---
title: NetFlow module
description: This is a module for receiving NetFlow and IPFIX flow records over UDP. This input supports NetFlow versions 1, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, as well as IPFIX. For...
url: https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/beats/filebeat/filebeat-module-netflow
products:
  - Beats
  - Filebeat
applies_to:
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
---

# NetFlow module
<admonition title="Prefer to use Elastic Agent for this use case?">
  Refer to the [Elastic Integrations documentation](https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/integrations/netflow).
  <dropdown title="Learn more">
    Elastic Agent is a single, unified way to add monitoring for logs, metrics, and other types of data to a host. It can also protect hosts from security threats, query data from operating systems, forward data from remote services or hardware, and more. Refer to the documentation for a detailed [comparison of Beats and Elastic Agent](https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/fleet).
  </dropdown>
</admonition>

This is a module for receiving NetFlow and IPFIX flow records over UDP. This input supports NetFlow versions 1, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, as well as IPFIX. For NetFlow versions older than 9, fields are mapped automatically to NetFlow v9.
This module wraps the [netflow input](https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/beats/filebeat/filebeat-input-netflow) to enrich the flow records with geolocation information about the IP endpoints by using an Elasticsearch ingest pipeline.
<tip>
  Read the [quick start](https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/beats/filebeat/filebeat-installation-configuration) to learn how to configure and run modules.
</tip>


## Configure the module

You can further refine the behavior of the `netflow` module by specifying [variable settings](#netflow-settings) in the `modules.d/netflow.yml` file, or overriding settings at the command line.
You must enable at least one fileset in the module. **Filesets are disabled by default.**

### Variable settings

Each fileset has separate variable settings for configuring the behavior of the module. If you don’t specify variable settings, the `netflow` module uses the defaults.
For advanced use cases, you can also override input settings. See [Override input settings](https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/beats/filebeat/advanced-settings).
<tip>
  When you specify a setting at the command line, remember to prefix the setting with the module name, for example, `netflow.log.var.paths` instead of `log.var.paths`.
</tip>


### `log` fileset settings

The fileset is by default configured to listen for UDP traffic on `localhost:2055`. For most uses cases you will want to set the `netflow_host` variable to allow the input bind to all interfaces so that it can receive traffic from network devices.
```yaml
- module: netflow
  log:
    enabled: true
    var:
      netflow_host: 0.0.0.0
      netflow_port: 2055
```

<definitions>
  <definition term="var.netflow_host">
    Address to bind to. Defaults to `localhost`.
  </definition>
  <definition term="var.netflow_port">
    Port to listen on. Defaults to `2055`.
  </definition>
  <definition term="var.max_message_size">
    The maximum size of the message received over UDP. The default is `10KiB`.
  </definition>
  <definition term="var.read_buffer">
    The size of the read buffer on the UDP socket.
  </definition>
  <definition term="var.timeout">
    The read and write timeout for socket operations.
  </definition>
  <definition term="var.expiration_timeout">
    The time before an idle session or unused template is expired. Only applicable to v9 and IPFIX protocols. A value of zero disables expiration.
  </definition>
  <definition term="var.queue_size">
    The maximum number of packets that can be queued for processing. Use this setting to avoid packet-loss when dealing with occasional bursts of traffic.
  </definition>
  <definition term="var.custom_definitions">
    A list of paths to field definitions YAML files. These allow to update the NetFlow/IPFIX fields with vendor extensions and to override existing fields. See [netflow input](https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/beats/filebeat/filebeat-input-netflow) for details.
  </definition>
  <definition term="var.detect_sequence_reset">
    Flag controlling whether Filebeat should monitor sequence numbers in the Netflow packets to detect an Exporting Process reset. See [netflow input](https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/beats/filebeat/filebeat-input-netflow) for details.
  </definition>
  <definition term="var.internal_networks">
    A list of CIDR ranges describing the IP addresses that you consider internal. This is used in determining the values of `source.locality`, `destination.locality`, and `flow.locality`. The values can be either a CIDR value or one of the named ranges supported by the [`network`](/docs/reference/beats/filebeat/defining-processors#condition-network) condition. The default value is `[private]` which classifies RFC 1918 (IPv4) and RFC 4193 (IPv6) addresses as internal.
  </definition>
  <definition term="var.tags">
    A list of tags to include in events. Including `forwarded` indicates that the events did not originate on this host and causes `host.name` to not be added to events. Defaults to `[forwarded]`.
  </definition>
</definitions>


## Fields

For a description of each field in the module, see the [exported fields](https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/beats/filebeat/exported-fields-netflow) section.