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7. Human Interface

7.1 Is it possible to generate HTML reports using CoralReef?

CoralReef has had an HTML report generator since 3.1. The present generator is the Perl script t2_report. It supports graph generation using either the gd package or commercial Java software. It can take advantage of ASFinder and NetGeo (both CAIDA packages) to provide AS and country information about the traffic. In addition, It is designed to work with RRDtool (also available from CAIDA) to produce time series plots.

The present report generator can be easily customized since the front end is written in Perl. However, it does require generous resources (particularly memory). We have converted some of the objects in the report generator to use C backends to improve performance and reduce memory consumption. These backends are incorporated in the enhanced version of t2_report, called t2_report++. However, t2_report++ is only available in the CAIDA members version of CoralReef.

7.2 I have many scripts that work on the old NLANR Coral format. How can I make them work with the new package?

There is no mechanism to convert your old tools to work with the new CoralReef file format. If there is a demand we might be able to write a tool to convert the new traces to the old trace format, however, we would like to encourage you to convert your old tools to the new libcoral C API or CRL.pm Perl API. This will ensure that your tools will work on old, current, and future versions of the CoralReef file format, as well as live monitoring devices and network interfaces.

7.3 What is the CoralReef file format?

The file format is specified on this web page We encourage you to use libcoral as the basis for any analysis program which you intend to write to remain compatible with any future changes to the CoralReef file format.

7.4 Do you have a description of all the applications that come with CoralReef?

Documentation included with CoralReef includes a list of applications and how to use them. This documentation can also be found on the CoralReef web site.


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