SPAN on 6500 Packet over SONET / (EoPoS / IPoMPLS

[davidpatton]

I have found an interesting note in the 6500 IOS configuration guide for SPAN on an EoMPLS bug that won't allow it (the EoMPLS port) to be the source.

Does this hold true for an IP over MPLS over PoS configuration?

We need to SPAN the interface to a Network Analyzer for internal analysis.

The interface is the SPA-1XOC12-POS as the source and it will be monitored by 6x 1GE ports/devices.

[Giuseppe Larosa]

Hello David,

I don't think you can use a POS interface as source regardless of using EoMPLS or not.

SPAN is always used between LAN interfaces: POS frames cannot be sent out a GE port because they are not ethernet frames they can be HDLC or PPP frames but not ethernet.

Even if doing ethernet over SDH you would have ethernet frames carried inside HDLC or PPP frames and someone should extract them to send them out the destination port.

the configuration guide says:

Except in PFC3C mode or PFC3CXL mode, Ethernet over MultiProtocol Label Switching (EoMPLS) ports cannot be SPAN sources. (CSCed51245)

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/lan/catalyst6500/ios/12.2SX/configuration/guide/span.html#wp1079189

but you shouldn't be able to find an example where the source interface is not a LAN interface or a Vlan (L2 broadcast domain= a collection of LAN ports).

in sw based routers ISR and C7200 have been introduced recently the embedded packet capture feature but this is not available on C6500.

Hope to help

Giuseppe