FLOW-IMPORT(1)

💖 FLOW-IMPORT(1) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to flow-import — it's a lil command from the flow-tools squad (section 1 of the manual, if you're keeping score) and it is literally the glow-up station for your flow data. let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

flow-import — bestie, this one imports flows into flow-tools from other NetFlow packages. it's giving translator, it's giving exchange student, it's giving "i speak cflowd, i speak CSV, i speak flow-tools." 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

flow-import [ -h ]  [ -b big|little ]  [ -d debug_level ]  [ -f format ]
[ -m mask_fields ]  [ -V pdu_version ]  [ -z z_level ]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so like. the flow-import utility converts data from cflowd and ASCII CSV files into flow-tools format. that's it, that's the whole job, and it does it flawlessly. main character energy fr fr ✨

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -b big|little — the byte order of the output. big or little, pick your fighter, no in-between 💜
• -d debug_level — turn on debugging. yes queen, spill the tea 🍓
• -f format — the export format. supported formats are:

0 cflowd
2 ASCII CSV
3 Cisco NFCollector

• -h — display help. when in doubt, ask for help, that's self-care 🧚
• -m mask_fields — select fields for cflowd and ASCII formats. the mask_fields is built from a bitwise OR of the following (copy these exactly bestie, no typos, they're hex and they know it):

UNIX_SECS       0x0000000000000001LL
UNIX_NSECS      0x0000000000000002LL
SYSUPTIME       0x0000000000000004LL
EXADDR          0x0000000000000008LL

DFLOWS          0x0000000000000010LL
DPKTS           0x0000000000000020LL
DOCTETS         0x0000000000000040LL
FIRST           0x0000000000000080LL

LAST            0x0000000000000100LL
ENGINE_TYPE     0x0000000000000200LL
ENGINE_ID       0x0000000000000400LL

SRCADDR         0x0000000000001000LL
DSTADDR         0x0000000000002000LL
SRC_PREFIX      0x0000000000004000LL
DST_PREFIX      0x0000000000008000LL
NEXTHOP         0x0000000000010000LL
INPUT           0x0000000000020000LL
OUTPUT          0x0000000000040000LL
SRCPORT         0x0000000000080000LL

DSTPORT         0x0000000000100000LL
PROT            0x0000000000200000LL
TOS             0x0000000000400000LL
TCP_FLAGS       0x0000000000800000LL

SRC_MASK        0x0000000001000000LL
DST_MASK        0x0000000002000000LL
SRC_AS          0x0000000004000000LL
DST_AS          0x0000000008000000LL

IN_ENCAPS       0x0000000010000000LL
OUT_ENCAPS      0x0000000020000000LL
PEER_NEXTHOP    0x0000000040000000LL
ROUTER_SC       0x0000000080000000LL
EXTRA_PKTS      0x0000000100000000LL
MARKED_TOS      0x0000000200000000LL

the default value is all fields applicable to the pdu_version. so if you don't pick, you get everything and honestly? iconic. 👑

• -V pdu_version — use pdu_version format output. here's the whole menu, no skips:

1    NetFlow version 1 (No sequence numbers, AS, or mask)
5    NetFlow version 5
6    NetFlow version 6 (5+ Encapsulation size)
7    NetFlow version 7 (Catalyst switches)
8.1  NetFlow AS Aggregation
8.2  NetFlow Proto Port Aggregation
8.3  NetFlow Source Prefix Aggregation
8.4  NetFlow Destination Prefix Aggregation
8.5  NetFlow Prefix Aggregation
8.6  NetFlow Destination (Catalyst switches)
8.7  NetFlow Source Destination (Catalyst switches)
8.8  NetFlow Full Flow (Catalyst switches)
8.9  NetFlow ToS AS Aggregation
8.10 NetFlow ToS Proto Port Aggregation
8.11 NetFlow ToS Source Prefix Aggregation
8.12 NetFlow ToS Destination Prefix Aggregation
8.13 NetFlow ToS Prefix Aggregation
8.14 NetFlow ToS Prefix Port Aggregation
1005 Flow-Tools tagged version 5

• -z z_level — configure compression level to z_level. 0 is disabled (no compression), 9 is highest compression. glow up your disk space, bestie 💅

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🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

💫 example one 💫

convert the cflowd file flows.cflowd to the flow-tools file flows. store as Version 5 with compression level 5.

flow-import -V5 -z5 -f0 < flows.cflowd > flows

💫 example two 💫

convert the ASCII CSV data in flows.ascii to flow-tools format. the ASCII data must include all fields represented by 0xFF31EF in the order listed above. store as Version 5 with no compression.

flow-import -z0 -f2 -m0xFF31EF < flows.ascii > flows

note bestie: "in the order listed above" is doing a LOT of heavy lifting there. respect the order. the order is sacred. 🙈

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💀 BUGS 💀

the pcap format is a hack. that's it, that's the bug note, we're not elaborating, the manpage said it and we're just the messenger 😭

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Mark Fullmer <maf@splintered.net> — legend behaviour, fr fr 🫶

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

flow-tools(1) — go read it, it's the whole squad 💖

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and that's a wrap babes 💅 this was the flow-import page, straight out of the flow-tools collection, dated 26 Август 2010. slay, go convert something. 🌸✨🦋