</column>
</table>
- <table name="Mirror" title="Port mirroring (SPAN/RSPAN).">
+ <table name="Mirror" title="Port mirroring (SPAN/RSPAN/ERSPAN).">
<p>A port mirror within a <ref table="Bridge"/>.</p>
<p>A port mirror configures a bridge to send selected frames to special
- ``mirrored'' ports, in addition to their normal destinations. Mirroring
- traffic may also be referred to as SPAN or RSPAN, depending on the
- mechanism used for delivery.</p>
+ ``mirrored'' ports, in addition to their normal destinations. Mirroring
+ traffic may also be referred to as SPAN, RSPAN, or ERSPAN, depending on how
+ the mirrored traffic is sent.</p>
<column name="name">
Arbitrary identifier for the <ref table="Mirror"/>.
<column name="output_port">
<p>Output port for selected packets, if nonempty.</p>
<p>Specifying a port for mirror output reserves that port exclusively
- for mirroring. No frames other than those selected for mirroring
- will be forwarded to the port, and any frames received on the port
- will be discarded.</p>
- <p>This type of mirroring is sometimes called SPAN.</p>
+ for mirroring. No frames other than those selected for mirroring
+ will be forwarded to the port, and any frames received on the port
+ will be discarded.</p>
+ <p>
+ The output port may be any kind of port supported by Open vSwitch.
+ It may be, for example, a physical port (sometimes called SPAN), or a
+ GRE tunnel (sometimes called ERSPAN).
+ </p>
</column>
<column name="output_vlan">
Open vSwitch is being used as an intermediate switch, learning can be
disabled by adding the mirrored VLAN to <ref column="flood_vlans"/>
in the appropriate <ref table="Bridge"/> table or tables.</p>
+ <p>
+ Mirroring to a GRE tunnel has fewer caveats than mirroring to a
+ VLAN and should generally be preferred.
+ </p>
</column>
</group>