6.7

Table Of Contents
MAC Trac Qualifier
By using the MAC traffic qualifier in a rule, you can define matching criteria for the Layer 2 (Data Link
Layer) properties of packets such as MAC address, VLAN ID, and next level protocol that consumes the
frame payload.
Protocol Type
The Protocol type attribute of the MAC traffic qualifier corresponds to the EtherType field in Ethernet
frames. EtherType represents the type of next level protocol that is going to consume the payload of the
frame.
You can select a protocol from the drop-down menu or type its hexadecimal number. For example, to
capture traffic for the Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) protocol, type 88CC.
VLAN ID
You can use the VLAN ID attribute of the MAC traffic qualifier to mark or filter traffic in a particular VLAN.
Note The VLAN ID qualifier on a distributed port group works with Virtual Guest Tagging (VGT).
If a flow is tagged with a VLAN ID through Virtual Switch Tagging (VST), it cannot be located by using this
ID in a rule on a distributed port group or distributed port. The reason is that the distributed switch checks
the rule conditions, including the VLAN ID, after the switch has already untagged the traffic. In this case,
to match traffic by VLAN ID successfully, you must use a rule on an uplink port group or uplink port.
Source Address
By using the Source Address group of attributes, you can match packets by the source MAC address or
network.
You can use a comparison operator to mark or filter packets that have or do not have the specified source
address or network.
You can match the traffic source in several ways.
Table 86. Patterns for Filtering or Marking Trac by MAC Source Address
Parameters to Match Traffic Source
Address Comparison Operator Networking Argument Format
MAC address is or is not Type the MAC address for matching. Use
colons to separate the octets in it.
MAC network matches or does not match Type the lowest address in the network
and a wildcard mask. Set zeroes at the
positions of the network bits, and ones for
the host part.
For example, for a MAC network with prefix 05:50:56 that is 23 bits long, set the address as
00:50:56:00:00:00 and mask as 00:00:01:ff:ff:ff.
vSphere Networking
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