The IPFIX sensor receives traffic data from an IPFIX (Internet Protocol Flow Information Export) compatible device and shows traffic by type. There are several filter options available to divide traffic into different channels. Ensure your device supports IPFIX when using this sensor.
You have to enable IPFIX export on the device for this sensor to work. The device must send the flow data stream to the IP address of the PRTG probe system on which the sensor is set up (either a local or remote probe).
This sensor type cannot be used in cluster mode. You can set it up on a local probe or remote probe only, not on a cluster probe.
Knowledge Base: How can I change the default groups and channels for xFlow and Packet Sniffer sensors?
Knowledge Base: What is the Active Flow Timeout in Flow sensors?
For a general introduction to the technology behind flow monitoring, see section Monitoring Bandwidth via Flows.
This sensor type can have a high impact on the performance of your monitoring system. Please use it with care! We recommend that you use no more than 50 sensors of this sensor type on each probe.
You cannot add this sensor type to the Hosted Probe of a PRTG hosted by Paessler instance. If you want to use this sensor type, please add it to a remote probe device.
The Add Sensor dialog appears when you manually add a new sensor to a device. It only shows the setting fields that are required for creating the sensor. Therefore, you will not see all setting fields in this dialog. You can change (nearly) all settings in the sensor's Settings tab later.
On the details page of a sensor, click the Settings tab to change its settings.
Usually, a sensor connects to the IP Address or DNS Name of the parent device where you created this sensor. See the Device Settings for details. For some sensor types, you can define the monitoring target explicitly in the sensor settings. See below for details on available settings.
Enter one or more Tags, separated by spaces or commas. You can use tags to group sensors and use tag–filtered views later on. Tags are not case sensitive. We recommend that you use the default value.
You can add additional tags to the sensor if you like. Other tags are automatically inherited from objects further up in the device tree. These are visible above as Parent Tags.
It is not possible to enter tags with a leading plus (+) or minus (-) sign, nor tags with round parentheses (()) or angle brackets (<>).
Enter the UDP port number on which the flow packets are received. It must match the one you have configured in the IPFIX export options of your hardware router device. Please enter an integer value.
Enter the IP address of the sending device you want to receive the IPFIX data from. Enter an IP address to receive data from a specific device only, or leave the field empty to receive data from any device on the specified port.
Select the IP address(es) on which PRTG listens to IPFIX packets. The list of IP addresses shown here is specific to your setup.
To select an IP address, add a check mark in front of the respective line or in the top level box to select all. The IP address selected here must match the one configured in the IPFIX export options of your hardware router device.
Enter a time span in minutes after which new flow data must be received. If the timeout is reached and no new data is received, the sensor may switch to an Unknown status. Please enter an integer value. We recommend that you set this one minute longer than the respective timeout configured in your hardware router device.
For more details about this setting, see this Knowledge Base: What is the Active Flow Timeout in Flow sensors?
If you set this value too low, flow information might be lost!
Off: The standard flow will be used.
On: Switch into sampling mode and specify the sampling rate below.
This field is only visible when sampling mode is On above. Enter a number that matches the sampling rate in your exporter device. If the number is different, monitoring results will be incorrect. Please enter an integer value.
None (recommended): Do not write additional logfiles. Recommended for normal use cases.
Only for the 'Other' channel: Only write logfiles of data that is not filtered otherwise and therefore accounted to the default Other channel.
All stream data: Write logfiles for all data received.
Use with caution! When enabled, huge data files can be created. Please use for a short time and for debugging purposes only.
File Transfer: Traffic from FTP.
Chat: Traffic from chat and instant messaging.
Remote Control: Traffic from remote control applications, such as RDP, SSH, Telnet, and VNC.
Infrastructure: Traffic from network services, such as DHCP, DNS, Ident, ICMP, and SNMP.
NetBIOS: Traffic from NetBIOS communication.
Citrix: Traffic from Citrix applications.
Other Protocols: Traffic from various other protocols via UDP and TCP.
No (X icon): Do not account traffic of this group in its own channel. All traffic of this group is accounted to the default channel named Other.
Yes (check mark icon): Count all traffic of this group and summarize it into one channel.
Detail (magnifier icon): Count all traffic of this group and further divide it into different channels. The traffic appears in several channels as shown in the Content column.
Extensive use of this option can cause load problems on your probe system. We recommend that you set specific, well-chosen filters for the data you really want to analyze.
You can change the default configuration for groups and channels. For details, see the Knowledge Base: How can I change the default groups and channels for xFlow and Packet Sniffer sensors?
Define if you want to filter any traffic. If you leave this field empty, all traffic will be included. To include specific traffic only, define filters using a special syntax.
For detailed information, see section Filter Rules below.
First, the filters defined in the Include Filter field are considered. From this subset, you can explicitly exclude traffic, using the same syntax.
Select a channel from the list to define it as the primary channel. In the device tree, the last value of the primary channel will always be displayed below the sensor's name. The available options depend on what channels are available for this sensor.
You can set another primary channel later by clicking the pin symbol of a channel in the sensor's Overview tab.
Stack channels on top of each other: Stack channels on top of each other to create a multi-channel graph. This will generate an easy-to-read graph that visualizes the different components of your total traffic.
This option cannot be used in combination with manual Vertical Axis Scaling (available in the Sensor Channel Settings settings).
This setting is only available if stacked graphs are selected above. Choose a unit from the list. All channels with this unit will be stacked on top of each other. By default, you cannot exclude single channels from stacking if they use the selected unit. However, there is an advanced procedure to do so.
By default, all following settings are inherited from objects higher in the hierarchy and should be changed there, if necessary. Often, best practice is to change them centrally in the Root group's settings, see section Inheritance of Settings for more information. To change a setting only for this object, disable inheritance by clicking the button next to inherit from under the corresponding setting name. You will then see the options described below.
Click to disrupt the inheritance. See section Inheritance of Settings for more information.
Set sensor to down immediately: The sensor will show an error immediately after the first failed request.
Set sensor to warning for 1 interval, then set to down (recommended): After the first failed request, the sensor will show a warning status. If the following request also fails, the sensor will show an error.
Set sensor to warning for 2 intervals, then set to down: Show an error status only after three consecutively failed requests.
Set sensor to warning for 3 intervals, then set to down: Show an error status only after four consecutively failed requests.
Set sensor to warning for 4 intervals, then set to down: Show an error status only after five consecutively failed requests.
Set sensor to warning for 5 intervals, then set to down: Show an error status only after six consecutively failed requests.
Sensors that monitor via Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) always wait at least one scanning interval until they show an error. It is not possible to set a WMI sensor to Down immediately, so the first option will not apply to these sensor types. All other options can apply.
If a sensor has defined error limits for channels, it will always show a Down status immediately, so no "wait" option will apply.
If a channel uses lookup values, it will always show a Down status immediately, so no "wait" options will apply.
Inheritance for schedules, dependencies, and maintenance windows cannot be interrupted. The corresponding settings from the parent objects will always be active. However, you can define additional settings here. They will be active at the same time as the parent objects' settings.
Schedules are generally inherited. New schedules will be added to existing ones, so all schedules are active at the same time.
To terminate a current maintenance window before the defined end date, change the time entry in Maintenance Ends field to a date in the past.
Testing your dependencies is easy! Simply choose Simulate Error Status from the context menu of an object that other objects depend on. A few seconds later all dependent objects should be paused. You can check all dependencies in your PRTG installation by selecting Devices | Dependencies from the main menu bar.
This setting is not available if you choose this sensor to Use parent or to be the Master object for parent. In this case, please define delays in the parent Device Settings or in the superior Group Settings.
For more details on access rights, see section User Access Rights.
Custom channel types can be set on sensor level only.
For all flow and packet sniffer sensors there are Toplists available on the Overview tab of a sensor's detail page. Using Toplists, you can review traffic data of small time periods in great detail.
For more information, see section Toplists.
The following filter rules apply to all xFlow, IPFIX, and Packet Sniffer sensors.
The following filter rules apply to IPFIX sensors only.
IP of the sending device. This is helpful if several devices send flow data on the same port, and you want to divide the traffic of each device into a different sensor channel.
Mask values represent subnet masks in with a single number (number of contiguous bits).
To change display settings, spike filter, and limits, switch to the sensor's Overview tab and click the gear icon of a specific channel. For detailed information, see the Sensor Channel Settings section.
Click the Notification Triggers tab to change notification triggers. For detailed information, see the Sensor Notification Triggers Settings section.
For more general information about settings, see the Object Settings section.