ffProbe is a new pipelined parallel implementation of a NetFlow probe built on top of FastFlow, a parallel programming framework for multicore platforms based on non-blocking lock-free/fence-free synchronization mechanisms. ffProbe uses PF_RING for efficient low-latency packets capture.

Thanks to an efficient design, ffProbe is able to scale with the number of cores used and to process up to 10 Million Packets per Second using a commodity 8-cores processor.

For more information about ffProbe implementation, result and comparison with other open source solutions, please check the paper "Network Monitoring on Multicores with Algorithmic Skeletons".

If you use ffProbe for scientific purposes, please cite our paper:

"Network Monitoring on Multicores with Algorithmic Skeletons", M. Danelutto, L. Deri, D. De Sensi

To let ffProbe work, PF_RING and libpcap need to be installed on the machine.

Fetch ffProbe by typing:

$ git clone git://github.com/DanieleDeSensi/ffProbe.git
$ cd ffProbe

Compile it with:

$ make

After that, install it with

$ make install

Run ffProbe with:

$ sudo ffProbe -i eth0

IMPORTANT: You may need sudoers rights to read packets from network interface.

If you need to read from multiple interfaces at the same time (or from multiple PF_RING DNA queues), you can do it in two different ways:

• Use a separate ffProbe instance for each interface.
• Use a single ffProbe instance in multireader mode. If you want to use this mode you have to recompile ffProbe with -DMULTIPLE_READERS. In this case, when you run ffProbe, you need to specify all the interfaces with -i parameter by separating them by an underscore (e.g. -i eth1_eth2_..._ethn) and to specify the number of interfaces with -r n.

According to the results presented in the paper, is highly suggested to use a separate ffProbe instance for each interface instead of using the multi-reader mode.

• -i <captureInterface>: Interface name from which packets are captured. This is the only mandatory parameter.

• --sequential: Executes the probe sequentially.

• -d <idleTimeout>: It specifies the maximum (seconds) flow idle lifetime [default 30].

• -l <lifetimeTimeout>: It specifies the maximum (seconds) flow lifetime [default 120].

• -q <queueTimeout>: It specifies after how many seconds expired flows (queued before delivery) are emitted [default 30].

• -r <readers>: It specifies how many reader threads to use to read from different interfaces in multi-reader mode [default 1].

• -w <workers>: It specifies how many threads manage the hash table [default 1]. hashSize % (workers) must be equals to 0.

• -e <exporters>: It specifies if the exporter is executed by an indipendent thread (1) or if it's executed by the same thread of one of the workers (0) [default 1].

• -j <cores> or --cores <cores>: It specifies the identifiers of the cores on which the stages of the pipeline should be mapped [default 0]. The cores identifiers must be separated by an underscore (e.g. 0_1_2_3). The stages of the pipeline will be mapped in the same order.

• -u <socket>: It specifies the identifier of the processor socket on which the process will run [default 0].

• -s <hashSize>: It specifies the size of the hash table where the flows are stored [default 32762]. hashSize % (workers) must be equals to 0, moreover hashSize must not be a power of 2.

• -m <maxActiveFlows>: Limit the number of active flows for one worker. This is useful if you want to limit the memory used by ffProbe [default 3000000].

• -x <cnt>: Cnt is the maximum number of packets to process before returning from reading, but is not a minimum number. If less than cnt packets are present, only those packets will be processed. If no packets are presents, read returns immediately. A value of -1 means "process packets until there is at least one packet on the buffer". This can be dangerous because if the packets rate is very high the program will always find packets in the buffer and so can fill the memory. A value of -1 when reading a live capture causes all the packets in the file to be processed [default 10000].

• -f <outputFile>: Print the flows in textual format on a file.

• -z <flowsPerTaskCheck>: Number of flows to check for expiration after the arrival of a task to a worker. (-1 is all) [default 200].

• -c <collector> or --collector <collector>: Host of the Netflow collector [default 127.0.0.1].

• -p <port> or --port <port>: Port of the Netflow collector [default 2055].

• -y <minFlowSize>: Minimum TCP flow size (in bytes). If a TCP flow is shorter than the specified size the flow is not emitted. 0 is unlimited [default unlimited].

• -n or --nopromisc: Disables the 'Promiscuous' mode on the interface.

• -h: Prints the help page.