ACL Counters-Shared and Dedicated

You can configure rule compression in ACLs to be either shared or dedicated.

In the dedicated mode, ACL rules that have counters are assigned a separate rule space and the counter accurately shows the count of matching events. If the ACL with counter is applied to ports 1 and 2, and 10 packets ingress via port 1 and 20 packets ingress via port 2, the ACL counter value for ports 1 and 2 is 10 and 20 packets respectively. More space is used and the process is slower than shared. Dedicated is the default setting.

In the shared mode, ACL space is reused even with counters. ACL counters count packets ingressing via all ports in the whole unit. If the ACL with the counter is applied to ports 1 and 2, and 10 packets ingress via port 1, and 20 packets ingress via port 2, the ACL counter value is 30 each of ports 1 and 2 instead of 10 and 20. The process is faster—as fast as applying an ACL without the counters—and saves space.

Note

Port-Counter shared mode will not work when ports are on across slots and units.

The shared/dedicated setting is global to the switch; that is, the option does not support setting some ACL rules with shared counters and some with dedicated counters.

Use the following command to configure the shared or dedicated mode:

configure access-list rule-compression port-counters [shared | dedicated]

Use the following command to view the configuration:

show access-list configuration

The shared or dedicated mode does not affect any ACLs that have already been configured. Only ACLs entered after the command is entered are affected.

Note

To configure all ACLs in the shared mode, enter the command before any ACLs are configured or have been saved in the configuration when a switch is booted.