Last modified: May 17, 2012

Contents
1 - Summary
2 - Dependencies
3 - Softflowd installation
4 - Service configuration
5 - Service check


1 - Summary

This guide will show you how to install softflowd in pfSense. Softflowd is used
to export flow-based network traffic in netflow format. In this example, the
netflow data was exported to another server running nfsen. This has been tested
in pfSense 2.0.1 i386.


2 - Dependencies

Log into the pfSense website. Navigate to the System menu, then click on
Advanced. Click on the box next to Enable Secure Shell. Click on Save at the
bottom of the page.



SSH in as the admin user and select option 8 to get to the shell. Add the
following to the tcsh profile file.
  setenv PACKAGESITE ftp://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/ports/`uname -m`/\
    packages-8.1-release/Latest/
  export PACKAGESITE
# cd ~
# cp /etc/skel/dot.tcshrc /etc/skell/dot.tcshrc.example
# vi /etc/skel/dot.tcshrc
# cp /etc/skel/dot.tcshrc /root/.tcshrc


3 - Softflowd installation

Install the softflowd package.
# pkg_add -r softflowd


4 - Service configuration

Find where the apcupsd daemon was installed to.
# pkg_info -L softflowd-* | grep sbin
/usr/local/sbin/softflowd
/usr/local/sbin/softflowctl

Edit /etc/rc so that the softflowd service will start when the system starts
up. Add the following after the line with /etc/rc.start_packages. Netflow
version 5 has been chosen as there is a bug in softflowd affecting exporting of
netflow version 9 flows. The bug in netflow version 9 shows the incorrect date
and time.
  echo -n 'Starting custom applications:'
  echo -n ' softflowd'; /usr/local/sbin/softflowd -v 5 -i interface -n x.x.x.x:port
  echo '.'
# cp /etc/rc /etc/rc.original
# vi /etc/rc

Start the softflowd service.
# /usr/local/sbin/softflowd -v 5 -i interface -n x.x.x.x:port
# cat /var/run/softflowd.pid
57019


5 - Service check

Reboot your computer. SSH in as the admin user and select option 8 to get to
the shell. Check to see that the softflowd service is running. That's is, now
you have softflowd running in pfSense.
# shutdown -r now
# cat /var/run/softflowd.pid
20378