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Port Monitoring
The port monitoring feature allows you to monitor network traffic by forwarding a copy of each incoming or outgoing 
packet from one port to another port.
The commands in this chapter are generally supported on the C-Series, E-Series, S-Series, Z-Series, and S4810.
Important Points to Remember
• On the E-Series, port monitoring is supported on TeraScale and ExaScale platforms.
• Port monitoring is supported on physical ports only. Logical interfaces, such as Port Channels and virtual local 
area networks (VLANs), are not supported.
• The Dell Force10 operating software (FTOS) supports as many monitor sessions on a system as the number of 
port-pipes.
• You can only configure a SONET port as a monitored port.
• The monitoring (destination, “MG”) and monitored (source, “MD”) ports must be on the same switch.
• In general, a monitoring port should have no ip address and no shutdown as the only configuration; 
FTOS permits a limited set of commands for monitoring ports; display them using the 
? command. A monitoring 
port also may not be a member of a VLAN.
• A monitoring port can monitor any physical port in the chassis.
• Only one MG and one MD may be in a single port-pipe.
• A monitoring port can monitor more than one port.
• More than one monitored port can have the same destination monitoring port.
• FTOS on the S-Series supports multiple source ports to be monitored by a single destination port in one monitor 
session.
• On the S-Series, one monitor session can have only one MG port. There is no restriction on the number of 
source ports, or destination ports on the chassis.
NOTE: The monitoring port should not be a part of any other configuration.
description
Enter a description of this monitoring session.
C-Series, E-Series, S-Series, Z-Series
Syntax
description {description}
To remove the description, use the no description {description} command.
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