# flow-models: A framework for analysis and modeling of IP network flows
Packages like `flow-tools` or `nfdump` provide tools for filtering and calculating simple summary/top-N statistics
from network flow records. They lack, however, any capabilities for analysis and modeling of flow features (length,
size, duration, rate, etc.) distributions. The goal of this framework is to fill this gap.
`flow-models` is a software framework for creating precise and reproducible statistical flow models from
NetFlow/IPFIX flow records. It can be used to merge split records, calculate histograms of flow features and create
General Mixture Models fitting them. Created models can be used both as an input in analytical calculations and to
generate realistic traffic in simulations.
The framework can be installed from [Python Package Index (PyPI)](https://pypi.org/project/flow-models/) using the
following command:
pip install flow-models
A detailed documentation, including usage examples, is available at: https://flow-models.readthedocs.io
Apart from the framework, the Git repository also contains a library of flow models created with it, including
histograms and fitted mixture models.
## Provided tools
The framework currently includes the following tools:
- `merge` -- merges flows which were split across multiple records due to *active timeout*
- `sort` -- sorts flow records according to specified fields (requires `numpy`)
- `hist` -- calculates histograms of flows length, size, duration or rate
- `hist_np` -- calculates histograms using multiple threads (requires `numpy`, much faster, but uses more memory)
- `fit` -- creates General Mixture Models (GMM) fitted to flow records (requires `scipy`)
- `plot` -- generates plots from flow records and fitted models (requires `pandas` and `scipy`)
- `generate` -- generates flow records from histograms or mixture models
- `summary` -- produces TeX tables containing summary statistics of flow dataset (requires `scipy`)
- `convert` -- converts flow records between supported formats
Following the Unix philosophy, each tool is a separate Python program aimed at a single purpose. Features provided
by the tools are orthogonal and they are tailored to be used sequentially in data-processing pipelines.
## Models library
The repository of flow models, containing histogram CSV files, fitted mixture models and plots, is available at: https://github.com/piotrjurkiewicz/flow-models
