Understanding Status Indicators

The main Packet Monitor page displays status indicators for packet capture, mirroring, and FTP logging. Information popup tooltips are available for quick display of the configuration settings.

Topics:
•
Packet Capture Status
•
Mirroring Status
•
FTP Logging Status
•
Current Buffer Statistics
•
Current Configurations
Packet Capture Status

The packet capture status indicator is labeled as Trace, and shows one of the following three conditions:

•
Red – Capture is stopped
•
Green – Capture is running and the buffer is not full
•
Yellow – Capture is running, but the buffer is full

The management interface also displays the buffer size, the number of packets captured, the percentage of buffer space used, and how much of the buffer has been lost. Lost packets occur when automatic FTP logging is turned on, but the file transfer is slow for some reason. If the transfer is not finished by the time the buffer is full again, the data in the newly filled buffer is lost.

* 
NOTE: Although the buffer wrap option clears the buffer upon wrapping to the beginning, this is not considered lost data.
Mirroring Status

There are three status indicators for packet mirroring:

•
Local mirroring – Packets sent to another physical interface on the same SonicWall

For local mirroring, the status indicator shows one of the following three conditions:

•
Red – Mirroring is off
•
Green – Mirroring is on
•
Yellow – Mirroring is on but disabled because the local mirroring interface is not specified

The Local mirroring row also displays the following statistics:

•
Mirroring to interface – The specified local mirroring interface
•
Packets mirrored – The total number of packets mirrored locally
•
Pkts skipped – The total number of packets that skipped mirroring due to packets that are incoming/outgoing on the interface on which monitoring is configured
•
Pkts exceeded rate – The total number of packets that skipped mirroring due to rate limiting
•
Remote mirroring Tx – Packets sent to a remote SonicWall

For Remote mirroring Tx, the status indicator shows one of the following three conditions:

•
Red – Mirroring is off
•
Green – Mirroring is on and a remote SonicWall IP address is configured
•
Yellow – Mirroring is on but disabled because the remote device rejects mirrored packets and sends port unreachable ICMP messages

The Remote mirroring Tx row also displays the following statistics:

•
Mirroring to – The specified remote SonicWall IP address
•
Packets mirrored – The total number of packets mirrored to a remote SonicWall appliance
•
Pkts skipped – The total number of packets that skipped mirroring due to packets that are incoming/outgoing on the interface on which monitoring is configured
•
Pkts exceeded rate – The total number of packets that failed to mirror to a remote SonicWall, either due to an unreachable port or other network issues
•
Remote mirroring Rx – Packets received from a remote SonicWall

For Remote mirroring Rx, the status indicator shows one of the following two conditions:

•
Red – Mirroring is off
•
Green – Mirroring is on and a remote SonicWall IP address is configured

The Remote mirroring Rx row also displays the following statistics:

•
Receiving from – The specified remote SonicWall IP address
•
Mirror packets rcvd – The total number of packets received from a remote SonicWall appliance
•
Mirror packets rcvd but skipped – The total number of packets received from a remote SonicWall appliance that failed to get mirrored locally due to errors in the packets
FTP Logging Status

The FTP logging status indicator shows one of the following three conditions:

•
Red – Automatic FTP logging is off
•
Green – Automatic FTP logging is on
•
Yellow – The last attempt to contact the FTP server failed, and logging is now off

To restart automatic FTP logging, see Restarting FTP Logging.

Next to the FTP logging indicator, the management interface also displays the number of successful and failed attempts to transfer the buffer contents to the FTP server, the current state of the FTP process thread, and the status of the capture buffer.

Current Buffer Statistics

The Current Buffer Statistics row summarizes the current contents of the local capture buffer. It shows the number of dropped, forwarded, consumed, and generated packets.

Current Configurations

The Current Configurations row provides dynamic information displays for the configured filter, general, logging, and mirror settings. When you hover your mouse pointer over one of the information icons or its label, a popup tooltip displays the current settings for that selection.