Port Mirroring for SONiC in Verity
One of the new capabilities we have in our latest release 6.4, is the ability to create SPAN, or Switch Port Analyzer, also known as Port Mirroring configurations. This gives you the ability to duplicate one or more source interfaces to a destination interface on a switch, and then have a collector or another server, or even another network be the destination of this duplicated packet information.
In this blog, I will show how to setup a Mirror session, select the destination, and view this traffic all through BE Networks Verity.
So lets say I have the following network topology:
I want to duplicate the traffic coming from my Ubuntu Server to my Windows server. Ubuntu server is connected to port 30 on my SONiC switch and the Windows Server is on port 40 of the SONiC switch. My monitoring server, which I want the duplicate packets to go to is on port 37 of the switch.
In Verity, under the Topology View, when you zoom in on the switch you want to create the Mirror on, there is a new box near the top called Traffic Mirrors:
We can add multiple rows with the 
icon and adjust priority with the 
icon.
The first thing we do is click icon to create a row. Then click the Pencil icon in the top right corner to go into Edit mode. From here, select Enable, and then from the Source Port drop down menu, select port 30, which is the port that the Ubuntu server is connected to. Next select direction. We want both so we select both inbound and outbound boxes. Last, for destination, we select the interface on the switch connected to our monitor server, which is port 37 in this example:
Next, click the Check in the top right corner to save the mirror session.
The switch will turn green, letting you know that it is sending the configuration to the switch and that it is in the process of updating. Once the switch is back to normal, you will see your session in the box:
You can see that the Current Count and Active count now both say 1 showing that the device is currently configured and mirroring traffic from port 30 to port 37.
On my monitoring Server, I can now see the packets coming in from the server and see the communications between the Ubuntu and Windows Server. It’s as simple as that.
To remove this configuration, all I have to do is go in and disable the row, and then I can delete it by using the 
icon to clear the data, and then use the 
to clear any disabled rows.
It’s as easy as that. Way easier than logging into the switch manually, and then running the risk of configuring it wrong via the CLI!
Luke Williams
Product Lead
With over 30 years experience in the IT field, there is not a whole lot Lucas hasn’t seen. From running a local ISP in his home town in Iowa when he was 16 to managing networks and server administration at the second largest newspaper media company in the United States in 2012, to developing IoT solutions and Networking NOS's while working at Canonical, he is constantly learning and trying new technologies to keep up with markets and company demands for new technologies to meet their needs. He currently is the Product Lead at BeyondEdge Networks specializing in Open Networking and SONiC.
