Embedded packet logger for network monitoring system

Abstract

The network monitoring system (NMS) consist of three parts: data collection, data analysis and visualisation. The sensor agent is implemented on managed device and server in order to send traffic, audit log and network information for analysis. On the other hand, the unmanaged device does not have software to support the management function. Moreover, the end user or client behind L2-switch should be monitored by NMS. This paper implements embedded packet logger (EPL) for packet sniffer in switch rack. As the small switch rack is distributed in campus building, it hards to monitor and support in order to keep it safety. The embedded system can eliminate this problem. The EPL, light weight package sniffer, is implemented and embedded in RaspberryPi board, these hardware installed Linux kernel. We compare the traffic measurement and resource consumption with tcpdump(1), the EPL efficiently capture packet like tcpdump(1). Moreover, the memory and CPU consumption do not different significantly, with lower storage space than tcpdump(1).