sFlow, short for sampled Flow, is a sampling technology designed to export network devices information, namely: Interface counters (à la SNMP MIB-II); Traffic packets (à la ERSPAN). sFlow agents run on switches, routers, firewalls and other devices, and periodically export … Continue reading
Promoting Traffic Visibility: from Application Protocols to Traffic Categories in nDPI and ntopng
Often we receive emails asking question like: “how many protocols nDPI supports?”, “how do you position nDPI against commercial DPI toolkit A, B, C?”. Although these questions are reasonable, they do not grasp the significance of DPI. For years commercial … Continue reading
Securing ntopng with SSL and Let’s Encrypt
As you know ntopng web interface supports both HTTP (default) and HTTPS. The reason why ntopng does not default to HTTPS is because we provide self-signed certificates that web browsers dislike. Fortunately today you can create a free SSL certificate … Continue reading
Using nProbe and ntopng for Collecting and Visualizing Sonicwall Flows
nProbe is both a probe and a NetFlow/sFlow collector. Recently, we’ve also added added the ability to collect flows with proprietary information elements. This greatly improves nProbe flexibility as any custon, vendor-proprietary information element can be understood, correctly parsed, and … Continue reading
ntopng and Time Series: From RRD to InfluxDB, new charts with Time Shift
One of the main concern of our users is the ability to scale ntopng with a large number of hosts/protocols and hence how to scale time series. As already discussed, RRD has many limitations with the increase of number of … Continue reading
Learning the ntopng Lua API
ntopng is open source, that means you can read its code and modify it according to the GPL license. The current ntopng architecture is based on three layers where the top one is written in Lua and it is used … Continue reading
Best Practices to Secure ntopng
After a fresh install, ntopng will run using a default, basic configuration. Such configuration is meant to provide an up-and-running ntopng but does not try to secure it. Therefore, the default configuration should only be used for testing purposes in … Continue reading
How ntop built a web-based traffic analysis and flow collection with InfluxDB
A couple of days ago InfluxData hosted a ntop webinar about how we have integrated InfluxDB into ntopng. Those who have not attended it can give a look at the presentation slides as well watch the webinar. In essence: ntopng is … Continue reading
How to use ntopng in compliance with GDPR
Today the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU) 2016/679 is effective in the European Union. GDPR is designed to protect personal data and thus preserve privacy in particular as specified in articles 13 to 22, and 34. As we manufacture tools … Continue reading
ntopng goes Elastic: Introducing ElasticSearch 6 Support
As you ntopng users know, out of the Elastic toolset ntopng supports both ElasticSearch and LogStash. You can use them using the -F flag: –dump-flows|-F] <mode> | Dump expired flows. Mode: | es Dump in ElasticSearch database | Format: | … Continue reading