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Using the Network Observability CLI

You can visualize and filter the flows and packets data directly in the terminal to see specific usage, such as identifying who is using a specific port. The Network Observability CLI collects flows as JSON and database files or packets as a PCAP file, which you can use with third-party tools.

Capturing flows

You can capture flows and filter on any resource or zone in the data to solve use cases, such as displaying Round-Trip Time (RTT) between two zones. Table visualization in the CLI provides viewing and flow search capabilities.

Prerequisites

  • Install the OpenShift CLI (oc).

  • Install the Network Observability CLI (oc netobserv) plugin.

Procedure

  1. Capture flows with filters enabled by running the following command:

    $ oc netobserv flows --enable_filter=true --action=Accept --cidr=0.0.0.0/0 --protocol=TCP --port=49051

  2. Add filters to the live table filter prompt in the terminal to further refine the incoming flows. For example:

    live table filter: [SrcK8S_Zone:us-west-1b] press enter to match multiple regular expressions at once

  3. Use the PageUp and PageDown keys to toggle between None, Resource, Zone, Host, Owner and all of the above.

  4. To stop capturing, press Ctrl+C. The data that was captured is written to two separate files in an ./output directory located in the same path used to install the CLI.

  5. View the captured data in the ./output/flow/<capture_date_time>.json JSON file, which contains JSON arrays of the captured data.

    Example JSON file
    {
  "AgentIP": "10.0.1.76",
  "Bytes": 561,
  "DnsErrno": 0,
  "Dscp": 20,
  "DstAddr": "f904:ece9:ba63:6ac7:8018:1e5:7130:0",
  "DstMac": "0A:58:0A:80:00:37",
  "DstPort": 9999,
  "Duplicate": false,
  "Etype": 2048,
  "Flags": 16,
  "FlowDirection": 0,
  "IfDirection": 0,
  "Interface": "ens5",
  "K8S_FlowLayer": "infra",
  "Packets": 1,
  "Proto": 6,
  "SrcAddr": "3e06:6c10:6440:2:a80:37:b756:270f",
  "SrcMac": "0A:58:0A:80:00:01",
  "SrcPort": 46934,
  "TimeFlowEndMs": 1709741962111,
  "TimeFlowRttNs": 121000,
  "TimeFlowStartMs": 1709741962111,
  "TimeReceived": 1709741964
}

  6. You can use SQLite to inspect the ./output/flow/<capture_date_time>.db database file. For example:

    1. Open the file by running the following command:

      $ sqlite3 ./output/flow/<capture_date_time>.db

    2. Query the data by running a SQLite SELECT statement, for example:

      sqlite> SELECT DnsLatencyMs, DnsFlagsResponseCode, DnsId, DstAddr, DstPort, Interface, Proto, SrcAddr, SrcPort, Bytes, Packets FROM flow WHERE DnsLatencyMs >10 LIMIT 10;
      Example output
      12|NoError|58747|10.128.0.63|57856||17|172.30.0.10|53|284|1
11|NoError|20486|10.128.0.52|56575||17|169.254.169.254|53|225|1
11|NoError|59544|10.128.0.103|51089||17|172.30.0.10|53|307|1
13|NoError|32519|10.128.0.52|55241||17|169.254.169.254|53|254|1
12|NoError|32519|10.0.0.3|55241||17|169.254.169.254|53|254|1
15|NoError|57673|10.128.0.19|59051||17|172.30.0.10|53|313|1
13|NoError|35652|10.0.0.3|46532||17|169.254.169.254|53|183|1
32|NoError|37326|10.0.0.3|52718||17|169.254.169.254|53|169|1
14|NoError|14530|10.0.0.3|58203||17|169.254.169.254|53|246|1
15|NoError|40548|10.0.0.3|45933||17|169.254.169.254|53|174|1

Capturing packets

You can capture packets using the Network Observability CLI.

Prerequisites

  • Install the OpenShift CLI (oc).

  • Install the Network Observability CLI (oc netobserv) plugin.

Procedure

  1. Run the packet capture with filters enabled:

    $ oc netobserv packets --action=Accept --cidr=0.0.0.0/0 --protocol=TCP --port=49051

  2. Add filters to the live table filter prompt in the terminal to refine the incoming packets. An example filter is as follows:

    live table filter: [SrcK8S_Zone:us-west-1b] press enter to match multiple regular expressions at once

  3. Use the PageUp and PageDown keys to toggle between None, Resource, Zone, Host, Owner and all of the above.

  4. To stop capturing, press Ctrl+C.

  5. View the captured data, which is written to a single file in an ./output/pcap directory located in the same path that was used to install the CLI:

    1. The ./output/pcap/<capture_date_time>.pcap file can be opened with Wireshark.

Cleaning the Network Observability CLI

You can manually clean the CLI workload by running oc netobserv cleanup. This command removes all the CLI components from your cluster.

When you end a capture, this command is run automatically by the client. You might be required to manually run it if you experience connectivity issues.

Procedure

  • Run the following command:

    $ oc netobserv cleanup
Additional resources