= !NetFlow Dashboard =

[[Image(Screenshots:screen-mini.png, right, nolink)]]

== About ==
!NetFlow Dashboard is an open-source project that provides a web interface for "near real-time" analysis of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflow NetFlow] traffic.  It's designed to aggregate network accounting data in such a way as to allow easy diagnosis of traffic anomalies.  It is '''not''' intended to replace off-the-shelf utilities that measure bandwidth usage.  Those are typically SNMP-based and focus on "snapshotting" network throughput without giving a detailed look into specific TCP/IP connections or application usage.  This is where !NetFlow excels.

The [http://dev.netflowdashboard.com/ development site] also serves as a public demo.  [wiki:MoreAbout This page] gives more information on the background of !NetFlow Dashboard, insight into some design decisions, and a vague feel for its future.  For the truly bored, read about the NFDB [wiki:DevTeam team].

== Design ==
!NetFlow Dashboard attempts to overcome the historical difficulties with database storage of !NetFlow datagrams through a carefully designed database schema using [http://www.postgresql.org/ PostgreSQL].  Partitioning allows us to store information as "time slices" that improve the performance of the application under typical usage patterns.  The source code is distributed under a 2-clause [http://trac.netflowdashboard.com/netflowdashboard/browser/trunk/docs/LICENSE BSD license].

Bug fixes and feature enhancements should be tracked with tickets.  Please look there before asking if a particular bug or feature request has been acknowledged.

== Portability ==
The application is designed and packaged primarily for [http://www.openbsd.org/ OpenBSD].  The main developer uses !NetFlow Dashboard for monitoring his networks using a combination of OpenBSD, [http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=pf&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=OpenBSD+Current&arch=i386&format=html pf(4)], [http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=pflow&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=OpenBSD+Current&arch=i386&format=html pflow(4)], and Damien Miller's [http://www.mindrot.org/projects/flowd/ flowd] collector.  The average Systems/Network Administrator should be able to install the application from source on similar UNIX-like systems (Linux, FreeBSD, etc).  We do not intend to support other database engines (MySQL, SQLite, etc).

== Installation ==
!NetFlow Dashboard is not quite ready for general consumption.  An OpenBSD port and a general source distribution will be released soon.  Brave users are welcome to check out the source code from the public Subversion repository and [wiki:InstallNotes install manually].  There is also a [http://www.dixongroup.net/mailman/listinfo/nfdb-users mailing list] available for NFDB users.

Enjoy!

''The !NetFlow Dashboard team''