAN, while encapsulating traffic between Host-B1 and Host-B2 in another RMirror VLAN.

 

dualmirror_3.jpg

 

* RMirror is only supported by Zyxel L2+ or L3 enterprise switches.

* Each RMirror VLAN will require a reflector port. This means that with two RMirror VLANs, two extra ports will need to be reserved for mirror purposes.


SETUP/STEP BY STEP PROCEDURE:

1. Implement the following topology:

dualmirror_4.jpg

 

2. Access the Zyxel Enterprise switch through Telnet or Console CLI.

3. Create a RMirror VLAN (VLAN 100). Note that port 10 will be a reflector port.

         Switch# conf

         Switch(config)# rmirror vlan 100

         Switch(config-rmirror)# source reflector-port

         Switch(config-rmirror)# source reflector-port 10

         Switch(config-rmirror)# source mirror-port 1-2

         Switch(config-rmirror)# source mirror-port 1-2 dir in

         Switch(config-rmirror)# connected-port 3

4. Create another RMirror VLAN (VLAN 200). Note that port 20 will be a reflector port.

         Switch# conf

         Switch(config)# rmirror vlan 200

         Switch(config-rmirror)# source reflector-port

         Switch(config-rmirror)# source reflector-port 20

         Switch(config-rmirror)# source mirror-port 4-5

         Switch(config-rmirror)# source mirror-port 4-5 dir in

         Switch(config-rmirror)# connected-port 6

VERIFICATION:

1. Host-A1 should continuously ping Host-A2's IP address.

2. Host-B1 should continuously ping Host-B2's IP address.

3. Open Wireshark on Monitor-A and Monitor-B.

4. Monitor-A and Monitor-B should be able to observe ICMP exchanges between their respective hosts.

* Monitor-A and Monitor-B will receive mirrored traffic with an outer VLAN tag. Make sure that the monitor PC supports NIC that can observe tagged packets.

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