/python-netflow

NetFlow v9 parser, collector and analyzer implemented in Python 3. Developed to be used with softflowd v0.9.9

Primary LanguagePythonMIT LicenseMIT

Python NetFlow Collector

This script is able to parse incoming UDP NetFlow packets of NetFlow v9 and v5. It used [NetFlow v9 Collector] (https://github.com/bitkeks/python-netflow-v9-softflowd) script of Dominik Pataky (dev@bitkeks.eu) as a basis.

Using the collector and analyzer

In this repo you also find main.py and analyze_json.py.

To start an example collector run python3 main.py -p 9000 -D. This will run a collector at port 9000 in debug mode. Point your flow exporter to this port on your host and after some time the first ExportPackets should appear (the flows need to expire first).

After you collected some data, main.py exports them into JSON files, simply named <timestamp>.json.

To analyze the saved traffic, run analyze_json.py <json file>. In my example script this will look like the following, with resolved hostnames and services, transfered bytes and connection duration:

2017-10-28 23:17.01: SSH     | 4.25M    | 15:27 min | localmachine-2 (<IPv4>) to localmachine-1 (<IPv4>)
2017-10-28 23:17.01: SSH     | 4.29M    | 16:22 min | remotemachine (<IPv4>) to localmachine-2 (<IPv4>)
2017-10-28 23:19.01: HTTP    | 22.79M   | 47:32 min | uwstream3.somafm.com (173.239.76.148) to localmachine-1 (<IPv4>)
2017-10-28 23:22.01: HTTPS   | 1.21M    | 3 sec     | fra16s12-in-x0e.1e100.net (2a00:1450:4001:818::200e) to localmachine-1 (<IPv6>)
2017-10-28 23:23.01: SSH     | 93.79M   | 21 sec    | remotemachine (<IPv4>) to localmachine-2 (<IPv4>)
2017-10-28 23:51.01: SSH     | 14.08M   | 1:23.09 hours | remotemachine (<IPv4>) to localmachine-2 (<IPv4>)

Feel free to customize the analyzing script, e.g. make it print some nice graphs or calculate broader statistics.

Resources

Development environment

I have specifically written this script in combination with NetFlow exports from softflowd v0.9.9 - it should work with every correct NetFlow v9 implementation though.