Flexible NetFlow enables you to define your own records for a Flexible NetFlow flow monitor cache by specifying the key and nonkey fields to customize the data collection to your specific requirements. When you define your own records for a Flexible NetFlow flow monitor cache, they are referred to as user-defined records . The values in nonkey fields are added to flows to provide additional information about the traffic in the flows. A change in the value of a nonkey field does not create a new flow. In most cases the values for nonkey fields are taken from only the first packet in the flow. Flexible NetFlow enables you to capture counter values such as the number of bytes and packets in a flow as nonkey fields.
You can create user-defined records for applications such as QoS and bandwidth monitoring, application and end user traffic profiling, and security monitoring for dDoS attacks. Flexible NetFlow also includes several predefined records that emulate original NetFlow.
Flexible NetFlow user-defined records provide the capability to monitor a contiguous section of a packet of a user-configurable size, and use it in a flow record as a key or a nonkey field along with other fields and attributes of the packet. The section may include any Layer 3 data from the packet.
The packet section fields allow the user to monitor any packet fields that are not covered by the Flexible NetFlow predefined keys. The ability to analyze packet fields that are not collected with the predefined keys enables more detailed traffic monitoring, facilitates the investigation of dDoS attacks, and enables implementation of other security applications such as URL monitoring.
Flexible NetFlow provides predefined types of packet sections of a user-configurable size. The following Flexible NetFlow commands (used in Flexible NetFlow flow record configuration mode) can be used to configure the predefined types of packet sections:
- collect ipv4 section header size bytes --Starts capturing the number of bytes specified by the bytesargument from the beginning of the IPv4 header of each packet.
- collect ipv4 section payload size bytes --Starts capturing bytes immediately after the IPv4 header from each packet. The number of bytes captured is specified by the bytes argument.
- collect ipv6 section header size bytes --Starts capturing the number of bytes specified by the bytesargument from the beginning of the IPv6 header of each packet.
- collect ipv6 section payload size bytes --Starts capturing bytes immediately after the IPv6 header from each packet. The number of bytes captured is specified by the bytes argument.
The bytes values are the sizes in bytes of these fields in the flow record. If the corresponding fragment of the packet is smaller than the requested section size, Flexible NetFlow will fill the rest of the section field in the flow record with zeros. If the packet type does not match the requested section type, Flexible NetFlow will fill the entire section field in the flow record with zeros.
Flexible NetFlow adds a new Version 9 export format field type for the header and packet section types. Flexible NetFlow will communicate to the NetFlow collector the configured section sizes in the corresponding Version 9 export template fields. The payload sections will have a corresponding length field that can be used to collect the actual size of the collected section.
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In Cisco IOS Release 12.2(50)SY, packet sections and payloads are not supported.
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