This guide covers production-grade NetFlow tooling. Start with nfdump for small environments, pmacct + ClickHouse for mid-scale, and GoFlow2 + Kafka for carrier-grade.
ip flow-cache timeout active 1 # Export every 1 min (active flows) ip flow-cache timeout inactive 15 # Export after 15 sec idle ip flow-cache timeout fast 30 # For TCP FIN/RST : Shorter timers = more exports = higher CPU/network load. Longer timers = delayed visibility. 3. NetFlow Tool Stack Architecture A production NetFlow deployment has four layers : Layer 1: Exporters (Network Devices) Configure routers/switches/firewalls to send NetFlow. netflow tools
(v5 to collector 192.168.1.100):
softflowd -D -i eth0 -v 5 -n 192.168.1.100:2055 Receives UDP datagrams, parses, stores to disk/time-series DB. This guide covers production-grade NetFlow tooling