Using Packet Monitor and Packet Mirror

In addition to the Configure button, the top of the Dashboard > Packet Monitor page provides several buttons for general control of the packet monitor feature and display:

Configure – Displays the Packet Monitor Configuration dialog. For more information, see Configuring Packet Monitor.
Monitor All – Resets current monitor filter settings and advanced page settings so that traffic on all local interfaces is monitored. A confirmation dialog displays when you click this button.
Monitor Default – Resets current monitor filter settings and advanced page settings to factory default settings. A confirmation dialog displays when you click this button.
Clear – Clears the packet monitor queue and the displayed statistics for the capture buffer, mirroring, and FTP logging.
Refresh – Refreshes the packet display windows on this page to show new buffer data.

The Dashboard > Packet Monitor page is shown below:

For an explanation of the status indicators near the top of the page, see Understanding Status Indicators .

The other buttons and displays on this page are described in the following sections:

Starting and Stopping Packet Capture

You can start a packet capture that uses default settings without configuring specific criteria for packet capture, display, FTP export, and other settings. If you start a default packet capture, the Dell SonicWALL security appliance will capture all packets except those for internal communication, and will stop when the buffer is full or when you click Stop Capture.

1
Navigate to the Dashboard > Packet Monitor page.

2
Optionally click Clear to set the statistics back to zero.
3
Under Packet Monitor, click Start Capture.
4
5

You can view the captured packets in the Captured Packets, Packet Detail, and Hex Dump sections of the Packet Monitor page. See Viewing Captured Packets .

Starting and Stopping Packet Mirror

You can start packet mirroring that uses your configured mirror settings by clicking Start Mirror. It is not necessary to first configure specific criteria for display, logging, FTP export, and other settings. Packet mirroring stops when you click Stop Mirror.

1
Navigate to the Dashboard > Packet Monitor page.

2
Under Packet Monitor, click Start Mirror to start mirroring packets according to your configured settings.
3

Viewing Captured Packets

The Dashboard > Packet Monitor page provides three sections to display different views of captured packets:

About the Captured Packets Display

The Captured Packets section displays the following statistics about each packet:

# - The packet number relative to the start of the capture
Time - The date and time that the packet was captured
Ingress - The firewall interface on which the packet arrived is marked with an asterisk (*). The subsystem type abbreviation is shown in parentheses. Subsystem type abbreviations are defined in the following table.
 

Table 17. Subsystem type abbreviations

Abbreviation

Definition

i

Interface

hc

Hardware based encryption or decryption

sc

Software based encryption or decryption

m

Multicast

r

Packet reassembly

s

System stack

ip

IP helper

f

Fragmentation

Egress - The firewall interface on which the packet was captured when sent out. The subsystem type abbreviation is shown in parentheses. See Table 17 for definitions of subsystem type abbreviations.
Source IP - The source IP address of the packet.
Destination IP - The destination IP address of the packet.
Ether Type - The Ethernet type of the packet from its Ethernet header.
Packet Type - The type of the packet depending on the Ethernet type; for example:
 

Table 18. Packet type

Ethernet type

Packet type

IP packets

TCP, UDP, or another protocol that runs over IP

PPPoE packets

PPPoE Discovery or PPPoE Session

ARP packets

Request or Reply

Ports [Src, Dst] - The source and destination TCP or UDP ports of the packet
Status - The status field for the packet

The status field shows the state of the packet with respect to the firewall. A packet can be dropped, generated, consumed or forwarded by the Dell SonicWALL security appliance. You can position the mouse pointer over dropped or consumed packets to show the following information.

 

Table 19. Packet status details

Packet status

Displayed value

Definition of displayed value

Dropped

Module-ID = <integer>

Value for the protocol subsystem ID

Drop-code = <integer>

Reason for dropping the packet

Reference-ID: <code>

SonicWALL-specific data

Consumed

Module-ID = <integer>

Value for the protocol subsystem ID

Length [Actual] - Length value is the number of bytes captured in the buffer for this packet. Actual value, in brackets, is the number of bytes transmitted in the packet.
About the Packet Detail Display

When you click on a packet in the Captured Packets section, the packet header fields are displayed in the Packet Detail section. The display varies depending on the type of packet that you select.

About the Hex Dump Display

When you click on a packet in the Captured Packets section, the packet data is displayed in hexadecimal and ASCII format in the Hex Dump section. The hex format is shown on the left side of the window, with the corresponding ASCII characters displayed to the right for each line. When the hex value is zero, the ASCII value is displayed as a dot.