Precise packet timestamping is a key feature for network traffic analysis and troubleshooting. Traditionally many people use FPGA-based NICs with precise timestamping (e.g. Napatech, Silicom) even though a good precision can be obtained with PTP-based NICs such as many Intel … Continue reading
Using ntopng as network sensor for SecurityOnion (and integrated with Suricata)
SecurityOnion (SO) is a popular Linux distribution for threat hunting and security. It included ElasticSearch as backend for storing alerts as well as Kibana-based web interface. SO includes out of the box a few sensors such as Suricata that is … Continue reading
Embedding ntop: Nokia Beacon and Ubiquity UniFi Dream Machine
The latest generation of network devices are pretty powerful and open. This means that such devices ship with a Linux-based distribution such as OpenWRT or UniFI OS. In these devices it is possible to install third party software as the … Continue reading
Using ntop tools on VyOS
VyOS is a popular open-source router and firewall platform based on Linux, and some of our users asked us to support it natively. This post explains you how to achieve that in a few simple steps. Prerequisites As VyOS is … Continue reading
Introducing nProbe 9.2: Collection Pass-Through and Reforge, OpenWRT support, Flexible JSON-export
This is to announce the release of nProbe 9.2. The main new features of this release are focused on flow collection speed and flexibility in particular for modern JSON-based flow consumers. This is to enable applications relying on nProbe, e.g. … Continue reading
Introducing n2disk 3.6: full L7 support, fast flow export, replay rate control
This is to announce a new n2disk release 3.6. This release adds full support for indexing and retrieving traffic based on the Layer-7 application protocol. This can now be enabled even when flow export is disabled, and it is possible … Continue reading
Introducing PF_RING 7.8: ZC support for new Intel adapters and much more
This is to announce a new PF_RING major release 7.8. The main changes in this release include: The new ice ZC driver supporting E800 Series 100 Gigabit Intel adapters. Hardware timestamp support for packet trailers and keyframes generated by Arista … Continue reading
Using ElasticSearch to Store and Correlate Ntopng Alarms
With the introduction of ntopng endpoints and recipients, it is now possible to handle alerts in a flexible fashion by means of recipients. ntopng embeds a SQLite database for turn-key alert storage and reporting. However in large organizations with many … Continue reading
How Great Hashing Can (More Than) Double Application Performance
Most ntop applications (ntopng, nProbe, Cento) and libraries (FT) are based on the concept of flow processing, that merely means keeping track of all network communications. In order to implement this, network packets are decoded and, based on a “key” … Continue reading
How Attack Mitigation Works (via SNMP)
One of the greatest strengths of ntopng is its ability to correlate data originating at different layers and at multiple sources together. For example, ntopng can look at IP packets, Ethernet frames and, at the same time, poll SNMP devices. … Continue reading