[announce] pyctd 0.1, a connection tracking XML-RPC server

[announce] pyctd 0.1, a connection tracking XML-RPC server

[Eric Leblond]

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Hi,

INL devel team is proud to announce the availability of pyctd, PYthon
Conntrack Daemon.

pyctd is a XML-RPC service for monitoring and altering Netfilter
connections tracking for network admins.
It has the following functionnalities :
      * Connection listing (with byterate of each connections)
      * Entries removal
      * Modification of connection mark and timeout

pyctd is a free software released under GNU General Public License.

It is based on pynetfilter_conntrack a python binding for
libnetfilter_conntrack.

By using XML-RPC, frontends can be easily built.

A PHP frontend is already available. It displays information given by
the XMLRPC server but can also enhance display by providing information
given by NuFW (mainly username of the person owning the connection).

Main developer of pyctd is Damien Boucard.

pyctd: http://software.inl.fr/trac/trac.cgi/wiki/pyctd
pyctd php frontend:
http://software.inl.fr/trac/trac.cgi/wiki/pyctd/frontends/php
pynetfilter_conntrack:
http://software.inl.fr/trac/trac.cgi/wiki/pynetfilter_conntrack
NuFW: http://www.nufw.org/

BR,
-- 
Eric Leblond <eric@inl.fr>

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Re: [announce] pyctd 0.1, a connection tracking XML-RPC server

[Pablo Neira Ayuso]

Eric Leblond wrote:
> INL devel team is proud to announce the availability of pyctd, PYthon
> Conntrack Daemon.
> 
> pyctd is a XML-RPC service for monitoring and altering Netfilter
> connections tracking for network admins.

It seems that you are producing interesting stuff for sysadmins.

> It has the following functionnalities :
>       * Connection listing (with byterate of each connections)

So, I assume that you are dumping the conntrack every N seconds, I'd 
like to know what is the impact of this in terms of performance on a 
busy firewall (lots of conntrack entries).

>       * Entries removal
>       * Modification of connection mark and timeout
> 
> pyctd is a free software released under GNU General Public License.

I don't know if you had the chance to have a look at conntrackd, its 
statistics mode is still poor but can be improved quite easily. I want 
to implement conntrack dumping in XML format via conntrackd, this can be 
interesting for 3rd party apps. My impression is that this daemon would 
look very similar to mine, so would you consider integrating this with 
conntrackd?

-- 
The dawn of the fourth age of Linux firewalling is coming; a time of 
great struggle and heroic deeds -- J.Kadlecsik got inspired by J.Morris

Re: [announce] pyctd 0.1, a connection tracking XML-RPC server

[J. Federico Hernandez]

Hi Pablo,

On 11/8/06, Pablo Neira Ayuso <pablo@netfilter.org> wrote:
> Eric Leblond wrote:
> > INL devel team is proud to announce the availability of pyctd, PYthon
> > Conntrack Daemon.
> >
> > pyctd is a XML-RPC service for monitoring and altering Netfilter
> > connections tracking for network admins.
>
> It seems that you are producing interesting stuff for sysadmins.
>
> > It has the following functionnalities :
> >       * Connection listing (with byterate of each connections)
>
> So, I assume that you are dumping the conntrack every N seconds, I'd
> like to know what is the impact of this in terms of performance on a
> busy firewall (lots of conntrack entries).
>
> >       * Entries removal
> >       * Modification of connection mark and timeout
> >
> > pyctd is a free software released under GNU General Public License.
>
> I don't know if you had the chance to have a look at conntrackd, its
> statistics mode is still poor but can be improved quite easily. I want
> to implement conntrack dumping in XML format via conntrackd, this can be
> interesting for 3rd party apps. My impression is that this daemon would
> look very similar to mine, so would you consider integrating this with
> conntrackd?

Do you know JSON? It is a lightweight data-interchange format.
With this text format is easier to implement and to use a JSON parser
than to use a XML parser. JSON has the same XML's advantages, but not
its disadvantages.
JSON is data oriented, however XML is document oriented.

If you are thinking about comunication with other apps, maybe it is
more useful that you use this format to exchange data between
conntrackd and other apps.

This is just a suggestion.

More info about JSON in www.json.org.

Regards,

-- 
Federico