Flow Stats Telemetry

The Flow Stats telemetry provides periodic runtime statistics for active flows, especially long-lived sessions such as streaming, VPN, and persistent service connections. It complements flow metadata by reporting ongoing packet, byte, and rate counters while a flow remains active.

This record is most valuable for near-real-time monitoring and QoE analysis. Tracking directional throughput and TCP health metrics over time helps detect performance degradation, congestion, and retransmission-related issues before a flow is closed.

Requirements

Flow Stats telemetry was introduced in the Core Plugin in version 1.0.20. To begin streaming the telemetry:

Install and configure the Netify Agent
Install and configure a Sink Plugin for receiving the telemetry
Install and configure the Core Plugin and add stream-flows to types

Source: Core Plugin
Plugin Release: 1.0.20

Attributes

type

string

Telemetry record type. Always flow_stats.

interface

string

Interface name associated with the flow update.

internal

boolean

Indicates whether this flow is internal to the local network context.

flow

object

Container for per-flow live statistics.

flow.detection_packets

integer

Number of packets used for application/protocol detection.

flow.digest

string

Current flow digest identifier.

flow.digest_prev

array[string]

List of previous digest identifiers associated with the flow.

flow.last_seen_at

integer

Timestamp in Unix epoch milliseconds when the flow was last observed.

flow.local_bytes

integer

Bytes sent from the local endpoint.

flow.local_packets

integer

Packets sent from the local endpoint.

flow.local_rate

integer

Current local transmit rate for the flow.

flow.other_bytes

integer

Bytes sent from the remote endpoint.

flow.other_packets

integer

Packets sent from the remote endpoint.

flow.other_rate

integer

Current remote transmit rate for the flow.

flow.tcp

object

TCP health and error counters for TCP flows.

flow.tcp.resets

integer

Count of observed TCP reset packets for the flow.

flow.tcp.retrans

integer

Count of observed TCP retransmissions for the flow.

flow.tcp.seq_errors

integer

Count of TCP sequence anomalies for the flow.

flow.total_bytes

integer

Total bytes seen for the flow in both directions.

flow.total_packets

integer

Total packets seen for the flow in both directions.

Flow Stats Attributes - Example

{
  "flow": {
    "detection_packets": 2,
    "digest": "c3086c57745b...",
    "digest_prev": [
      "fcd1061d4c2ba844..."
    ],
    "last_seen_at": 1772665318561,
    "local_bytes": 5559,
    "local_packets": 6,
    "local_rate": 5559,
    "other_bytes": 913,
    "other_packets": 6,
    "other_rate": 913,
    "tcp": {
      "resets": 0,
      "retrans": 0,
      "seq_errors": 0
    },
    "total_bytes": 613175,
    "total_packets": 1064
  },
  "interface": "wlp3s0",
  "internal": true,
  "type": "flow_stats"
}