| CPC H04L 43/028 (2013.01) [H04L 12/4633 (2013.01)] | 20 Claims |

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1. A method performed by a network management system (NMS), the method comprising:
storing an association between a set of network device interfaces in a network managed by the NMS and a tag;
receiving a request to provision a packet capture session in the network, the request specifying a name of the packet capture session, the tag as a packet capture source, and a network element in the network as a packet capture destination; and
in response to the request:
identifying the set of network device interfaces associated with the tag using the stored association; and
transmitting, to each network device that has an interface in the set of network device interfaces, a device configuration that causes the network device to mirror network packets from the interface to the network element via a Layer 3 tunnel, wherein each network packet mirrored via the Layer 3 tunnel includes the name of the packet capture session and the tag in a tunnel protocol header of the network packet.
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