ntop Traffic Monitoring
Like the PySNMP script in Chapter 7, Network Monitoring with Python – Part 1, and the NetFlow parser script in this chapter, we can use Python scripts to handle low-level tasks on the wire. However, there are tools such as Cacti, which is an all-in-one open source package that include data collection (pollers), data storage (RRDs), and a web frontend for visualization. These tools can save you a lot of work by packing the frequently used features and software in one package.
In the case of NetFlow, there are several open source and commercial NetFlow collectors we can choose from. If we do a quick search for the top N open-source NetFlow analysers, we will see several comparison studies for different tools.
Each one has its strengths and weaknesses; which one to use is a matter of preference, platform, and appetite for customization. I would recommend choosing a tool that would support both v5 and v9, and potentially sFlow. A secondary consideration would...
