Internet Engineering Task Force Nevil Brownlee
INTERNET-DRAFT The University of Auckland
Expire in six months May 1996
Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences with NeTraMet
<draft-ietf-rtfm-acct-experiences-00.txt>
Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet Draft. Internet Drafts are working
documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its Areas, and
its Working Groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working
documents as Internet Drafts. This Internet Draft is a product of the
Realtime Traffic Flow Measurement Working Group of the IETF.
Internet Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months.
Internet Drafts may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other
documents at any time. It is not appropriate to use Internet Drafts as
reference material or to cite them other than as a "working draft" or
"work in progress."
Please check the I-D abstract listing contained in the internet-drafts
Shadow Directories on nic.ddn.mil, nnsc.nsf.net, nic.nordu.net,
ftp.nisc.sri.com or munnari.oz.au to learn the current status of this or
any other Internet Draft.
Abstract
This memo records experiences in implementing and using the Traffic Flow
Measurement Architecture and Meter MIB. It discusses the implementation
of NeTraMet (a traffic meter and combined manager / meter reader),
considers the writing of meter rule sets and gives some guidance on
setting up a traffic flow measurement system using NeTraMet.
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
Contents
1 Introduction 3
1.1 NeTraMet structure and development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Scope of this document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2 Implementation 5
2.1 Choice of meter platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 Programming support requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2.1 DOS environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2.2 Unix environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.3 Implementing the meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.3.1 Data structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.3.2 Packet matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.3.3 Testing groups of rule addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.3.4 Compression of address masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.3.5 Ignoring unwanted flow data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.3.6 Observing meter reader activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3.7 Meter memory management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.4 Data Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.5 Restarting a meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.6 Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3 Writing Rule Sets 16
3.1 Rule set to observe all flows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.2 Specifying flow direction, using computed attributes . . . . 18
3.3 Subroutines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.4 More complicated rule sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4 Flow Data Files 25
4.1 Sample Flow Data File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.2 Flow data file features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.3 Terminating and restarting meter reading . . . . . . . . . . 28
5 Analysis applications 28
6 Using NeTraMet in a measurement system 29
7 References 30
8 Acknowledgments 30
9 References 30
10 Security Considerations 31
11 Author's Address 31
Nevil Brownlee [Page 2]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
1 Introduction
Early in 1992 my University needed to develop a system for recovering
the costs of its Internet traffic. In March that year I attended the
Internet Accounting Working Group's session at the San Diego IETF, where
I was delighted to find that the Group had produced a detailed
architecture for measuring network traffic and were waiting for someone
to try implementing it.
During 1992 I produced a prototype measurement system, using balanced
binary trees to store information about traffic flows. This work was
reported at the Washington IETF in November 1992. The prototype
performed well, but it made no attempt to recover memory from old flows,
and the overheads in managing the balanced trees proved to be
unacceptably high. I moved on to develop a production- quality system,
this time using hash tables to index the flow information.
This version was called NeTraMet (the Network Traffic Meter), and was
released as free software in October 1993. Since then I have continued
working on NeTraMet, producing new releases two or three times each
year. NeTraMet is now in production use at many sites around the world.
It is difficult to estimate the number of sites, but there is an active
NeTraMet mailing list, which had about 130 subscribers in March 1996.
Early in 1996 the Realtime Traffic Flow Measurement Working Group (RTFM)
was chartered to move the Traffic Flow Measurement Architecture on to
the IETF standards track. The present document records traffic flow
measurement experience gained through three years experience with
NeTraMet.
1.1 NeTraMet structure and development
The Traffic Flow Architecture document [1] describes four components:
- METERS, which are attached to the network at the points where it is
desired to measure the traffic,
- METER READERS, which read data from meters and store it for later
use,
- MANAGERS, which configure meters and control meter readers, and
- ANALYSIS APPLICATIONS, which process the data from meter readers so
as to produce whatever reports are required.
Nevil Brownlee [Page 3]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
NeTraMet is a computer program which implements the Traffic Meter,
stores the measured flow data in memory, and provides an SNMP agent so
as to make it available to Meter Readers. The NeTraMet distribution
files include NeMaC, which is a combined Manager and Meter Reader
capable of managing an arbitrary number of meters, each of which may be
using its own rule set, and having its flow data collected at its own
specified intervals. The NeTraMet distribution also includes several
rudimentary Analysis Applications, allowing users to produce simple
plots from NeMaC's flow data files (fd_filter and fd_extract) and to
monitor the flows at a remote meter (nm_rc).
Since the first release the Traffic Meter MIB [2] has been both improved
and simplified. Significant changes have included better ways to
specify traffic flows (i.e. more actions and better control structures
for the Packet Matching Engine), and computed attributes (class and
kind). These changes have been prompted by operational requirements at
sites using NeTraMet, and have been tested extensively in successive
versions of NeTraMet.
NeTraMet is widely used to collect usage data for Internet Service
Providers. This is especially so in Australia and New Zealand, but
there are also active users at sites around the world, for example in
Canada, France, Germany and Poland.
NeTraMet is also very useful as a tool for understanding exactly where
traffic is flowing in large networks. Since the Traffic Meters perform
considerable data reduction (as specified by their rule sets) they
significantly reduce the volume of data to be read by Meter Readers.
This characteristic makes NeTraMet particularly effective for networks
with many remote sites. An example of this (the Kawaihiko network) is
presented below.
1.2 Scope of this document
This document presents the experience gained from three years work with
the Traffic Flow Measurement Architecture. Its contents are grouped as
follows
- Implementation issues for NeTraMet and NeMaC,
- How rule files work, and how to write them for particular purposes,
and
- How to use NeTraMet and NeMaC for short-term and log-term flow
measurement.
Nevil Brownlee [Page 4]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
2 Implementation
2.1 Choice of meter platform
As pointed out in the Architecture document [1], the goal of the
Realtime Traffic Flow Measurement Working Group is to develop a standard
for the Traffic Meter, with the goal of seeing it implemented in network
devices such as hubs, switches and routers. Until the Architecture is
well enough developed to allow this, it has sufficed to implement the
meter as a program running on a general-purpose computer system.
The choice of computer system for NeTraMet was driven by the need to
choose one which would be widely available within the Internet
community. One strong possibility was a Unix system, since these are
commonly used for a variety of network support and management tasks.
For the initial implementation, however, Unix would have had some
disadvantages:
- The wide variety of different Unix systems can increase the
difficulties of software support.
- The cost of a Unix system as a meter is too high to allow users to
run meters simultaneously at many points within their networks.
Another factor in choosing the platform was system performance. When I
first started implementing NeTraMet it was impossible to predict how
much processing workload was needed for a viable meter. Similarly, I
had no idea how much memory would be required for code or data. I
therefore chose to implement NeTraMet on a DOS PC. This was because:
- It is a minimum system in all respects. If the meter works well on
such a system, it can be implemented on almost any hardware
(including routers, switches, etc.)
- It is an inexpensive system. Sites can easily afford to have many
meters around their networks.
- It is a simple system, and one which I had complete control over.
This allowed me to implement effective instrumentation to monitor
the meter's performance, and to include a wide variety of
performance optimisations in the code.
Once the meter was running I needed a manager to download rule files to
it. Since a single manager and meter reader can effectively support a
Nevil Brownlee [Page 5]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
large number of meters, a Unix environment for NeMaC was a natural
choice. There are fewer software support problems for NeMaC than for
NeTraMet since NeMaC has minimal support needs - it only needs to open a
UDP socket to the SNMP port on each controlled meter.
Early NeTraMet distributions contained only the PC meter and Unix
manager. In later releases I ported NeTraMet (the meter) to Unix, and
extended the control features of NeMaC (the combined manager and meter
reader). I have also experimented with porting NeMaC to the DOS system.
This is not difficult, but doesn't seem to be worth pursuing.
The current version of NeTraMet is a production-quality traffic
measurement system which has been in continuous use at the University of
Auckland for nearly two years.
2.2 Programming support requirements
To implement the Traffic Flow Meter I needed an programming environment
providing good support for the following:
- observation of packet headers on the network;
- system timer with better than 10 ms resolution;
- IP (Internet Protocol), for communications with manager and meter
reader;
- SNMP, for the agent implementing the Meter MIB.
2.2.1 DOS environment
For the PC I chose to use Ethernet as the physical network medium. This
is simply an initial choice, being the medium used within the University
of Auckland's data network. Interfaces for other media could easily be
added as they are needed.
In the PC environment a variety of 'generalised' network interfaces are
available. I considered those available from companies such as Novell,
DEC and Microsoft and decided against them, partly because they are
proprietary, and partly because they did not appear to be particularly
easy to use. Instead I chose the CRYNWR Packet Drivers [3] . These are
available for a wide variety of interface cards and are simple and
clearly documented. They support Ethernet's promiscuous mode, allowing
one to observe headers for every passing packet in a straightforward
manner. One disadvantage of the Packet Drivers is that it is harder to
Nevil Brownlee [Page 6]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
use them with newer user shells (such as Microsoft Windows), but this
was irrelevant since I intended to run the meter as the only program on
a dedicated machine.
Timing on the PC presented a challenge since the BIOS timer routines
only provide a clock tick about 18 times each second, which limits the
available time resolution. Initially I made do with a timing resolution
of one second for packets, since I believed that most flows existed for
many seconds. In recent years it has become apparent that many flows
have lifetimes well under a second. To measure them properly with the
Traffic Flow Meter one needs times resolved to 10 millisecond intervals,
this being the size of TimeTicks, the most common time unit within SNMP
[4]. Since all the details of the original PC are readily available
[5], it was not difficult to understand the underlying hardware. I have
written PC timer routines for NeTraMet which read the hardware timer
with 256 times the resolution of the DOS clock ticks, i.e. about 5
ticks per millisecond.
There are many TCP/IP implementations available for DOS, but most of
them are commercial software. Instead I chose Waterloo TCP [6], since
this was available (including full source code) as public domain
software. This was necessary since I needed to modify it to allow me to
save incoming packet headers at the same time as forwarding packets
destined for the meter to the IP handler routines. For SNMP I chose CMU
SNMP [7], since again this was available (with full source code) as
public domain software. This made it fairly simple to port it from Unix
to the PC.
Finally, for the NeTraMet development I used Borland's Turbo C and Turbo
Assembler. Although many newer C programming environments are now
available, I have been perfectly happy with Turbo C version 2 for the
NeTraMet project!
2.2.2 Unix environment
In implementing the Unix meter, the one obvious problem was 'how do I
get access to packet headers?' Early versions of the Unix meter were
implemented using various system-specific interfaces on a SunOS 4.2
system. Later versions use libpcap [8], which provides a portable
method of obtaining access to packet headers on a wide range of Unix
systems. I have verified that this works very well for ethernet
interfaces on Solaris, SunOS, Irix, DEC Unix and Linux, and for FDDI
interfaces on Solaris. libpcap provides timestamps for each packet
header with resolution determined by the system clock, which is
certainly better than 10 ms!
All Unix systems provide TCP/IP capabilities, so that was not an issue.
For SNMP I used CMU SNMP, exactly as on the PC.
Nevil Brownlee [Page 7]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
2.3 Implementing the meter
This section briefly discusses the data structures used by the meter,
and the packet matching process. One very strong concern during the
evolution of NeTraMet has been the need for the highest possible level
of meter performance. A variety of interesting optimisations have been
developed to achieve this; as discussed below. Another particular
concern was the need for efficient and effective memory managent; this
is discussed in detail below.
2.3.1 Data structures
All the programs in NeTraMet, NeMaC and their supporting utility
programs are written in C, partly because C and its run-time libraries
provides good access to the underlying hardware, and partly because I
have found it to be a highly portable language.
The data for each flow is stored in a C structure. The structure
includes all the flow's attribute values (including packet and byte
counts), together with a link field which can be used to link flows into
lists. NeTraMet assumes that Adjacent addresses are 802 MAC Addresses,
which are all six bytes long. Similarly, Transport addresses are
assumes to be two bytes long, which is the case for port numbers in IP.
Peer addresses are normally four bytes or less in length. They may,
however, be as long as 20 bytes (for CLNS). I have chosen to use a fixed
Peer address size, defined at compile time, so as to avoid the
complexity of having variable-sized flow structures.
The flow table itself is an array of pointers to flow data structures,
which allows indexed access to flows via their flow numbers. There is
also a single large hash table, referred to in the Architecture document
[1] as the flow table's 'search index'. Each hash value in the table
points to a circular chain of flows. To find a flow one computes its
hash value then searches that value's flow chain.
The meter stores each rule in a C structure. All the rule components
have fixed sizes, but addresses must be wide enough to hold any type of
address - Adjacent, Peer or Transport. The rule address width is
defined at compile time, in the same way as flow Peer addresses. Each
rule set is implemented as an array of pointers to rule data structures,
and the rule table is an array of pointers to the rule sets. The size
of each rule set is specified by NeMaC (before it begins downloading the
rule set), but the maximum number of rule sets is defined at compile
time.
Nevil Brownlee [Page 8]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
2.3.2 Packet matching
Packet matching is carried out in NeTraMet exactly as described in the
Architecture document [1]. Each incoming packet header is analysed so
as to determine its attribute values. These values are stored in a
structure which is passed to the Packet Matching Engine. To facilitate
matching with source and destination reversed this structure contains
two substructures, one containing the source Adjacent, Peer and
Transport address values, the other containing the destination address
values.
2.3.3 Testing groups of rule addresses
As described in the Architecture [1] each rule's address will usually be
tested, i.e. ANDed with the rule's mask and compared with the rule's
value. If the comparison fails, the next rule in sequence is executed.
This allows one to write rule sets which use a group of rules to test an
incoming packet to see whether one of its addresses - e.g. its
SourcePeerAddress - is one of a set of specified IP addresses. Such
groups of related rules can grow quite large, containing hundreds of
rules. It was clear that sequential execution of such groups of rules
would be slow, and that something better was essential.
The optimisation implemented in NeTraMet is to find groups of rules
which test the same attribute with the same mask, and convert them into
a single hashed search of their addresses. The overhead of setting up
hash tables (one for each group) is incurred once, just before the meter
starts running a new rule set. When a 'group' test is to be performed,
the meter ANDs the incoming attribute value, computes a hash value from
it, and uses this to search the group's hash table. Early tests showed
that the rule hash chains were usually very short, usually having only
one or two members. The effect is to reduce large sequences of tests to
a hash computation and lookup, with a very small number of compares; in
short this is an essential optimisation for any traffic meter!
There is, of course, overhead associated with performing the hashed
compare. NeTraMet handles this by having a minimum group size defined
at compile time. If the group is too small it is not combined into a
hashed group.
In early versions of NeTraMet I did not allow Gotos into a hashed group
of rules, which proved to be an unnecessarily conservative position.
NeTraMet stores each group's hash table in a separate memory area, and
keeps a pointer to the hash table in the first rule of the group. (The
rules data structure has an extra component to hold this hash table
pointer). Rules within the group don't have hash table pointers; when
they are executed as the target of a Goto rule they behave as ordinary
rules, i.e. their tests are performed normally.
Nevil Brownlee [Page 9]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
2.3.4 Compression of address masks
When the Packet Matching Engine has decided that an incoming packet
belongs to a flow which is to be measured, it searches the flow table to
determine whether or not the flow is already current. It does this by
computing a hash from the packet and using it to for access to the flow
table's search index.
When designing a hash table, one normally assumes that the objects in
the table have a constant size. For NeTraMet's flow table this would
mean that each flow would contain a value for every attribute. This,
however, is not the case, since only those attribute values 'pushed' by
rules during packet matching are stored for a flow.
To demonstrate this problem , let us assume that every flow in the table
contains a value for only one attribute, SourcePeerAddress, and that the
rule set decides whether flows belong to a specified list of IP
networks, in which case only their network numbers are pushed. The
rules perform this test using a variety of masks, since the network
number allocations range from 16 to 24 bits in width. In searching the
flow table, the meter must distinguish between zeroes in the address and
'don't care' bits which had been ANDed out. To achieve this it must
store SourcePeerMask values in the flow table as well as the ANDed
SourcePeerAddress values.
In early versions of NeTraMet this problem was side-stepped by using
multiple hash tables and relying on the user to write rules which used
the same set of attributes and masks for all the flows in each table.
This was effective, but clumsy and difficult to explain. Later versions
changed to using a single hash table, and storing the mask values for
all the address attributes in each flow.
The current version of the meter stores the address masks in compressed
form. After examining a large number of rule sets I realised that
although a rule set may have many rules, it usually has a very small
number of address masks. It is a simple matter to build a table of
address masks, and store an index to this 'mask table' instead of a
complete mask. NeTraMet's maximum number of masks is defined at compile
time, up to a maximum of 256. This allows me to use a single byte for
each mask in the flow data structure, significantly reducing the
structure's size. As well as this size reduction, two masks can be
compared by comparing their indices in the mask table, i.e. it reduces
to a single-byte comparison. Overall, using a mask table seems to
provide useful improvements in storage efficiency and execution speed.
Nevil Brownlee [Page 10]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
2.3.5 Ignoring unwanted flow data
As described in the Architecture document [1], every incoming packet is
tested against the current rule set by the Packet Matching Engine. This
section explains my efforts to improve NeTraMet performance on the PC by
reducing the amount of processing required by each incoming packet.
On the PC each incoming packet causes an interrupt, which NeTraMet must
process so as to collect information about the packet. In early
versions I used a ring buffer with 512 slots for packet headers, and
simply copied each packet's first 64 bytes into the next free slot. The
packet headers were later taken from the buffer, attribute values were
extracted from them, and the resulting 'incoming attribute values'
record were passed to the Packet Matching Engine.
I modified the interrupt handling code to extract the attribute values
and stored those in a 'buffer slot.' This reduced the amount of storage
required in each slot, allowing more space for storing flows. It did
increase slightly the amount of processing done for each packet
interrupt, but this has not caused any problems.
In later versions I realised that if one is only interested in measuring
IP packets, there is no point in storing (and later processing) Novell
or EtherTalk packets! It is a simple matter for the meter to inspect a
rule set and determine which Peer types are of interest. If there are
PushRule rules which test SourcePeerType (or DestPeerType), they specify
which types are of interest. If there are no such rules, every packet
type is of interest. The PC NeTraMet has a set of Boolean variables,
one for each protocol it can handle. The values of these 'protocol'
variables are determined when the meter begins running a new rule set.
For each incoming packet, the interrupt handler determines the Peer
type. If the protocol is not of interest, no further processing is done
- the packet is simply ignored. In a similar manner, if Adjacent
addresses are never tested there is no point in copying them into the
packet buffer slot.
The overall effect of these optimisations is most noticeable for rule
files which measure IP flows on a network segment which also carries a
lot of traffic for other network protocols; this situation is common on
multiprotocol Local Area networks. On the Unix version of NeTraMet, the
Operating System does all the packet interrupt processing, and libpcap
[8] delivers packet headers directly to NeTraMet. There seems little
point in using the 'protocol' and 'adjacent address' optimisations for
Unix.
Nevil Brownlee [Page 11]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
2.3.6 Observing meter reader activity
The Architecture document [1] explains that a flow data record must be
held in the meter until its data has been read by a meter reader. A
meter must therefore have a reliable way of deciding when flow data has
been read. The problem is complicated by the fact that there may be
more than one meter reader, and that meter readers collect their data
asynchronously.
Early versions of NeTraMet solved this problem by having a single MIB
variable which a meter reader could set to indicate that it was
beginning a data collection. In response to such an SMP SET request,
NeTraMet would update its 'collectors' table. This had an entry for
each meter reader, and variables recording the start time for the last
two collections. The most recent collection might be still in progress,
but its start time provides a safe estimate of a time when the one
before it actually finished. Space used for flows which have been idle
since the penultimate collection started can be recovered by the meter's
garbage collector, as described below.
The Meter MIB [2] specifies a more general table of meter reader
information. A meter reader wishing to collect data from a meter must
inform the meter of its intention by creating a row in the table, then
setting a LastTime variable in that row to indicate the start of a
collection. The meter handles such a SET request exactly as described
above. If there are multiple meter readers the meter can easily find
the earliest time any of them started its penultimate collection, and
may recover flows idle since then. Should a meter reader fail, NeTraMet
will eventually time out its entry in the meter reader info table, and
delete it. This avoids a situation where the meter can't recover flows
until they have been collected by several meter readers, one of which
has failed.
2.3.7 Meter memory management
In principle, the size of the flow table (i.e. the maximum number of
flows) could be changed dynamically. This would involve allocating
space for the flow table's new pointer array and copying the old
pointers into it. NeTraMet does not implement this. Instead the
maximum number of flows is set from the command line when it starts
execution. If no maximum is specified, a compile-time default number is
used.
Memory for flow data structures (i.e. 'flows') is allocated
dynamically. NeTraMet requests the C run-time system for blocks of
several hundred flows, and links them into a free list. When a new flow
is needed NeTraMet gets memory space from the free list, then searches
the flow table's pointer array for an unused flow pointer. In practice
Nevil Brownlee [Page 12]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
a 'last-allocated' index is used to point to the flow table, so a simple
linear search suffices. The flow index is saved in the flow's data
record, and its other attribute values are set to zero.
To release a flow data record it must first be removed from any hash
list it is part of - this is straightforward since those lists are
circular. The flow's entry in the flow table pointer array is then set
to zero (NULL pointer), and its space is returned to the free list.
Once a flow data record is created it could continue to exist
indefinitely. In time, however, the meter would run out of space. To
deal with this problem NeTraMet uses an incremental garbage collector to
reclaim memory .
At regular intervals specified by a 'GarbageCollectInterval' variable
the garbage collector procedure is invoked. This searches through the
flow table looking for flows which might be recovered. To control the
resources consumed by garbage collection there are limits on the number
of in-use and idle flows which the garbage collector may inspect these
are set either when NeTraMet is started (as options on the command line)
or dynamically by NeMaC (using variables in an Enterprise MIB for
NeTraMet)
To decide whether a flow can be recovered, the garbage collector
considers how long it has been idle (no packets in either direction),
and when its data was last collected. If it has been collected by all
known meter readers since its LastTime, its memory may be recovered.
This alogrithm is implemented using a variable called
'GarbageCollectTime,' which normally contains the meter's UpTime when
the penultimate collection (i.e. the one before last) was started. See
the section on observing meter reader activity (above) for more details.
Should flows not be collected often enough the meter could run out of
space. NeTraMet attempts to prevent this by having a low-priority
background process check the percentage of flows active and compare it
with the HighWaterMark MIB variable. If the percentage of active flows
is greater than the high-water mark, 'GarbageCollectTime' is incremented
by the current value of the InactivityTimeout MIB variable.
The Meter MIB [2] specifies that a meter should switch to using a
'standby' rule table if the percentage of flows active rises above
HighWaterMark. In using NeTraMet to measure traffic flows to and from
the University of Auckland it has not been difficult to create standby
rules which are very similar to the 'production' rule file, differing
only in that they push much less information about flows. This has, on
several occasions, allowed the meter to continue running for one or two
days after the meter reader failed. When the meter reader restarted, it
was able ro collect all the accumulated flow data!
The MIB also specifies that the meter should take some action when the
active flow percentage rises above its FloodMark value. If this were
Nevil Brownlee [Page 13]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
not done, the meter could spend a rapidly increasing proportion of its
time garbage collecting, to the point where its ability to respond to
requests from its manager would be compromised. NeTraMet switches to
the default rule set when its FloodMark is reached..
2.4 Data Collection
As explained above, a meter reader wishing to collect flows begins each
collection by setting the LastTime variable in its ReaderInfoTable row,
then works its way through the flow table collecting data. A number of
algorithms can be used to examine the flow table; these are presented
below.
The simplest approach is a linear scan of the table, reading the
LastTime variable for each row. If the read fails the row is inactive.
If it succeeds, it is of interest if its LastTime value is greater than
the time of the last collection. Although this method is simple it is
also rather slow, requiring an SNMP GET request for every possible flow;
this renders it impractical.
Early versions of NeTraMet used two 'windows' into the flow table to
find flows which were of interest. Both windows were SNMP tables,
indexed by a variable which specified a time. A succession of GETNEXT
requests on one of these windows allowed NeMaC (the meter reader) to
find the flow indices for all flows which had been active since the
specified time. The two windows were the ActivityTime window (which
located active flows), and the CreateTime window (which located new
flows). Knowing the index of an active flow, the meter reader can GET
the values for all the attributes of interest. NeMaC allows the user to
specify which these are, rather than simply read all the attributes. a
Having the two windows allowed NeMaC to read attributes which remain
constant - such as the flow's address attributes - when the flow is
created, but to only read attributes which change with time - such as
its packet and byte counts - during later collections. Experience has
shown, however, that many flows have rather short lifetimes; one effect
of this is that the improved efficiency of using two windows does not
result in any worthwhile improvement in collection performance.
The current version of the Meter MIB [2] uses a TimeFilter variable in
the flow table entries. This can be used with GETNEXT requests to find
all flows which have been active since a specified time directly,
without requiring the extra 'window' SNMP variables. It can be combined
with SNMPv2's GETBULK request to further reduce the number of SNMP
packets needed for each collection; I have yet to implement this in
NeTraMet.
A disadvantage of using SNMP to collect data from the meter is that SMP
Nevil Brownlee [Page 14]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
packets impose a high overhead. For example, if we wish to read an
Integer32 variable (four bytes of data), it will be returned with its
object identifier, type and length, i.e. at least ten bytes of
superfluous data. One way to reduce this overhead is to use an Opaque
object to return a collection of data. NeTraMet uses this approach to
retrieve 'column activity data' from the meter, as follows.
Each packet of column activity data contains data values for a specified
attribute, and each value is preceded by its flow number. The flow
table can be regarded as a two-dimensional array, with a column for each
flow attribute. Column activity data objects allow the meter reader to
read columns of the flow table, so as to collect only those attributes
specified by the user. The actual implementation is complicated by the
fact that since the flow table is read column by column, rows can become
active after the first column has been read. NeMaC reads the widest
columns (those with greatest size in bytes, e.g. PeerAddress) first,
and ignores any rows which appear in later columns. Newly active rows
will, of course, be read in the next collection.
Using Opaque objects in this way dramatically reduces the number of SNMP
packets required to read a meter. This has proved worthwhile in
situations where the number of flows is large (for example on busy
LANs), and where the meter(s) are physically dispersed over slow WAN
links. It has the disadvantage that general-purpose MIB browsers cannot
understand the column activity variables, but this seems a small price
to pay for the improved data collection performance.
2.5 Restarting a meter
If a meter fails, for example because of a power failure, it will
restart and begin running rule set 1, the default rule set which is
built into the meter. Its manager must recognise that this has
happened, and respond with some suitable action.
NeMaC allows the user to specify a 'keepalive' interval. After every
such interval NeMaC reads the meter's sysUptime and compares it with the
last sysUptime. If the new sysUptime is less than the last one, NeMaC
decides that the meter has restarted. It downloads the meter's backup
rule set and production rule set, then requests the meter to start
running the production rule set. In normal use we use a keepalive
interval of five minutes and a collection interval of 15 minutes. If a
meter restarts, we lose up to five minutes data before the rules sets
are downloaded.
Having the meter run the default rule set on startup is part of the
Traffic Flow Measurement Architecture [1], in keeping with the notion
that meters are very simple devices which do not have disk storage.
Since disks are now very cheap, it may be worth considering whether the
Nevil Brownlee [Page 15]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
architecture should allow a meter to save its configuration (including
rule sets) on disk.
2.6 Performance
The PC version of the meter, NeTraMet, continually measures how much
processor time is being used. Whenever there is no incoming packet data
to process, 'dummy' packets are generated and placed in the input
buffer. These packets are processed normally by the Packet Matching
Engine; they have a PeerType of 'dummy.' The numbers of dummy and
normal packets are counted by the meter; their ratio is used as an
estimate of the processor time which is 'idle,' i.e. not being used to
process incoming packets. The Unix version is intended to run as a
process in a multiprocessing system, so it cannot busy-wait in this way.
The meter also collects several other performance measures; these can be
displayed on the meter console in response to keyboard requests.
The PC meter can be used with a 10 MHz 286 machine, on which it can
handle a steady load of about 750 packets per second. On a 25 MHz 386SX
it will handle about 1250 packets per second. Users have reported that
a 40 MHz 486 can handle peaks of about 3,000 packets per second without
packet loss. The Unix meter has been tested metering traffic on a
(lightly loaded) FDDI interface; it uses about one percent of the
processor time on a SPARC 10 system running Solaris.
3 Writing Rule Sets
The Traffic Meter provides a versatile device for measuring a
user-specified set of traffic flows, and performing useful data
reduction on them. This data reduction capability not only minimises
the volume of data to be collected by meter readers, but also simplifies
the later processing of traffic flow data.
The flows of interest, and the processing to be performed, are specified
in a 'rule set' which is downloaded to the meter (NeTraMet) by the
manager (NeMaC). This section explains what is involved in writing rule
sets.
3.1 Rule set to observe all flows
NeMaC reads rule sets from text files which contain the rules, the set
number which the meter (and meter reader) will identify them by, and a
Nevil Brownlee [Page 16]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
'format,' i.e. a list specifying which attributes the meter reader
should collect and write to the flow data file. The # character
indicates the start of a comment; NeMaC ignores the rest of the line.
SET 2
#
RULES
#
SourcePeerType & 255 = Dummy: Ignore, 0;
Null & 0 = 0: GotoAct, Next;
#
SourcePeerType & 255 = 0: PushPkttoAct, Next;
SourcePeerAddress & 255.255.255.255 = 0: PushPkttoAct, Next;
DestPeerAddress & 255.255.255.255 = 0: PushPkttoAct, Next;
SourceTransType & 255 = 0: PushPkttoAct, Next;
SourceTransAddress & 255.255 = 0: PushPkttoAct, Next;
DestTransAddress & 255.255 = 0: CountPkt, 0;
#
FORMAT FlowRuleSet FlowIndex FirstTime " "
SourcePeerType SourcePeerAddress DestPeerAddress " "
SourceTransType SourceTransAddress DestTransAddress " "
ToPDUs FromPDUs " " ToOctets FromOctets;
The first rule tests the incoming packet's SourcePeerType to see whether
it is 'dummy.' If it is, the packet is ignored, otherwise the next rule
is executed.
The second rule tests the Null attribute. Such a test always succeeds,
so the rule simply jumps to the action of the next rule. (The keyword
'next' is converted by NeMaC into the number of the following rule.)
The third rule pushes the packet's SourcePeerType value, then jumps to
the action of the next rule. The user does not know in advance what the
value of PushPkt rules will be, which is why the value appearing in them
is always zero. The user must take care not to write rule sets which
try to perform the test in a PushPkt rule. This is a very common error
in a rule set, so NeMaC tests for it and displays an error message.
The following rules push a series of attribute values from the packet,
and the last rule also Counts the packet, i.e. it tells the Packet
Matching Engine (PME) that the packet has been successfully matched.
The PME responds by searching the flow table to see whether the flow is
already current (i.e. in the table), creating a new flow data record
for it should this be necessary, and incrementing its packet and byte
counters.
Overall this rule set simply classifies the packet (i.e. decides
whether or not it is to be counted), then pushes all the Peer and
Transport attribute values for it. It makes no attempt to specify a
Nevil Brownlee [Page 17]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
direction for the flow - this is left to the PME, as described in [1].
The resulting flow data file will have each flow's source and
destination addresses in the order of the first packet the meter
observed for the flow.
3.2 Specifying flow direction, using computed attributes
As indicated above the Packet Matching Engine will reliably determine
the flow, and the direction within that flow, for every packet seen by a
meter. If the rule set does not specify a direction for the flow, the
PME simply assumes that the first packet observed for a flow is
travelling forward, i.e. from source to destination. In later analysis
of the flow data, however, one is usually interested in traffic to or
from a particular source.
One can achieve this in a simple manner by writing a rule set to specify
the source for flows. All that is required is to have rules which
succeed if the packet is travelling in the required direction, and which
execute a Retry action otherwise. This is demonstrated in the following
two examples ..
# Count IP packets from network 130.216.0.0
#
SourcePeerType & 255 = IP: Pushto, ip`pkt;
Null & 0 = 0: Ignore, 0;
#
ip`pkt:
SourcePeerAddress & 255.255.0.0 = 130.216.0.0: Goto c`pkt;
Null & 0 = 0: Retry, 0;
#
c`pkt:
SourcePeerAddress & 255.255.255.255 = 0: PushPkttoAct, Next;
DestPeerAddress & 255.255.255.255 = 0: CountPkt, 0;
The rule labelled ip_pkt tests whether the packet came from network
130.216. If it did not, the test fails and the following rule executes
a Retry action, causing the PME to retry the match with the directions
reversed. If the second match fails the packet did not have 130.216 as
an end-point, and is ignored.
The next rule set meters IP traffic on a network segment which connects
two routers, g1 and g2. It classifies flows into three groups - those
travelling from g1 to g2, those whose source is g1 and those whose
source is g2.
Nevil Brownlee [Page 18]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
# Count IP packets between two gateways
#
# -------+-------------------+-----------------+-------
# $ $ $
# +----+-----+ +----+-----+ +---+---+
# $ g1 $ $ g2 $ $ meter $
# +-+-+-+-+--+ +-+-+-+-+--+ +-------+
#
SourcePeerType & 255 = IP: Pushto, ip`pkt;
Null & 0 = 0: Ignore, 0;
#
ip`pkt:
SourceAdjacentAddress & FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF = 00-80-48-81-0E-7C:
Goto, s1;
Null & 0 = 0: Goto, s2;
s1:
DestAdjacentAddress & FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF = 02-07-01-04-ED-4A
GotoAct, g3;
Null & 0 = 0: GotoAct, g1;
s2:
SourceAdjacentAddress & FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF = 02-07-01-04-ED-4A:
Goto, s3;
Null & 0 = 0: Retry, 0;
s3:
DestAdjacentAddress & FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF = 00-80-48-81-0E-7C:
Retry, 0;
Null & 0 = 0: GotoAct, g2;
#
g1: FlowClass & 255 = 1: PushtoAct, c`pkt;
g2: FlowClass & 255 = 2: PushtoAct, c`pkt;
g3: FlowClass & 255 = 3: PushtoAct, c`pkt;
#
c`pkt:
SourceAdjacentAddress & FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF = 0:
PushPkttoAct, Next;
DestAdjacentAddress & FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF = 0: PushPkttoAct, Next;
SourcePeerAddress & 255.255.255.255 = 0: PushPkttoAct, Next;
DestPeerAddress & 255.255.255.255 = 0: PushPkttoAct, Next;
Null & 0 = 0: Count, 0
The first two rules ignore non-IP packets. The next two rules Goto s1
if the packet's source was g1, or to s2 otherwise. The rule labelled s2
tests whether the packet's source was g2; if not a Retry action is
executed, allowing the PME to try the match with the packet's direction
reversed. If the match fails on the second try the packet didn't come
from g1 or g2, and is ignored.
Packets which come from g1 are tested by the rule labelled s1, and the
PME will Goto either g3 or g1.
Nevil Brownlee [Page 19]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
Packets which came from g2 are tested by the rule labelled s3. If they
are not going to g1 the PME will Goto g2. If they are going to g1 a
Retry action is executed - we want them counted as backward-travelling
packets for the g1-g2 flow.
The rules at g1, g2 and g3 push the value 1, 2 or 3 from their rule into
the flow's FlowClass attribute. This value can be used by an Analysis
Application to separate the flows into the three groups of interest.
FlowClass is an example of a 'computed' attribute, i.e. one whose value
is Pushed by the PME during rule matching.
The remaining rules Push the values of other attributes required for
later analysis, then Count the flow.
3.3 Subroutines
Subroutines are implemented in the PME in much the same way as in BASIC.
A subroutine body is just a sequence of statements, supported by the
GoSub and Return actions. 'GoSub' saves the PME's running environment
and jumps to the first rule of the subroutine body. Subroutine calls
may be nested as required - NeTraMet defines the maximum nesting at
compile time. 'Return n' restores the environment and jumps to the
action part of the nth rule after the Gosub, where n is the index value
from the Return rule.
The Return action provides a way of influencing the flow of control in a
rule set, rather like a FORTRAN Computed Goto. This is one way in which
a subroutine can return a result. The other way is by Pushing a value
in either a computed attribute (as demonstrated in the preceding section
above), or in a flow attribute.
One common use for a subroutine is to test whether a packet attribute
matches one of a set of values. Such a subroutine becomes much more
useful if it can be used to test one of several attributes. The PME
architecture provides for this by using 'meter variables' to hold the
names of the attributes to be tested. The meter variables are called
V1, V2, V3, V4 and V5, and the Assign action is provided to set their
values. If, for example, we need a subroutine to test either
SourcePeerAddress or DestPeerAddress, we write its rules to test V1
instead. Before calling the subroutine we Assign SourcePeerAddress to
V1; later tests of V1 are converted by the PME into tests on
SourcePeerAddress. Note that since meter variables may be reassigned in
a subroutine, their values are part of the environment which must be
saved by a Gosub action.
The following rule set demonstrates the use of a subroutine ..
Nevil Brownlee [Page 20]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
# Rule specification file to tally IP packets in three groups:
# UA to AIT, UA to elsewhere, AIT to elsewhere
#
# -------+-------------------+-----------------+--------
# $ $ $
# +----+-----+ +----+-----+ +---+---+
# $ UA $ $ AIT $ $ meter $
# +-+-+-+-+--+ +-+-+-+-+--+ +-------+
#
SourcePeerType & 255 = IP: PushtoAct, ip`pkt;
Null & 0 = 0: Ignore, 0;
#
ip`pkt:
v1 & 0 = SourcePeerAddress: AssignAct, Next;
Null & 0 = 0: Gosub, classify;
Null & 0 = 0: GotoAct, from`ua; # 1 ua
Null & 0 = 0: GotoAct, from`ait; # 2 ait
Null & 0 = 0: Retry, 0; # 3 other
#
from`ua:
v1 & 0 = DestPeerAddress: AssignAct, Next;
Null & 0 = 0: Gosub, classify;
Null & 0 = 0: Ignore, 0; # 1 ua-ua
Null & 0 = 0: GotoAct, ok`pkt; # 2 ua-ait
Null & 0 = 0: Gotoact, ok`pkt; # 3 ua-other
#
from`ait:
v1 & 0 = DestPeerAddress: AssignAct, Next;
Null & 0 = 0: Gosub, classify;
Null & 0 = 0: Retry, 0; # 1 ait-ua
Null & 0 = 0: Ignore, 0; # 2 ait-ait
Null & 0 = 0: GotoAct, ok`pkt; # 3 ait-other
#
ok`pkt:
Null & 0 = 0: Count, 0;
The subroutine begins at the rule labelled classify (shown below). It
returns to the first, second or third rule after the invoking Gosub
rule, depending on whether the tested PeerAddress is in the UA, AIT, or
'other' group of networks. In the listing below only one network is
tested in each of the groups - it is trivial to add more rules (one per
network) into either of the first two groups. In this example the
subroutine Pushes the network number from the packet into the tested
attribute before returning.
The first invocation of classify (above) begins at the rule labelled
ip_pkt. It Assigns SourcePeerAddress to V1 then executes a Gosub action.
Classify returns to one of the three following rules. They will Goto
from_ua or from_ait if the packet came from the UA or AIT groups,
otherwise the PME will Retry the match. This means that matched flows
Nevil Brownlee [Page 21]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
will have a UA or AIT network as their source, and flows between other
networks will be ignored.
The next two invocations of 'classify' test the packet's
DestPeerAddress. Packets from AIT to UA are Retried, forcing them to be
counted as AU to AIT flows. Packets from UA to UA are ignored, as are
packets from AIT to AIT.
classify:
v1 & 255.255.0.0 = 130.216.0.0: GotoAct, ua; # ua
v1 & 255.255.0.0 = 156.62.0.0: GotoAct, ait; # ait
Null & 0 = 0: Return, 3; # other
ua:
v1 & 255.255.0.0 = 0: PushPkttoAct, Next;
Null & 0 = 0: Return, 1;
ait:
v1 & 255.255.0.0 = 0: PushPkttoAct, Next;
Null & 0 = 0: Return, 2;
3.4 More complicated rule sets
The next example demonstrates a way of grouping IP flows together
depending on their Transport Address, i.e. their IP port number.
Simply Pushing every flow's SourceTransAddress and DestTransAddress
would produce a large number of flows, most of which differ only in one
of their transport addresses (the one which is not a well-known port).
Instead we Push the well-known port number into each flow's
SourceTransAddress; its DestTransAddress will be zero by default.
SourcePeerType & 255 = dummy: Ignore, 0;
SourcePeerType & 255 = IP: Pushto, IP`pkt;
Null & 0 = 0: GotoAct, Next;
SourcePeerType & 255 = 0: PushPkttoAct, Next;
Null & 0 = 0: Count, 0; # Count others by protocol type
#
IP`pkt:
SourceTransType & 255 = tcp: Pushto, tcp`udp;
SourceTransType & 255 = udp: Pushto, tcp`udp;
SourceTransType & 255 = icmp: CountPkt, 0;
SourceTransType & 255 = ospf: CountPkt, 0;
Null & 0 = 0: GotoAct, c`unknown; # Unknown transport type
#
tcp`udp:
s`domain:
SourceTransAddress & 255.255 = domain: PushtoAct, c`well`known;
s`ftp:
Nevil Brownlee [Page 22]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
SourceTransAddress & 255.255 = ftp: PushtoAct, c`well`known;
s`imap:
SourceTransAddress & 255.255 = 113: PushtoAct, c`well`known;
s`nfs
SourceTransAddress & 255.255 = 2049: PushtoAct, c`well`known;
s`pop:
SourceTransAddress & 255.255 = 110: PushtoAct, c`well`known;
s`smtp:
SourceTransAddress & 255.255 = smtp: PushtoAct, c`well`known;
s`telnet:
SourceTransAddress & 255.255 = telnet: PushtoAct, c`well`known;
s`www:
SourceTransAddress & 255.255 = www: PushtoAct, c`well`known;
s`xwin
SourceTransAddress & 255.255 = 6000: PushtoAct, c`well`known;
#
DestTransAddress & 255.255 = domain: GotoAct, s`domain;
DestTransAddress & 255.255 = ftp: GotoAct, s`ftp;
DestTransAddress & 255.255 = 113: GotoAct, s`imap;
DestTransAddress & 255.255 = 2049: GotoAct, s`nfs;
DestTransAddress & 255.255 = 110: GotoAct, s`pop;
DestTransAddress & 255.255 = smtp: GotoAct, s`smtp;
DestTransAddress & 255.255 = telnet: GotoAct, s`telnet;
DestTransAddress & 255.255 = www: GotoAct, s`www;
DestTransAddress & 255.255 = 6000: GotoAct, s`xwin;
#
Null & 0 = 0: GotoAct, c`unknown; # 'Unusual' port
#
c`unknown:
SourceTransType & 255 = 0: PushPkttoAct, Next;
SourceTransAddress & 255.255 = 0: PushPkttoAct, Next;
DestTransAddress & 255.255 = 0: CountPkt, 0;
#
c`well`known:
Null & 0 = 0: Count, 0
#
The first few rules ignore dummy packets, select IP packets for further
processing, and count packets for other protocols in a single flow for
each PeerType. TCP and UDP packets cause the PME to Push their
TransType and Goto tcp_udp. ICMP and OSPF packets are counted in flows
which have only their TransType Pushed.
At tcp_udp the packets' SourceTransAddress is tested to see whether it is
included in a set of 'interesting' port numbers. If it is, the port
number is pushed from the rule into the SourceTransAddress attribute,
and the packet is counted at c_well_known. (NeMaC accepts Pushto as a
synonym for PushRuleto).
Nevil Brownlee [Page 23]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
This testing is repeated for the packet's DestTransAddress; if one of
these tests succeeds the PME Goes to the corresponding rule above and
Pushes the port number into the flow's SourceTransAddress. If these
tests fail the packet is counted at c_unknown.
Note that these rules only Push a value into a flow's
SourceTransAddress, and they don't contain any Retry actions. They
therefore don't specify a packet's direction, and they could be used in
other rule sets to group together flows for well-known ports.
The last example (below) meters flows from a remote router, and
demonstrates another approach to grouping well-known ports.
SourceAdjacentAddress & FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF =
00-60-3E-10-E0-A1: Goto, gateway; # tmkr2 router
DestAdjacentAddress & FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF = 00-60-3E-10-E0-A1:
Goto, gateway; # Source is tmkr2
Null & 0 = 0: Ignore, 0;
#
gateway:
SourcePeerType & 255 = IP: GotoAct, IP`pkt;
Null & 0 = 0: GotoAct, Next;
SourcePeerType & 255 = 0: CountPkt, 0;
#
IP`pkt:
SourceTransType & 255 = tcp: PushRuleto, tcp`udp;
SourceTransType & 255 = udp: PushRuleto, tcp`udp;
Null & 0 = 0: GotoAct, not`wkp; # Unknown transport type
#
tcp`udp:
SourceTransAddress & FC-00 = 0: GotoAct, well`known`port;
DestTransAddress & FC-00 = 0: Retry, 0;
Null & 0 = 0: GotoAct, not`wkp;
#
not`wkp:
DestTransAddress & 255.255 = 0: PushPkttoAct, Next;
well`known`port:
SourcePeerType & 255 = 0: PushPkttoAct, Next;
SourcePeerAddress & 255.255.255.0 = 0: PushPkttoAct, Next;
DestPeerAddress & 255.255.255.0 = 0: PushPkttoAct, Next;
SourceTransType & 255 = 0: PushPkttoAct, Next;
SourceTransAddress & 255.255 = 0: CountPkt, 0;
The first group of rules test incoming packets' AdjacentAddresses to see
whether they belong to a flow with an end point at the specified router.
Any which don't are ignored. Non-IP packets are counted in flows which
only have their PeerType Pushed; these will produce one flow for each
non-IP protocol. IP packets with TransTypes other than UDP and TCP are
counted at not_wkp, where all their address attributes are pushed.
Nevil Brownlee [Page 24]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
The high-order six bits of SourceTransAddress for UDP and TCP packets
are compared with zero. If this succeeds their source port number is
less than 1024, so they are from a well-known port. The port number is
pushed from the rule into the flow's SourceTransAddress attribute, and
the packet is counted at well_known_port. If the test fails, it is
repeated on the packet's DestTransAddress. If the destination is a
well-known port the match is Retried, and will succeed with the
well-known port as the flow's source.
If later analysis shows were to show that a high proportion of the
observed flows were from non-well-known ports, further pairs of rules
could be added to perform a test in each direction for other
heavily-used ports.
4 Flow Data Files
Although the Architecture document [1] specifies - in great detail - how
the Traffic Flow Meter works, and how a meter reader should collect flow
data from a meter, it does not say anything about how the collected data
should be stored. NeMaC uses a simple, self-documenting file format,
which has proved to be very effective in use.
There are two kinds of records in a flow data file: flow records and
information records. Each flow record is simply a sequence of attribute
values separators (these can be specified in a NeMaC rule file) or
spaces between them, terminated by a newline.
Information records all start with a cross-hatch. The file's first
record begins with ##, and identifies the file as being a file of data
from NeTraMet. It records NeMaC's parameters and the time this
collection was started. The file's second record begins with #Format:
and is a copy of the Format statement used by NeMaC to collect the data.
The rest of the file is a sequence of collected data sets. Each of
these starts with a #Time: record, giving the time of day the
collection was started, the meter name, and the range of meter times
this collection represents. These from and to times are meter UpTimes,
i.e. they are times in hundredths of seconds since the meter commenced
operation. The flow records which comprise a data set follow the #Time
record.
4.1 Sample Flow Data File
A sample flow data file appears below. Most of the flow records have
been deleted, but lines of dots show where they were.
Nevil Brownlee [Page 25]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
##NeTraMet v3.2. -c300 -r rules.lan -e rules.default
test`meter -i eth0 4000 flows starting at 12:31:27 Wed 1 Feb 95
#Format: flowruleset flowindex firsttime sourcepeertype
sourcepeeraddress destpeeraddress topdus frompdus
tooctets fromoctets
#Time: 12:31:27 Wed 1 Feb 95 130.216.14.251 Flows
from 1 to 3642
1 2 13 5 31.32.0.0 33.34.0.0 1138 0 121824 0
1 3 13 2 11.12.0.0 13.14.0.0 4215 0 689711 0
1 4 13 7 41.42.0.0 43.34.0.0 1432 0 411712 0
1 5 13 6 21.22.0.0 23.24.0.0 8243 0 4338744 0
3 6 3560 2 130.216.14.0 130.216.3.0 0 10 0 1053
3 7 3560 2 130.216.14.0 130.216.76.0 59 65 4286 3796
3 8 3560 7 0.0.255.0 1.144.200.0 0 4 0 222
3 9 3560 2 130.216.14.0 130.216.14.0 118 1 32060 60
3 10 3560 6 130.216.0.28 130.216.0.192 782 1 344620 66
3 11 3560 7 0.0.255.0 0.128.113.0 0 1 0 73
3 12 3560 5 59.3.13.0 4.1.152.0 1 1 60 60
3 13 3560 7 0.128.94.0 0.129.27.0 2 2 120 158
3 14 3560 5 59.3.40.0 4.1.153.0 2 2 120 120
3 15 3560 5 0.0.0.0 4.1.153.0 0 1 0 60
3 16 3560 5 4.1.152.0 59.2.189.0 2 2 120 120
. . . . . . . . .
3 42 3560 7 0.128.42.0 0.129.34.0 0 1 0 60
3 43 3560 7 0.128.42.0 0.128.43.0 0 1 0 60
3 44 3560 7 0.128.42.0 0.128.41.0 0 1 0 60
3 45 3560 7 0.128.42.0 0.129.2.0 0 1 0 60
3 46 3560 5 4.1.152.0 59.2.208.0 2 2 120 120
3 47 3560 5 59.3.46.0 4.1.150.0 2 2 120 120
3 48 3560 5 4.1.152.0 59.2.198.0 2 2 120 120
3 49 3560 5 0.0.0.0 59.2.120.0 0 1 0 60
3 50 3664 5 4.1.152.0 59.2.214.0 0 1 0 60
3 51 3664 5 0.0.0.0 4.2.142.0 0 1 0 60
3 52 3664 5 4.1.153.0 59.3.45.0 4 4 240 240
#Time: 12:36:25 Wed 1 Feb 95 130.216.14.251 Flows
from 3641 to 33420
3 6 3560 2 130.216.14.0 130.216.3.0 0 21 0 2378
3 7 3560 2 130.216.14.0 130.216.76.0 9586 7148 1111118 565274
3 8 3560 7 0.0.255.0 1.144.200.0 0 26 0 1983
3 9 3560 2 130.216.14.0 130.216.14.0 10596 1 2792846 60
3 10 3560 6 130.216.0.28 130.216.0.192 16589 1 7878902 66
3 11 3560 7 0.0.255.0 0.128.113.0 0 87 0 16848
3 12 3560 5 59.3.13.0 4.1.152.0 20 20 1200 1200
3 13 3560 7 0.128.94.0 0.129.27.0 15 14 900 1144
3 14 3560 5 59.3.40.0 4.1.153.0 38 38 2280 2280
3 15 3560 5 0.0.0.0 4.1.153.0 0 30 0 1800
3 16 3560 5 4.1.152.0 59.2.189.0 20 20 1200 1200
3 17 3560 5 0.0.0.0 59.2.141.0 0 11 0 660
. . . . . . . . .
3 476 26162 7 0.129.113.0 0.128.37.0 0 1 0 82
3 477 27628 7 0.128.41.0 0.128.46.0 1 1 543 543
Nevil Brownlee [Page 26]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
3 478 27732 7 0.128.211.0 0.128.46.0 1 1 543 543
3 479 31048 7 0.128.47.0 2.38.221.0 1 1 60 60
3 480 32717 2 202.14.100.0 130.216.76.0 0 4 0 240
3 481 32717 2 130.216.76.0 130.216.3.0 0 232 0 16240
#Time: 12:41:25 Wed 1 Feb 95 130.216.14.251 Flows
from 33419 to 63384
3 6 3560 2 130.216.14.0 130.216.3.0 51 180 3079 138195
3 7 3560 2 130.216.14.0 130.216.76.0 21842 18428 2467693 1356570
3 8 3560 7 0.0.255.0 1.144.200.0 0 30 0 2282
3 9 3560 2 130.216.14.0 130.216.14.0 24980 1 5051834 60
3 10 3560 6 130.216.0.28 130.216.0.192 20087 1 8800070 66
3 11 3560 7 0.0.255.0 0.128.113.0 0 164 0 32608
3 12 3560 5 59.3.13.0 4.1.152.0 41 41 2460 2460
3 14 3560 5 59.3.40.0 4.1.153.0 82 82 4920 4920
3 15 3560 5 0.0.0.0 4.1.153.0 0 60 0 3600
. . . . . . . . .
4.2 Flow data file features
Several features of NeMaC's flow data files (as indicated above) are
worthy of note:
- Collection times overlap slightly between samples. This allows for
flows which were created after the collection started, and makes
sure that flows are not missed from a collection.
- The rule set may change during a run. The above shows flows from
rule set 1 - the default set - in the first collection, followed by
the first flows created by rule set 3 (which has just been
downloaded by NeMaC).
- FlowIndexes may be reused by the meter once their flows have been
recovered by the garbage collector. The combination of
FlowRuleSet, FlowIndex and StartTime are needed to identify a flow
uniquely.
- Packet and Byte counters are 32-bit unsigned integers, and are
never reset by the meter. Computing the counts occurring within a
collection interval requires taking the difference between the
collected count and its value when the flow was last collected.
Note that counter wrap-around can be allowed for by simply
performing an unsigned subtraction and ignoring any carry.
- In the sample flow data file above I have used double spaces as
separators between the flow identifiers, peer addresses, pdu counts
and packet counts.
Nevil Brownlee [Page 27]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
- The format of addresses in the flow data file depends on the type
of address. NeMaC always displays Adjacent addresses as six hex
bytes separated by hyphens, and Transport addresses as (16-bit)
integers. The format of a Peer address depends on its PeerType,
e.g. dotted decimal for IP. To facilitate this NeMaC needs to know
the PeerType for each flow; the user must request NeMaC to collect
it.
4.3 Terminating and restarting meter reading
When NeMaC first starts collecting from a meter, it reads the flow data
for all active flows. This provides a starting point for analysis
applications to compute the counts between successive collections.
From time to time the user needs to terminate a flow data file and begin
a new one. For example, a user might need to generate a separate file
for each day of metering. NeMaC provides for this by closing the file
after each collection, then opening it and appending the data from the
next collection. To terminate a file the user simply renames it. The
Unix system will effect the name change either immediately (if the file
was closed) or as soon as the current collection is complete (and the
file is closed).
When NeMaC begins its next collection it observes that the file has
disappeared, so it creates a new one and writes the # header records
before writing the collected data.
There is one aspect of the above which requires some care on the user's
part. The last data set in a file is not duplicated as the first data
set of the next file. In other words, analysis applications must either
look ahead at the first data set of the next file, or begin by reading
the last data set of the previous file. If they fail to do this they
will loose one collection's worth of flow data at each change of file.
5 Analysis applications
Most analysis applications will be unique, taking data produced by a
locally- developed rule set and producing reports to satisfy specific
local requirements. The NeTraMet distribution files include three
applications which are of general use, as follows:
- fd_filter computes data rates, i.e. the differences between
successive data sets in a flow data file. It also allows the user
to assign a 'tag' number to each flow; these are 'computed'
Nevil Brownlee [Page 28]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
attributes similar to FlowClass and FlowKind - the only difference
is that they are computed from the collected data sets.
- fd_extract takes 'tagged' files from fd_filter and produces simple
'column list' files for use by other programs. One common use for
fd_extract is to produce time-series data files which can be plotted
by utilities like GNUPlot.
- nm_rc is a 'remote console' for a NeTraMet meter. It is a slightly
simplified version of NeMaC combined with fd_filter. It can be used
to monitor any meter, and will display (as lines of text
characters) information about the n busiest flows observed during
each collection interval.
These applications are useful in themselves, and they provide a good
starting point for users who wish to write their own analysis
applications.
6 Using NeTraMet in a measurement system
This section gives a brief summary of the steps involved in setting up a
traffic measurement system using NeTraMet. These are:
- Decide what is to be measured. One good way to approach this is to
specify exactly which flows are to be measured, and what reports
will be required. Specifying the flows should make it obvious
where meters will have to be placed so that the flows can be
observed, whether PCs will be adequate for the task, etc..
- Install meters. As well as actually placing the meter hosts this
includes making sure that they are configured correctly, with
appropriate IP addresses, SNMP community strings, etc.
- Develop the rule set (and a standby rule set). The degree of
difficulty here depends on how much is known in advance about the
traffic. One possible approach is to start with the meter default
rule set and measure how much traffic there is for each PeerType.
(This is a good way to verify that NeTraMet and NeMaC are working
properly). You can now add rules so as to increase the granularity
of the flows; this will of course increase the number of flows to
be collected, and force the meter's garbage collector to work
harder. Another approach is to try a rule set with very fine
granularity (i.e. one which Pushes all the address attributes),
then observing how many flows are collected every few minutes.
Nevil Brownlee [Page 29]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
- Develop a strategy for controlling meter reader. This means
setting the meter's maximum number of flows, the collection
interval, how breaks between flow data files will be handled, how
often NeMaC should check that the meter is running, etc.
- Develop application(s) to process the collected flow data and
produce the required files and reports.
- Test run. Monitor the system, then refine the rule sets and meter
reading strategy until the overall system performance is
satisfactory.
This process can take quite a long time, but the overall result is well
worth the effort.
At the University of Auckland we run two sets of meters. One of these
measures the traffic entering and leaving our University network, and
generates usage reports for all our Internet users. This has been in
production since about mid-1995.
The other set consists of meters which are distributed at Universities
throughout New Zealand. They provide continuous traffic flow
measurements at five-minute intervals for all the links making up the
Universities' network (Kawaihiko); this system has been in production
since January 1996, and has already proved very useful in planning the
network's development.
7 References
8 Acknowledgments
This memo documents the implementation work on traffic flow measurement
here at the University of Auckland. Many of my University colleagues
have contributed significantly to this work, especially Russell Fulton
(who developed the rules sets, Perl scripts and Cron jobs which produce
our traffic usage reports automatically week after week) and John White
(for his patient help in documenting the project).
9 References
[1] Brownlee, N., Mills, C., and Ruth, G., "Traffic Flow
Measurement: Architecture," Internet Draft (work in progress),
Nevil Brownlee [Page 30]
INTERNET-DRAFT Traffic Flow Measurement: Experiences May 1996
The University of Auckland, Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., GTE
Laboratories, Inc, April 1996.
[2] Brownlee, N., "Traffic Flow Measurement: Meter MIB,"
Internet Draft (work in progress), The University of Auckland,
April 1996.
[3] CRYNWR Packer Drivers distribution site:
http://www.crynwr.com/
[4] Case J., McCloghrie K., Rose M., and Waldbusser S.,
"Structure of Management Information for version 2 of the
Simple Network Managemenet Protocol," RFC 1902, SNMP Research
Inc., Hughes LAN Systems, Dover Beach Consulting, Carnegie
Mellon University, April 1993.
[5] IBM Corporation, "IBM PC Technical Reference Manual," 1984.
[6] Waterloo TCP distribution site: http://www.kiae.su:8090/
___[Kiarchive_root_directory]/msdos/tcpip/waterloo
[7] CMU SNMP distribution site:
ftp://lancaster.andrew.cmu.edu/pub/snmp-dist
[8] libpcap distribution site:
ftp://ftp.ee.lbl.gov/libpcap-*.tar.gz
10 Security Considerations
Security issues are not discussed in detail in this document. The
meter's management and collection protocols are responsible for
providing sufficient data integrity and confidentiality.
11 Author's Address
Nevil Brownlee
The University of Auckland
Phone: +64 9 373 7599 x8941
E-mail: n.brownlee@auckland.ac.nz
Nevil Brownlee [Page 31]
