Bypass support is implemented for Silicom 40 GbE, 10 GbE, and 1 GbE cards. Multiport network cards have a special “Bypass” mode. When this mode is enabled on the NIC, the traffic for the NIC is physically looped between the two ports and thus bypasses processing directly on the NIC and, accordingly, on the platform.
This mode is used when it is important to keep traffic going even if the system fails. Of course, when “Bypass” is enabled, all platform functions are unavailable.
*Enabling this mode on the network card should be considered as an emergency.