promiscuous mode AIX

UNIX AIX
1

Hi Guys,

What do I need to do to set an physical adapter to promiscuous mode?
The networkport is already spanned/mirrored.

Is this also possible when there is an virtual nic (through vios) configured?

regards,

Randy

2

IBM

3

thanks for the answer, but my question was how to do it with a physical or virtual nic? Not the IVE or HEA's.

regards,
Randy

4

The term "promiscuous mode" only applies to IVE / HEA adapters.

What are you trying to do?

Why do you think you need to set it on a normal physical adapter when all it does is make a IVE / HEA adapter behave like a normal physical adapter?

5

Hi,

the nic is attached to a span port and i want to capture all trafic.
for linux commands exist to turn the interface to promiscuous mode (ifconfig eth0 promisc).

command like entstat also show a promiscuous mode notification

Is there anything in AIX which need to be done to capture all trafic?

regards,Randy

6

Ah, OK, sorry I misunderstood your question.

AIX's tcpdump will turn it on for you.

It is set dynamically on AIX. The default is off but tcpdump for instance has a default of on, iptrace has a default of off but has a switch for on:

AIX Commands:

tcpdump:
Help -

-p Stops putting the interface into promiscuous mode. Note that the interface might be in promiscuous mode for some other reason; hence, -p cannot be used as an abbreviation for ether host {local-hw-addr} or ether broadcast.

iptrace:
Help -

-e Enables promiscuous mode on network adapters that support this function.

Depending on what you are trying to do, and how you want to do it, you might find some related useful info here:
pSeries and AIX Information Center

Or on any of the above links by searching for promisc in the search box on the left side of the window.

HTH.

7

okay thanks. Like you pointed out, there isn't an option to set the interface to promiscuous. Strangething is that somehow ifconfig shows PROMISC (see below)

Do you know how this is done and what effect this has?

en2: flags=5e080963,c0<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,GROUPRT,64BIT,CHECKSUM_OFFLOAD(ACTIVE),PSEG,LARGESEND,CHAIN>
inet 192.168.5.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.5.255
tcp_sendspace 131072 tcp_recvspace 65536 rfc1323 0

regards,Randy

8

Hmm, good one.

It may have been set in /usr/include/sys/ndd.h

 #define NDD_PROMISC     (0x00000080)    /* in promiscuous mode */

All my searching keeps bringing me here:
pSeries and AIX Information Center