Re: [IPFIX] layer7OctetDeltaCount / layer7PacketDeltaCount

Brian Trammell <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.ietf.ipfix
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Hi, Paul, all,


On 23 May 2013, at 11:40, Paul Aitken <[email protected]> wrote:

> Brian,
> 
>> I would like to hear the community's opinion on the utility of the following two _new_ Information Elements.
>> 
>> 
>> Element ID: TBA
>> Name:       layer7OctetDeltaCount
>> Data Type:  unsigned64
>> Semantics:  deltaCounter
>> Description:
>> 
>> The number of octets, excluding IP header(s) and Layer 4 transport protocol header(s), observed for this Flow at the Observation Point since the previous report (if any).
>> 
>> 
>> Element ID: TBA
>> Name:       layer7PacketDeltaCount
>> Data Type:  unsigned64
>> Semantics:  deltaCounter
>> Description:
>> 
>> The number of packets containing at least one octet beyond the IP header(s) and Layer 4 transport protocol header(s), observed for this Flow at the Observation Point since the previous report (if any).
> 
> Using "layer 7" in the name and "layer 4" in the definition leaves it unclear whether layer 6 should be included.

Point. What's layer 6 in the IETF IP stack, though?

Let's back off from layering for a moment. How about "transportedOctetDeltaCount"?

The packet IE naming is harder though. "nonemptyPacketDeltaCount"?

> Yesterday I got to wondering what exactly a layer 4 packet is. Put another way, how often do we send packets which don't have any layer 4 content? Now I'm wondering the same about layer 7 - ie, what sort of packets would - and more importantly _would not_ - be counted by layer7PacketDeltaCount ?

All the time. TCP handshakes and pure ACKs, for one (these are the ones I care about). SCTP control chunks.  

> BTW, recall the Extended Field Specifier Format? How useful if all these IEs could be grouped under a single pair of "packetCount" and "octetCount" IEs with multiple extensions, eg packetCount.{layerN}.{delta|total}.

That'd be great. However, I'd like to implement these counters well before the complete revision of the Information Model implied by Extended Field Specifiers is complete.

Cheers,

Brian
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