SFlow Input Plugin

This service plugin produces metrics from information received by acting as a SFlow V5 collector. Currently, the plugin can collect Flow Samples of Ethernet / IPv4, IPv4 TCP and UDP headers. Counters and other header samples are ignored. Please use the netflow plugin for a more modern and sophisticated implementation.

[!CRITICAL] This plugin produces high cardinality data, which when not controlled for will cause high load on your database. Please make sure to filter the produced metrics or configure your database to avoid cardinality issues!

⭐ Telegraf v1.14.0 🏷️ network 💻 all

Service Input <!-- @/docs/includes/service_input.md -->

This plugin is a service input. Normal plugins gather metrics determined by the interval setting. Service plugins start a service to listen and wait for metrics or events to occur. Service plugins have two key differences from normal plugins:

1. The global or plugin specific interval setting may not apply
2. The CLI options of --test, --test-wait, and --once may not produce output for this plugin

Global configuration options <!-- @/docs/includes/plugin_config.md -->

Plugins support additional global and plugin configuration settings for tasks such as modifying metrics, tags, and fields, creating aliases, and configuring plugin ordering. See CONFIGURATION.md for more details.

Configuration

# SFlow V5 Protocol Listener
[[inputs.sflow]]
  ## Address to listen for sFlow packets.
  ##   example: service_address = "udp://:6343"
  ##            service_address = "udp4://:6343"
  ##            service_address = "udp6://:6343"
  service_address = "udp://:6343"

  ## Set the size of the operating system's receive buffer.
  ##   example: read_buffer_size = "64KiB"
  # read_buffer_size = ""

Metrics

• sflow
  • tags:
    • agent_address - IP address of the agent obtaining the sflow sample and sent it to this collector
    • source_id_type - type of flow_sample or flow_sample_expanded structures
    • source_id_index - index of flow_sample or flow_sample_expanded structures
    • input_ifindex - input value of flow_sample or flow_sample_expanded structures
    • output_ifindex - output value of flow_sample or flow_sample_expanded structures
    • sample_direction - source_id_index, netif_index_in and netif_index_out
    • header_protocol - header_protocol field of sampled_header structures
    • ether_type - ethernet type of an ETHERNET-ISO88023 header
    • src_ip - source IP address of IPv4 or IPv6 structures
    • src_port - source port of TCP or UDP structures
    • src_port_name - name of the source port
    • src_mac - source MAC address of an ETHERNET-ISO88023 header
    • src_vlan - source VLAN of extended_switch structure
    • src_priority - source priority of extended_switch structure
    • src_mask_len - length of source mask of extended_router structure
    • dst_ip - destination IP address of IPv4 or IPv6 structures
    • dst_port - destination port of TCP or UDP structures
    • dst_port_name - name of the destination port
    • dst_mac - destination MAC address of an ETHERNET-ISO88023 header
    • dst_vlan - destination VLAN of extended_switch structure
    • dst_priority - destination priority extended_switch structure
    • dst_mask_len - length of destinationd mask of extended_router structure
    • next_hop - next hop of extended_router structure
    • ip_version - IP version of IPv4 or IPv6 structures
    • ip_protocol - IP protocol of IPv4 or IPv6 structures
    • ip_dscp - IP DSCP of IPv4 or IPv6 structures
    • ip_ecn - IP ECN of IPv4 or IPv6 structures
    • tcp_urgent_pointer - urgent pointer of TCP structure
  • fields:
    • bytes (int) - product of frame length and packets
    • drops (int) - drops field of flow_sample or flow_sample_expanded structures
    • packets (int) - sampling_rate field of flow_sample or flow_sample_expanded structures
    • frame_length (int) - frame_length field of sampled_header structures
    • header_size (int) - header_size field of sampled_header structures
    • ip_fragment_offset (int) - ip_ver field of IPv4 structures
    • ip_header_length (int) - ip_ver field of IPv4 structures
    • ip_total_length (int) - ip_total_len field of IPv4 structures
    • ip_ttl (int) - ip_ttl field of IPv4 structures or ip_hop_limit field IPv6 structures
    • tcp_header_length (int) - size field of TCP structure. This value is specified in 32-bit words. It must be multiplied by 4 to produce a valuein bytes.
    • tcp_window_size (int) - window_size field of TCP structure
    • udp_length (int) - length field of UDP structures
    • ip_flags (int) - ip_ver field of IPv4 structures
    • tcp_flags (int) - TCP flags of TCP IP header (IPv4 or IPv6)

Troubleshooting

The sflowtool utility can be used to print sFlow packets, and compared against the metrics produced by Telegraf.

sflowtool -p 6343

If opening an issue, in addition to the output of sflowtool it will also be helpful to collect a packet capture. Adjust the interface, host and port as needed:

sudo tcpdump -s 0 -i eth0 -w telegraf-sflow.pcap host 127.0.0.1 and port 6343

Example Output

sflow,agent_address=0.0.0.0,dst_ip=10.0.0.2,dst_mac=ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff,dst_port=40042,ether_type=IPv4,header_protocol=ETHERNET-ISO88023,input_ifindex=6,ip_dscp=27,ip_ecn=0,output_ifindex=1073741823,source_id_index=3,source_id_type=0,src_ip=10.0.0.1,src_mac=ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff,src_port=443 bytes=1570i,drops=0i,frame_length=157i,header_length=128i,ip_flags=2i,ip_fragment_offset=0i,ip_total_length=139i,ip_ttl=42i,sampling_rate=10i,tcp_header_length=0i,tcp_urgent_pointer=0i,tcp_window_size=14i 1584473704793580447