Network Taps
A network tap is used to intercept the signals passing over a cable and send them to a packet or protocol analyzer.
Types of Taps
- Taps are either powered or unpowered:
- A passive test access point (TAP) is a box with ports for incoming and outgoing network cabling and an inductor or optical splitter that physically copies the signal from the cabling to a monitor port.
- No logic decisions are made,
- monitor port receives every frame
- corrupt or malformed or not
- copying is unaffected by load
- monitor port receives every frame
- No logic decisions are made,
- An active TAP is a powered device that performs signal regeneration
- use case for active TAP
- Gigabit signaling over copper wire is too complex for a passive tap to monitor
- some types of fiber links may be adversely affected by optical splitting
- Because it performs an active function,
- TAP becomes a point of failure for the links during power loss
- use case for active TAP
- A passive test access point (TAP) is a box with ports for incoming and outgoing network cabling and an inductor or optical splitter that physically copies the signal from the cabling to a monitor port.
Port Mirroring/SPAN
Network sniffing can also be facilitated using a mirror port.