GO-IPFIX

Overview

go-ipfix is an IPFIX library that can be used to implement an IPFIX exporter, which can export flow records. go-ipfix follows RFC 7011 and other referenced RFCs. Specifically, this release mainly implements the IPFIX exporting process feature and provides the required IPFIX entities such as information elements, records, sets, message, etc. In addition, this library supports loading IPFIX information elements from IANA registry, reverse information elements (enterprise ID: 29305), and information elements from the private Antrea registry (enterprise ID: 56506) to support Project Antrea.

Try it out

This IPFIX library can be used to build an exporter. Please check out the exporter tests to get an idea on how to build exporter on top of TCP and UDP transport protocols given a IPFIX collector.

Deploy stand alone IPFIX collector

To deploy a released version of the go-ipfix collector, which is used to collect, decode and log the IPFIX records, please choose one deployment manifest from the list of releases. For any given release (e.g. v0.1.0), you can deploy the collector as follows:

kubectl apply -f https://github.com/vmware/go-ipfix/releases/download/<TAG>/ipfix-collector.yaml

To deploy the latest version of the go-ipfix collector (built from the main branch), use the checked-in deployment manifest:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vmware/go-ipfix/main/build/yamls/ipfix-collector.yaml

While deploying the latest version of the go-ipfix collector, port and protocol can be configured by cloning the repository on your local setup and using the commands:

cd <directory containing this README file>/hack
./generate-manifest-collector.sh --mode dev --port <port> --proto (tcp|udp) > ../build/yamls/ipfix-collector.yaml

Parameter --mode dev will build the collector from the docker image with the "latest" tag.
Use --port <port> to specify the port used by the collector. Default is 4739.
Use --proto (tcp|udp) to specify the protocol used by the collector. Default is tcp.
For example:

./generate-manifest-collector.sh --mode dev --port 4739 --proto tcp > ../build/yamls/ipfix-collector.yaml

Start a Kafka instance

To start a Kafka server with minimum Kubernetes setup, run

kubectl apply -f ./build/yamls/kafka-flow-collector.yaml

Broker address will be kafka-service.kafka.svc:9092. Notice that KAFKA_ADVERTISED_LISTENERS for kafka-broker and broker address should be consistent and accessible from other namespaces. Also, versioned images of kafka-broker projects.registry.vmware.com/antrea/confluentinc-kafka:v6.2.0 and zookeeper projects.registry.vmware.com/antrea/confluentinc-zookeeper:v6.2.0 are used in the set-up. Proper upload of Docker images is required to support more versions.

Currently, antrea/kafka-consumer only supports decoding and logging messages with AntreaFlowMsg proto schema.

Build Registry

To build the registry from IANA registry or Antrea registry, run following commands:

go run pkg/registry/build_registry/build_registry.go [REGISTRY_NAME]
# REGISTRY_NAME: "Antrea", "IANA", ""(build both registries)

Above will generate two files: pkg/registry/registry_antrea.go and/or pkg/registry/registry_IANA.go to enable local registry loading functions.

To account for changes in either registry, please make sure to re-execute build_registry.go to regenerate corresponding go files.

Contributing

The go-ipfix project team welcomes contributions from the community. If you wish to contribute code and you have not signed our contributor license agreement (CLA), our bot will update the issue when you open a Pull Request. For any questions about the CLA process, please refer to our FAQ. For more detailed information, refer to CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

GO-IPFIX is licensed under the Apache License, version 2.0