Monitoring with 3Com 4500G switches

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Hi there,
The 3Com 4500G series of switches does support port mirroring. Check out page 384 in the PDF hosted at the link below which explains how this feature works.

http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bc/d...

If you are having problems accessing the link Google 3Com Switch 4200G Family Configuration Guide filetype:pdf

Quick example from the manual.

Configuring Local Port Mirroring

Configuration prerequisites

- The source port is determined and the direction in which the packets are to be mirrored is determined.
-T he destination port is determined.

When configuring local port mirroring, note that:
- You need to configure the source and destination ports for the local port mirroring to
take effect.

- The source port and the destination port cannot be a member port of an existing
mirroring group; besides, the destination port cannot be a member port of an
aggregation group or a port enabled with LACP or STP.

Displaying Port Mirroring

Display the information of a mirroring group.

display mirroring-group { group-id| all | local | remote-destination |remote-source }

Mirroring Configuration Examples

Local Port Mirroring Configuration Example
Network requirements
The departments of a company connect to each other through Switch 4200G series:
- Research and Development (R&D) department is connected to Switch C through
GigabitEthernet 1/0/1.

- Marketing department is connected to Switch C through GigabitEthernet 1/0/2.

- Data detection device is connected to Switch C through GigabitEthernet 1/0/3
The administrator wants to monitor the packets received on and sent from the R&D
department and the marketing department through the data detection device.
Use the local port mirroring function to meet the requirement. Perform the following
configurations on Switch C.

- Configure GigabitEthernet 1/0/1 and GigabitEthernet 1/0/2 as mirroring source ports.

- Configure GigabitEthernet 1/0/3 as the mirroring destination port.

Configuration procedure
Configure Switch C:
# Create a local mirroring group.

system-view
[Sysname] mirroring-group 1 local

# Configure the source ports and destination port for the local mirroring group.
[Sysname] mirroring-group 1 mirroring-port GigabitEthernet 1/0/1 GigabitEthernet
1/0/2 both
[Sysname] mirroring-group 1 monitor-port GigabitEthernet 1/0/3

# Display configuration information about local mirroring group 1.
[Sysname] display mirroring-group 1
mirroring-group 1:
type: local
status: active
mirroring port:
GigabitEthernet1/0/1 both
GigabitEthernet1/0/2 both
monitor port: GigabitEthernet1/0/3

After the configurations, you can monitor all packets received on and sent from the R&D department and the marketing department on the data detection device.

Isn't there a more efficient way to specify multiple ports to be mirrored instead of typing them all out manually (which is prone to errors)?

I checked the manual for the 3Com 4500G and it looks like you have to enter in each port you want to monitor. 3Com have improved on this in the 5500 series switch and now allow you to monitor VLANs. Once you specify your server VLAN as the source you will have most things covered.