Data collection of flow applications

Flows are categorized in applications using the Classification Engine. OpenNMS supports summing up the bytesIn/bytesOut data of flow records based on these flow applications and the collection of this data. It gives you the possibility of profiling the network throughput by an application.

The flow classification engine includes a predefined set of rules, which defines over 6200 applications for basic communication protocols. If you don’t want to collect this kind of data, in the UI, click the gears icon in the top right and under Flow Management click Manage Flow Classification. In the Settings tab, disable predefined rules.

Configure data collection

To enable data collection for flows you need to enable the applicationDataCollection flag in the adapter’s definition. Furthermore, you have to ensure that a valid package definition exists inside the adapter’s definition. This may not be necessary when using Newts- or Cortex-based storage. Note that data collection on flow applications also works without enabling thresholding on flow applications.

Example of enabling data collection for the NetFlow v9 adapter in telemetryd-configuration.xml
...
    <queue name="Netflow-9">
        <adapter name="Netflow-9-Adapter" class-name="org.opennms.netmgt.telemetry.protocols.netflow.adapter.netflow9.Netflow9Adapter" enabled="true">
            <parameter key="applicationDataCollection" value="true"/>
            <parameter key="applicationThresholding" value="false"/>
            <package name="Netflow-9-Default">
                <rrd step="300">
                    <rra>RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:1:2016</rra>
                    <rra>RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:12:1488</rra>
                    <rra>RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:288:366</rra>
                    <rra>RRA:MAX:0.5:288:366</rra>
                    <rra>RRA:MIN:0.5:288:366</rra>
                </rrd>
            </package>
        </adapter>
    </queue>
...

For step-size and idle timeout refer to the Thresholding flow applications section.