VITALS > VIEW
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The Vitals page provides insight on the health of the server that is receiving the NetFlows.



By periodically reviewing the vitals page, the following can be determined:
- CPU: Average CPU utilization for the computer the NetFlow Collector is installed on.
- Avail Mem: Available Memory displays how much memory is being consumed by all programs on
the computer. It is not specific to NetFlows being captured. NOTE: Scrutinizer will
grab more and more memory depending on how big a memory bucket it needs to save data and it
will not shrink unless the machine is rebooted. This is not a memory leak.
- Avail HDD: Available Hard Drive displays the amount of hard drive space that is being
consumed. After an initial period of a few weeks/months, this should stop growing providing that
the volume of netflow stays about the same. This statistic is best viewed by clicking on the
or
icons as they will provide
an idea on how long the hard drive space will hold out.
- Average Conversations: per second in a 5 minute interval trend: This is a measure of the number
of conversations being observed. Each Netflow packet sent can contain information on as many as
30 conversations.
- Average NetFlows: per second in a 5 minute interval trend.
- Write Time: represents how long it is taking to write each conversation to the database.
- Flow Packets Dropped: This trend should always be blank. If it is showing a trend, flow packets
are being dropped. Click Here to learn how to alleviate this issue.
- Available Flow Buffer Queue: Ideally, this trend should be at 100%. If it is showing movement,
this means that flows are backing up in the buffer queue for processing.
Click Here to learn more about this topic.
- Connections: Tracks the number of connections that are being opened on the MySQL server.
Excessive connections results in reduced performance on the MySQL server. NOTE: other applications
sharing the same mysql will cause this number to increase.
- Queries: Tracks the number of queries made to MySQL. The more queries indicates
heavier load to the MySQL server. Generally there will be spikes every 5 minutes. Bigger
spikes at 30 minutes, bigger spikes at 2 hours, bigger spikes at 12 hour intervals, etc.
This indicates rolling up statistics done by the stored procedures. This vital is important
to watch if the netflow collector is sharing the MySQL server with other applications.
- KBU: Key Blocks Unused - The number of unused blocks in the key cache. This value
can be used to determine how much of the key cache is in use; see the discussion of
key_buffer_size:
“System Variables” . This variable was added in MySQL 4.1.2.
(NOTE: THIS DIGRESSES IN MATHEMATICAL FORMULAS THAT MEASURE SYSTEM BUFFER USAGE)
- KRR: Key Read Requests - The number of requests to read a key block from the cache.
A high number requested means the server is busy.
- KWR: Key Write Requests - The number of requests to write a key block to the cache.
A high number of requests means the server is busy.
The flow collector can listen on multiple ports simultaneously. The defaults are
2055, 4739, 9996 and 6343 however, more can be added.
Click on the different listener ports to
view total packet rate per port. Below are all packet rates per device sending on the
selected listening port.

Visit Settings -> Configuration to modify the listener ports.
Collected flow packets are moved into a very large buffer for processing. When the buffer is full
the collector service will drop flow packets received until there is room in the buffer for more packets.
Observe the Available flow buffer queue percentage trend. If it is down from 100% available, this
indicates that flow packets are queuing up for processing. If the Available Queue goes down to 0%,
the Dropped Packets trend will start showing data.

Optimal Server hardware will provide more resources to the software's
backend and help alleviate this problem. A second flow collecting server can also be purchased to address
this issue.
Be sure to click on the
,
and
icons as these buttons will help you recognize trends.
displays 24 hours of data in 5 minute intervals
displays 7 days of data in 30 minute intervals
displays 31 days of data in 2 hour intervals
displays 1 year of data in 1 day intervals
Would you like to see a feature added to Scrutinizer?
Click Here
and tell us about your feature request.
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