Mastering Python Networking

NetFlow parsing with Python

We can use Python to parse the NetFlow datagram being transported on the wire. This gives us a way to look at the NetFlow packet in detail as well as troubleshoot any NetFlow issue when they are not working as expected.

First, let's generate some traffic between the client and server across the VIRL network. We can use the built-in HTTP server module from Python to quickly launch a simple HTTP server on the VIRL host acting as the server:

cisco@Server:~$ python3 -m http.serverServing HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 8000 ...

For Python 2, the module is named SimpleHTTPServer, for example, python2 -m SimpleHTTPServer.

We can create a short loop to continuously send HTTP GET to the web server on the client:

sudo apt-get install ...