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Steelhead Appliance Installation and Configuration Guide
Overview of the Steelhead Appliance
Overview of the Steelhead Appliance
Deny
. Drop the SYN packet and send a message back to its source.
Discard
. Drop the SYN packet silently.
Peering rules
. Peering rules determine how a Steelhead appliance reacts when it sees a probe query.
Peering rules are an ordered list of fields a Steelhead appliance uses to match with incoming SYN
packet fields (for example, source or destination subnet, IP address, VLAN, or TCP port) as well as the
IP address of the probing Steelhead appliance. This is especially useful in complex networks. There are
the following types of peering rule actions:
Pass
. The receiving Steelhead appliance does not respond to the probing Steelhead appliance, and
allows the SYN+probe packet to continue through the network.
Accept
. The receiving Steelhead appliance responds to the probing Steelhead appliance and
becomes the remote-side Steelhead appliance (that is, the peer Steelhead appliance) for the
optimized connection.
Auto
. If the receiving Steelhead appliance is not using enhanced auto-discovery, this has the same
effect as the Accept peering rule action. If enhanced auto-discovery is enabled, the Steelhead
appliance only becomes the optimization peer if it is the last Steelhead appliance in the path to the
server.
For detailed information about in-path and peering rules and how to configure them, see the Steelhead
Management Console User’s Guide.
Fail-to-Wire (Bypass) Mode
The Steelhead appliance is equipped with one of the following types of network interface bypass cards
(depending on your order):
Two-Port Copper Gigabit-Ethernet Bypass Card-A
Two-Port Copper Gigabit-Ethernet Bypass Card-B
Two-Port Copper Fast-Ethernet Bypass Card
Four-Port Copper Gigabit-Ethernet Bypass Card
Six-Port Copper Gigabit-Ethernet Bypass Card
Two-Port SX Fiber Gigabit-Ethernet Bypass Card
Four-Port SX Fiber Gigabit-Ethernet Bypass Card
Four-Port Copper Gigabit-Ethernet PCI-E Bypass Card Series xx50
Two-Port SX Fiber Gigabit-Ethernet PCI-E Bypass Card Series xx50
Four-Port SX Fiber Gigabit-Ethernet PCI-E Bypass Card Series xx50
Two-Port LX Fiber Gigabit-Ethernet PCI-E Bypass Card Series xx50
Four-Port LX Fiber Gigabit-Ethernet PCI-E Bypass Card Series xx50
For detailed information about the bypass cards and how to install them, see the Network Interface Card
Installation Guide.
Note:
The Model 50, 100, 200, 250, 300, and 550 has built-in Fast-Ethernet bypass capability.
