Local Switched Port Analyzer

Local Switched Port Analyzer

Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN) allows for a protocol analyzer such as a sniffer to passively inspect traffic generated by a VLAN(s) or specific source port(s). SPAN is flexible enough that the source can be a single port or multiple ports, or VLAN traffic copied to a user-defined SPAN destination port. For example, any traffic that is received or transmitted by ports 10/3-5 is also forwarded to port 10/1. (See Example 12-11.) The source and destination port must be on the same switch for SPAN, also known as Local SPAN.