Ethernet LAN Promiscuous Mode on Sun BGE Network Driver Drops VLAN-tagged Packets

> Hi,
>
> I've got a switch mirroring packets into a Sun V20Z with a BGE
> interface running in promiscuous mode (using snoop to test this right
> now). Some of the packets coming in have VLAN tags, and some do not. I
> am only seeing packets without VLAN tags. I know the problem is not the
> switch because I see all packets when I perform this test using BSD or
> Linux.
>
> I've done some reading on the subject and it appears that one way
> around this is to create logical network interfaces, one for each VLAN
> tag. The problem is, I don't know what VLAN tags I'm going to be
> receiving ahead of time and I don't want to have to listen to 4094
> logical interfaces just to be able to see all ethernet traffic!
>
> Under Linux/BSD, setting the interface to promiscuous mode is
> sufficient to get the kernel driver to forward all packets to the
> listener. I'd like to know how I can do this with Solaris (I'm using
> Solaris 9 presently). I've looked at the man pages for ifconfig, bge,
> and ndd, and I have been unable to find any option that will set the
> desired behaviour.
>
> Did I miss something, or do I need to write my own device driver to get
> this capability?
>

> Perhaps using tcpdump (presumably what you are using on linux) rather
> than snoop would help confirm your observation and eliminate

> about whether the traffic is present but unreported by snoop.

> can make use of a vlan filter...
>
>       vlan [vlan_id]
>              True if the packet is an IEEE  802.1Q  VLAN  packet.

>              [vlan_id]  is  specified, only true is the packet has

>              specified vlan_id.  Note  that  the  first  vlan

>              encountered  in  expression  changes the decoding

>              for the remainder of expression on  the  assumption

>              the packet is a VLAN packet.
>
> - Bob
>
> Packet411 wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I've got a switch mirroring packets into a Sun V20Z with a BGE
> > interface running in promiscuous mode (using snoop to test this

> > now). Some of the packets coming in have VLAN tags, and some do

> > am only seeing packets without VLAN tags. I know the problem is not

> > switch because I see all packets when I perform this test using BSD

> > Linux.
> >
> > I've done some reading on the subject and it appears that one way
> > around this is to create logical network interfaces, one for each

> > tag. The problem is, I don't know what VLAN tags I'm going to be
> > receiving ahead of time and I don't want to have to listen to 4094
> > logical interfaces just to be able to see all ethernet traffic!
> >
> > Under Linux/BSD, setting the interface to promiscuous mode is
> > sufficient to get the kernel driver to forward all packets to the
> > listener. I'd like to know how I can do this with Solaris (I'm

> > Solaris 9 presently). I've looked at the man pages for ifconfig,

> > and ndd, and I have been unable to find any option that will set

> > desired behaviour.
> >
> > Did I miss something, or do I need to write my own device driver to

> > this capability?
> >

> Hi,
>
> I've got a switch mirroring packets into a Sun V20Z with a BGE
> interface running in promiscuous mode (using snoop to test this right
> now). Some of the packets coming in have VLAN tags, and some do not. I
> am only seeing packets without VLAN tags. I know the problem is not the
> switch because I see all packets when I perform this test using BSD or
> Linux.

> I don't have a bge interface to verify this with, but I think the
> issue is that each VLAN is presented as a separate pseudo interface,
> so you would have to snoop the VLAN you are interested in.
> For VLAN id 1 on bge0, this would be snoop -d bge1000,
> for VLAN id 2 on bge0, this would be snoop -d bge2000,
> for VLAN id 6 on bge3, this would be snoop -d bge6003,
> etc.
>
> As I said, I can't actually check this out though -- just guessing.
>