Recording Information About Traffic Flows

You use the IPQoS flowacct module to collect information about traffic flows. For example, you can collect source and destination addresses, number of packets in a flow, and similar data. The process of accumulating and recording information about flows is called flow accounting.

The results of flow accounting on traffic of a particular class are recorded in a table of flow records. Each flow record consists of a series of attributes. These attributes contain data about traffic flows of a particular class over an interval of time. For a list of the flowacct attributes, refer to Table 37-4.

Flow accounting is particularly useful for billing clients as is defined in their service-level agreements (SLAs). You can also use flow accounting to obtain flow statistics for critical applications. This section contains tasks for using flowacct with the Solaris extended accounting facility to obtain data on traffic flows.

The following information is contained in sources outside this chapter:

• For instructions on creating an action statement for flowacct in the IPQoS configuration file, refer to How to Configure Flow Control in the IPQoS Configuration File.

• To learn how flowacct works, refer to Classifier Module.

• For technical information, refer to the flowacct(7ipp) man page.

How to Create a File for Flow-Accounting Data

Before you add a flowacct action to the IPQoS configuration file, you must create a file for flow records from the flowacct module. You use the acctadm command for this purpose. acctadm can record either basic attributes or extended attributes in the file. All flowacct attributes are listed in Table 37-4. For detailed information about acctadm, refer to the acctadm(1M) man page.

1. Assume the Primary Administrator role, or become superuser, on the IPQoS-enabled system.

   The Primary Administrator role includes the Primary Administrator profile. To create the role and assign the role to a user, see Chapter 2, Working With the Solaris Management Console (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration.

2. Create a basic flow-accounting file.

   The following example shows how to create a basic flow-accounting file for the premium web server that is configured in Example 34-1.

   # /usr/sbin/acctadm -e basic -f /var/ipqos/goldweb/account.info flow

   acctadm -e

   Invokes acctadm with the -e option. The -e option enables the arguments that follow.

   basic

   States that only data for the eight basic flowacct attributes is to be recorded in the file.

   /var/ipqos/goldweb/account.info

   Specifies the fully qualified path name of the file to hold the flow records from flowacct.

   flow

   Instructs acctadm to enable flow accounting.

3. View information about flow accounting on the IPQoS system by typing acctadm without arguments.

   acctadm generates the following output:

   Task accounting: inactive
          Task accounting file: none
        Tracked task resources: none
      Untracked task resources: extended
            Process accounting: inactive
       Process accounting file: none
     Tracked process resources: none
   Untracked process resources: extended,host,mstate
               Flow accounting: active
          Flow accounting file: /var/ipqos/goldweb/account.info
        Tracked flow resources: basic
      Untracked flow resources: dsfield,ctime,lseen,projid,uid

   All entries but the last four are for use with the Solaris Resource Manager feature. The next table explains the entries that are specific to IPQoS.

   Entry	Description
   Flow accounting: active	Indicates that flow accounting is turned on.
   Flow accounting file: /var/ipqos/goldweb/account.info	Gives the name of the current flow-accounting file.
   Tracked flow resources: basic	Indicates that only the basic flow attributes are tracked.
   Untracked flow resources: dsfield,ctime,lseen,projid,uid	Lists the flowacct attributes that are not tracked in the file.

4. (Optional) Add the extended attributes to the accounting file.

   # acctadm -e extended -f /var/ipqos/goldweb/account.info flow

5. (Optional) Return to recording only the basic attributes in the accounting file.

   # acctadm -d extended -e basic -f /var/ipqos/goldweb/account.info

   The -d option disables extended accounting.

6. View the contents of a flow-accounting file.

   Instructions for viewing the contents of a flow-accounting file are in Perl Interface to libexacct in System Administration Guide: Solaris Containers-Resource Management and Solaris Zones.

See Also

• For detailed information on the extended accounting feature, refer to Chapter 4, Extended Accounting (Overview), in System Administration Guide: Solaris Containers-Resource Management and Solaris Zones.

• To define flowacct parameters in the IPQoS configuration file, refer to How to Enable Accounting for a Class in the IPQoS Configuration File.

• To print the data in the file that was created with acctadm, refer to Perl Interface to libexacct in System Administration Guide: Solaris Containers-Resource Management and Solaris Zones.