Flewton

h1. Flewton

Flewton is an extensible Netflow collector.

h2. Building / Installing

Building Flewton requires that you have "Maven":http://maven.apache.org/ installed. To build a self-contained executable jar file run:

bc. mvn clean compile assembly:single

h2. Configuration

Refer to the comments in the sample configuration shipped with Flewton.

h2. Running

In a nutshell:

bc. java [options] -jar flewton.jar

By default, Flewton will search for its configuration file as @/etc/flewton/flewton.cfg@, @/etc/flewton.cfg@, and @./flewton.cfg@, using the first one found. You can specify a path to your configuration using the @flewton.config@ system property, for example:

bc. java -Dflewton.config=/usr/local/etc/flewton.cfg -jar flewton.jar

Flewton uses "log4j":http://logging.apache.org/log4j/1.2 for logging. By default, the log level is @INFO@ and output is sent to stdout. To customize logging, create your own log4j.properties and set the @log4j.configuration@ system property:

bc. java -Dlog4j.configuration=file:///path/to/log4.props -jar flewton.jar

h2. Implementing backends in other languages

Backends can be implemented in several languages. We currently support:

• Python
• Javascript

There are three ways you can tell Flewton about your external backends:

1. Place them in @/etc/flewton@.
2. Run flewton with @-Dflewton.backend_path@, placing your external backends in that directory.
3. Include your backends in the classpath so they can be loaded as resources by the classloader.

Identify your external backends in @flewton.cfg@ by using their entire names, e.g.: @js/my/AwesomeBackend.js@ or @py/my/CoolerBackend.py@. The default cfg that ships with flewton contains a few commented out examples, the source for which can also be found in the Flewton source code.

h3. Python

• Your class should extend @AbstractBackend@.
• Your class should have an @init@ method that accepts an instance of @HierarchicalConfiguration@.
• Module names must begin with '@py/@' to be properly identified as python. E.g.: @py/my/module/path/Foo.py@

h3. Javascript

• Your javascript should export two methods: @init(config)@ and @write(record)@. The class types for @config@ and @record@ are the same as they would be in Java.

h2. Known Issues

• Currently only Netflow v5 is supported, but additional Netflow formats are possible by implementing decoder classes as @com.rackspace.flewton.RecordvN@ (where @N@ is the version). See @com.rackspace.flewton.Recordv5@ for an example. Patches welcome.

h2. About

Flewton was developed by "Gary Dusbabek":mailto:gary.dusbabek@rackspace.com and "Eric Evans":mailto:eevans@rackspace.com and made open-source by "Rackspace":http://www.rackspace.com.