Functionality of the Different Wire Mode Settings

Wire Modes: Functional Differences summarizes the key functional differences between modes of interface configuration:

Wire Modes: Functional Differences
	Bypass Mode	Inspect Mode	Secure Mode	Tap Mode	L2 Bridge, Transparent, NAT, Route Modes
Active/Active Clustering ¹	No	No	No	No	Yes
Application Control	No	No	Yes	No	Yes
Application Visibility	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
ARP/Routing/NAT a.	No	No	No	No	Yes
Comprehensive Anti‑Spam Service a.	No	No	No	No	Yes
Content Filtering	No	No	Yes	No	Yes
DHCP Server a.	No	No	No	No	Yes ²
DPI Detection	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
DPI Prevention	No	No	Yes	No	Yes
DPI-SSLa.	No	No	Yes	No	Yes
High-Availability a.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Link-State Propagation ³	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
SPI	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
TCP Handshake Enforcement ⁴	No	No	No	No	Yes
Virtual Groups a.	No	No	No	No	Yes

These functions or services are unavailable on interfaces configured in Wire Mode, but remain available on a system-wide level for any interfaces configured in other compatible modes of operation.

Not available in L2 Bridge Mode.

Link State Propagation is a feature whereby interfaces in a Wire-Mode pair will mirror the link-state triggered by transitions of their partners. This is essential to proper operations in redundant path networks, in particular.

Disabled by design in Wire Mode to allow for failover events occurring elsewhere on the network to be supported when multiple Wire-Mode paths, or when multiple SonicWall security appliance units are in use along redundant or asymmetric paths.

NOTE: When operating in Wire-Mode, the SonicWall security appliance’s dedicated “Management” interface will be used for local management. To enable remote management and dynamic security services and application intelligence updates, a WAN interface (separate from the Wire-Mode interfaces) must be configured for Internet connectivity. This is easily done given that SonicOS supports interfaces in mixed-modes of almost any combination.