We use Websense as our webfilter. I'm in the process of installing a new server. Our core routers are 3Com 5500G's. The old server has two NICs but one of them was completely disabled. The other NIC was plugged in to a port that had port mirroring enabled.
I plugged the new server into the two ports that the old server was using, this time I'm going to use both NICs (one for the port mirroring and the other to access the server remotely). I left the port that was doing the port mirroring unplugged while I finished doing updates and getting the server ready. After about 30 minutes of downloading on the new server the network started to become sluggish. Knowing that was the only change on the network I powered down the new Websense server. Shortly the network went back to normal.
I looked at the configs closer and and the two ports that the old Websense server was using had STP disabled (both the port that was configured for mirroring and the other port that I was going to use for remote access). Is there any reason to have STP disabled on ports for a Websense server? Obviously I'm assuming that STP being disabled on the port I was using to download updates was the cause for the network to become sluggish. I've already enabled STP on the port that I'm using to remote in to the server...should I enable STP on the port that will be doing the mirroring for Websense? Thanks in advance.