Network Conversations Monitor (10062)

The Network Conversations Monitor is the primary foundational module for modern network observability within NFO. It is designed to transform high-volume, fragmented flow records into structured, enriched "conversations." This module is the recommended starting point for all new deployments, especially those requiring deep security forensics, user attribution, and cloud visibility.

Functionality

This module performs sophisticated analysis on raw telemetry to provide a complete picture of network interactions:

• Conversation Stitching (Bidirectional): Unlike traditional collectors that report two separate records for a single exchange, this module "stitches" forward and reverse flows into a single bidirectional event. It reports bytes_in/bytes_out and packets_in/packets_out fields, providing an immediate view of the symmetry and health of a connection.

• Intelligent Consolidation: It aggregates flow records that share the same 5-tuple (Source/Dest IP, Source/Dest Port, Protocol) over a Data Collection Interval (DCI). This significantly reduces the volume of data sent to your SIEM while preserving the essential details of the interaction.

• State Tracking: The module tracks the lifecycle of every conversation:

  • B (Begin): A new conversation is detected.
  • C (Continuing): An ongoing conversation that spans multiple collection intervals.
  • E (End): A conversation that has timed out or completed.

• Authoritative Deduplication: In complex networks where multiple routers see the same packet, NFO identifies the "authoritative" exporter and discards redundant records to prevent inflated traffic statistics.

• Conversation Duration: Network Conversation duration is calculated as a difference between the earliest flow_start_time of a conversation  when its state=B and the latest flow_end_time for state = C or E.

• Traffic Directionality: By defining local subnets, the module automatically labels traffic as inbound, outbound, internal, or unknown.

Supported Inputs

The Network Conversations Monitor is protocol-agnostic and normalizes a wide array of telemetry sources into a unified schema:

• Standard Protocols: NetFlow (v5, v9), IPFIX, and sFlow.
• Cloud Flow Logs: AWS VPC, Microsoft Azure NSG and VNet, Oracle Cloud (OCI), and Google Cloud (GCP) Flow Logs.
• Application Delivery: Cisco AVC, Palo Alto Networks App-ID Technology, Fortinet App Identification, Citrix AppFlow.

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Flow Enrichment

The Network Conversations Monitor serves as the primary hub for NFO's enrichment intelligence. It enriches raw flows with the following contextual metadata:

• User Identity: Maps IP addresses to Active Directory, Okta, or Azure Entra ID usernames, allowing you to see who is responsible for specific traffic.
• Cyber Threat Intelligence: Correlates source and destination IPs against real-time reputation lists (e.g., Botnets, C2 servers). Malicious communications are always reported, even if they fall outside of "Top N" traffic thresholds.
• Application Context: Identifies the specific application (e.g., Office365, Facebook, SSH) using deep packet inspection (DPI) data from modern exporters.
• Cloud & Virtualization Metadata: Adds VM names, VPC/VNET tags, and region information for AWS, Azure, GCP, and VMware environments.
• GeoIP & FQDN: Resolves IP addresses to geographic locations and Fully Qualified Domain Names.

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Configuration Parameters

To tune the module, click on 10062: Network Conversation Monitor in the NFO Web UI.

Core Logic Parameters

Parameter Name	Description	Comments
Top N per exporter (0 for all traffic)	Top N Reported Hosts per NetFlow Exporter (set to 0 to report all flows). NOTE: Conversations with malicious hosts are reported regardless whether they are in Top N by traffic volume or not!	min = 0, max = 100000, default = 50
Session report timeout, sec	Inactivity threshold to determine when a conversation has ended. When reached, an event is reported with state="E".	default - 60s (Min: 0, Max: 600). Should exceed device inactive timeout. Note: Set to 0 to disable duration/state tracking for maximum performance.
Report inactive sessions	If set to 1, report inactive session with 0 bytes/packets, even if there were no flows during DCI. If set to 0, inactive sessions are not reported	default - 0
Report long flows with cumulative bytes and packets	If set to 1, cumulative bytes and packets are reported for long sessions. If set to 0, incremental bytes and packets are reported for long flows (state = “C”)	default - 0
Enable (1) or disable (0) deduplication	If set to 1 (de-duplication enabled), the Module reports flows only from authoritative exporters	default - 0
Enable (1) or disable (0) multiplying by sampling rate	If set to 1, when flow is sampled (e.g. sFlow, sampled NetFlow/IPFIX), the sampling rate is used to multiply bytes and packets to report total traffic as statistical approximation*	default - 0
Default sampler rate	If sampling information is not available, use this rate to multiply bytes and packets to report total traffic as statistical approximation	default - 1
Enable (1) or disable (0) reporting bidirectional conversations	If set to 1, stitch client-server flows reporting bytes_in and bytes_out, packets_in and packets_out in on consolidated message	default - 0
Enable (1) or disable (0) reporting client port	If set to 1, the ephemeral client port number is reported. If set to 0, client port number is not taken into account for consolidation, and reported as 0. To preserve client ports for specific destination ports, refer to the TIP below the table	default - 1
Enable (1) or disable (0) reporting flow denied events	If set to 1, denied or rejected flows are reported. If set to 0, only allowed or accepted flows are reported	default - 1
Enable (1) or disable (0) collecting application info from devices reporting it	If set to 1, application collector is enabled. If set to 0, applications are reported only in flows containing app fields	default - 1
Enable (1) or disable (0) enriching other devices with application info	If set to 1, application collector is used to enrich all flows, even if they did not have application fields	default - 1
Output filename for application info	Path to application collector file. Used for troubleshooting purposes	default - ../../logs/app_info.log
Enable (1) or disable (0) generating end of conversation events	If set to 1, events at the end of conversations (state=E) are created and reporteed. If set to 0, events with stary=E are not reported	default - 0
Enable (1) or disable (0) SNMP enrichment	If set to 1, the Module will call SNMP service to enrich flow data with sysName and interface names. If set to 0, SNMP service is not called	default - 1
Enable (1) or disable (0) NetFlow timestamp correction	If set to 1, the Module will correct out of sequence flow_start_time and flow_end_time, which can occur due to a bug in the Netflow implementation on certain devices	default - 0

Maximizing Data Reduction by Ignoring Client Port

While NFO inherently reduces volume through flow consolidation, you can achieve massive additional gains by ignoring ephemeral client ports.

By aggregating flows based only on Source IP, Destination IP, and Destination Port, you can achieve data reduction ratios of 20x to 100x. This significantly lowers SIEM costs and improves search performance without losing visibility into the services being accessed.

• Selective Visibility: To keep client ports for specific traffic (e.g., DNS), use the List of known server destination port numbers to exempt those ports from aggregation.

Data Consolidation Parameter

Parameter Name	Description	Comments
Data Collection Interval, sec	The timeframe over which flows are consolidated.	default - 30s (Min: 5s, Max: 86400s)

Data Sets and Enrichment Parameters

Parameter Name	Description	Comments
List of known server destination port numbers	List of server destination ports to be used to determine which host is a client and which is a server. If the list is empty, the server is the one with a smaller port number. This parameter is ignored for unidirectional flows.	This parameter is pre-loaded with values from: https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.xhtml
List of local subnets	Used to identify direction for IPv4 traffic: inbound or outbound or internal	default - { 10.0.0.0,8; 172.16.0.0,12; and 192.168.0.0,16 }
List of local IPv6 prefixes	Used to identify direction for IPv6 traffic: inbound or outbound or internal	default - fc00:0:0:0:0:0:0:0,7
AWS EC2 instances list	List of EC2 instances with IPs and VPC names and other information	Provided by EDFN agent. Please see ingesting Amazon VPC Flow Logs for details
AWS VPC IPv4 Routes	List of AWS VPC IPv4 routes	Provided by EDFN agent. Please see ingesting Amazon VPC Flow Logs for details
AWS VPC IPv6 Routes	List of AWS VPC IPv6 routes	Provided by EDFN agent. Please see ingesting Amazon VPC Flow Logs for details
IPv4 address ranges for cloud services	List of IPv4 address ranges for cloud services	Provided by EDFN agent
IPv6 address ranges for cloud services	List of IPv6 address ranges for cloud services	Provided by EDFN agent
GCP VM instances list	List of Google cloud VM names	Provided by EDFN agent
GCP IPv4 routes list	List of Google cloud routes	Provided by EDFN agent
Azure VM Instances	List of Azure VM names	Provided by EDFN agent
Azure IPv4 Routes	List of Azure IPv4 routes	Provided by EDFN agent
Azure IPv6 Routes	List of Azure IPv6 routes	Provided by EDFN agent
List of Users by IPv4 address	List of Users logged in from IPv4 addresses	Provided by EDFN agent. Please see User Identity Enrichment for details
List of Users by IPv6 address	List of Users logged in from IPv6 addresses	Provided by EDFN agent. Please see User Identity Enrichment for details
Applications override list	List of App IDs and names to override applications reported by NetFlow/IPFIX	Created manually
List of Application names to be ignored	List of App names provided by DPI engines not to be collected / reported	Created manually. default - { incomplete; not-applicable; unknown-udp; unknown-tcp; unknown-p2p }
Custom Applications list	List of Custom Applications: IPv4 Address, Port, Protocol, Application Name, etc.	Created manually
Custom Threat list	List of public and private IP addresses with reputation known to be malicious hosts	Provided by EDFN agent. Please see Cyber Threat Intelligence for details
IPv4 address block and country code	Mapping of country codes to IP addresses blocks	Provided by EDFN agent. Please see GeoIP and ASN Enrichment for details
IPv4 address block and city location	Mapping of city and country codes to IP addresses blocks	Provided by EDFN agent. Please see GeoIP and ASN Enrichment for details
List of vCenter Virtual Machines	List of VMs, including: VDS IPv4 address, VM IPv4 address, VM IPv6 address, VDS Port ID, vNIC key, Port Group name, VM name, VM MoRef, VM instance UUID, vCenter UUID	Provided by EDFN agent by connecting to one or several vCenters
List of BD subnets to Tenant mapping	List of Cisco ACI Bridge domains and Tenants: IPv4 Address, IPv4 Address Mask, BD name, Tenant name	Provided by EDFN agent. Please see Configuring Cisco ACI Bridge Domain Subnets for details
AS Numbers IPv4 Blocks	Mapping of Autonomous System Number to IP addresses blocks	Provided by EDFN agent. Please see GeoIP and ASN Enrichment for details
AS Numbers IPv6 Blocks	Mapping of Autonomous System Number to IP addresses blocks	Provided by EDFN agent. Please see GeoIP and ASN Enrichment for details

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Converter Configuration

To configure Converter click on Converter for Network Conversation Monitor.

Output Fields

To configure output fields, including the order, click on List of output fields.

In this pop-up you can select and reorder fields for the Module output.

note

• nfo_hostname field is added by the NFO server in Output Options, and therefore not selectable here.
• src_ip6 and dest_ip6 are selected automatically when src_ip and dest_ip fields are selcted.

Syslog/JSON Message Fields

Syslog/JSON Message Fields

Key	Field Description	Comment
nfc_id	Message type identifier	string, nfc_id=20062
flow_type	Type of Flow	string, e.g. NFv5, NFv9, sFlow, IPFIX, AWS, Azure, OCI, ...
exp_ip	NetFlow exporter IPv4 address	IPv4 address (for public clouds added for compatibility with other flows)
exp_ip6	NetFlow exporter IPv6 address	IPv6 address (for public clouds added for compatibility with other flows)
input_snmp	Input SNMP index	number
output_snmp	Output SNMP index	number
exp_name	Exporter name	string
input_if_name	Input interface name	string
input_if_alias	Input interface alias	string
output_if_name	Output interface name	string
output_if_alias	Output interface alias	string
protocol	Transport Protocol	number, e.g. TCP = 6, UDP = 17
src_ip	Source IPv4 address	IPv4 address
src_ip6	Source IPv6 address	IPv6 address
src_port	Source transport port	number
post_nat_src_ip	Post-NAT Source IPv4 address	IPv4 address
post_nat_src_port	Post-NAT Source transport port	number
src_tos	Source type of service	number
src_asn	Source AS	number
src_cc	Source Country Code	string
src_region	Source region	string
src_city	Source city	string
src_lon	Source longitude	number
src_lat	Source latitude	number
src_mac	Source MAC address	string, e.g. e0:46:9a:2b:83:13
src_cloud_region	Cloud source region	string
src_cloud_service	Cloud source service	string
src_host	Source host name	string, included when FQDN is on
src_vlan	Source VLAN	string
src_vm_name	Source VM name, AWS EC2 instance name, or OCI Compute Instance name	string
src_vpc_name	Source VPC name	string
src_subnet_name	Source subnet name	string
src_tenant_name	Cisco ACI source tenant	string
src_bd_name	Cisco ACI source bridge domain	string
dest_ip	Destination IPv4 address	IPv4 address
dest_ip6	Destination IPv6 address	IPv6 address
dest_port	Destination transport port	number
post_nat_dest_ip	Post-NAT Destination IPv4 address	IPv4 address
post_nat_dest_port	Post-NAT Destination transport port	number
dest_tos	Destination type of service	number
dest_asn	Destination AS	number
dest_cc	Destination Country Code	string
dest_region	Destination region	string
dest_city	Destination city	string
dest_lon	Destination longitude	number
dest_lat	Destination latitude	number
dest_vm_name	Destination VM name, AWS EC2 instance name, or OCI Compute Instance name	string
dest_vpc_name	Destination VPC name	string
dest_subnet_name	Destination subnet name	string
dest_tenant_name	Cisco ACI destination tenant	string
dest_bd_name	Cisco ACI destination bridge domain	string
dest_cloud_region	Cloud destination region	string
dest_cloud_service	Cloud destination service	string
dest_mac	Destination MAC address	string, e.g. e0:46:9a:2b:83:13
dest_vlan	Destination VLAN	string
dest_host	Destination host name	string, included when FQDN is on
tcp_flag	TCP flags	string, e.g. SYN,ACK,FIN
packets_in	Packets in the flow received by destination IP from source IP	number
bytes_in	Total number of Layer 3 bytes in the packets of the flow received by destination IP from source IP	number
packets_out	Packets in the flow sent by destination IP to source IP	number
bytes_out	Total number of Layer 3 bytes in the packets of the flow sent by destination IP to source IP	number
flow_count	Number of consolidated flows reported in this event	number
action (*)	Flow action	string, determined from IPFIX element 233 - firewallEvent and NFv9 / IPFIX element 89 - forwardingStatus
state	Flow state	string, B = Begin, C = Continuing, E = End
latency	As reported in flow records in msec	number
duration	Session duration - unidirectional / Conversation duration - bidirectional. Reported in sec	number
direction	Direction of the flow, if reported, or direction determined based on local subnets	string, inbound (local IP address is dest), outbound (local IP address is src), internal (both src and dest IP addresses are local), unknown (both src and dest IP addresses are not local)
netscaler_client_retrans_count	NetScaler client TCP retransmission count	integer
netscaler_server_retrans_count	NetScaler server TCP retransmission count	integer
netscaler_client_rtt	NetScaler client Round-Trip time, msec	integer
netscaler_server_rtt	NetScaler server Round-Trip time, msec	integer
idp	Identity provider for the user	string
username	User name provided by EDFN Agent (UserName Type 371 - upcoming)	string
user_count	Total users per IP address as reported by EDFN Agent	number
app_id	Application ID (Type 95)	string, Class Eng. ID:Selector ID (see Section 4 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6759.html)
app_name	Application Name (Type 96) or proprietary IPFIX or NFv9 elements (Palo Alto Networks, NetScaler)	string
app_desc	Application Description (Type 94) or proprietary IPFIX or NFv9 elements (Palo Alto Networks, NetScaler)	string
app_engine_id	Application (Classification) Engine ID	string, Class Eng. ID description for part 1 of Type 95 (Type 101 - upcoming)
threat_list_name	The name of a cybersecurity threat list	string
reputation	Reputation from the threat list	string
aws_vpc_id	AWS VPC identifier	string
aws_vpc_name	AWS VPC name	string
aws_interface_id	AWS Interface ID	string
aws_account_id	AWS Account ID	string
gcp_reporter	GCP VPC Flow logs Reporter	string, SRC or DEST
gcp_exp	GCP VPC Flow logs Exporter. Calculated field based on reporter = SRC or DEST	string, Project ID/VPC/Subnet
gcp_subnet_id	GCP Subnet ID	string
src_vm_ip_pub	Source EC2 or OCI Instance public IPv4 address	IPv4 address
aws_src_inst_id	Source EC2 instance ID	string, e.g. i-390d7032 or i-0c0a6ac75d9d87b7e
gcp_src_project_id	GCP Source Project ID	string
gcp_src_vm_zone	GCP Source VM Zone	string
azure_src_subs_id	Azure Source Subscription ID	string
azure_src_subs_name	Azure Source Subscription Name	string
azure_src_nsg_name	Azure Source NSG Name	string
azure_src_vnet_name	Azure Source Virtual Network Name	string
azure_src_res_grp_name	Azure Source Resource Group Name	string
dest_vm_ip_pub	Destination EC2 or OCI Instance public IPv4 address	IPv4 address
aws_dest_inst_id	Destination EC2 instance ID	string
gcp_dest_project_id	GCP Destination Project ID	string
gcp_dest_vm_zone	GCP Destination VM Zone	string
azure_dest_subs_id	Azure Destination Subscription ID	string
azure_dest_subs_name	Azure Destination Subscription Name	string
azure_dest_nsg_name	Azure Destination NSG Name	string
azure_dest_vnet_name	Azure Destination Virtual Network Name	string
azure_dest_res_grp_name	Azure Destination Resource Group Name	string
oci_src_vcn_name	Source VCN name	string
oci_src_compartment_name	Source Compartment name	string
oci_src_tenancy_name	Source Tenancy name	string
oci_dest_vcn_name	Destination VCN name	string
oci_dest_compartment_name	Destination Compartment name	string
oci_dest_tenancy_name	Destination Tenancy name	string
flow_start_time	Start time of the first consolidated flow	time
flow_end_time	End of the last consolidated flow	time
t_int	Observation time interval, msec	number

(*) Action is reported as follows:

• action=R for firewallEvent 0 (ignored), 2 (deleted), and 3 (denied), and Rejected cloud flow logs
• action=A for firewallEvent 1 (created), 4 (alert), and 5 (update), and Allowed cloud flow logs
• action=U for forwardingStatus 00 (unknown)
• action=F for forwardingStatus 01 (forwarded)
• action=D for forwardingStatus 10 (dropped)
• action=C for forwardingStatus 11 (consumed)