Question : Problem: Port monitoring on a cisco 4500 router

We have a cisco 4500 router with a spare ethernet jack, and are trying to find a way to forward all traffic to an IDS host connected to that port.  The reasons are complicated, but basically our external connection may either be a serial connection or an ethernet connection, and we want our IDS to be able to monitor external traffic before it hits the acl on the router.  It is not absolutely imperitive that the serial interface be monitored, but at the same time a tap/hub is not feasible on the external ethernet interface for other complicated reasons.  Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Ethernet-----\
                     Router--------INTERNAL Switch
Serial--------/    |
                        |
                      IDS

gator_5

Answer : Problem: Port monitoring on a cisco 4500 router

It wouldn't be possible to scan the traffic before even the traffic hits the acl/routing.... What kind of IDS do you have? If it is one which can work in-line mode then you could rather have it this way;

Ethernet-----\
                     Router----IPS----INTERNAL Switch
Serial--------/    
                     

Cheers,
Rajesh