Flows

A flow is a complete exchange of data across a network, such as a file transfer by ftp or a mail message being sent by smtp.

A flow is identified by:

• The interface used

• The IP source address

• The IP destination address

• The IP protocol (TCP, UDP or other)

• The source and destination ports (TCP and UDP)

• The IP type of service (TOS) value

• The URL

For more information on flow statistics, see "Flows". Using the Java APIs, it is possible to write an application to detect the start of a flow, or the presence of traffic in a new flow, and update the configuration to take account of that flow.