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1. General Questions

1.1 What is CoralReef?

CoralReef is the name for a comprehensive software package released by CAIDA which allows monitoring of specialized OCx (ATM and POS) interfaces, standard system network interfaces (via libpcap), and reading OCx and pcap tracefiles. It includes FreeBSD drivers for Apptel POINT (OC3 & OC12 - no longer in production) and Marconi ForeRunner (OC3) cards, programming APIs for C and Perl, and software for capture, analysis, and report generation. It can also includes support for the Waikato Applied Dynamics (WAND) group DAG cards. It requires DAG support software, which are available separately from the WAND's DAG web site (see below).

This package is maintained by CAIDA developers with the support of the measurement community. The first release was version 3.0 in March 1999 (to differentiate from CoralReef's OCXmon software ancestor: Coral.)

1.2 What is the status of the project?

There is a CoralReef status page on which current release information is posted. Check this page for the latest update information.

1.3 What are the differences between the members only version of CoralReef and the not-for-profit version that is available on the CAIDA web site?

The same core collection infrastructure can be found in both packages. In particular, the libcoral and CRL.pm infrastructure remains the same. Applications developed using the not-for-profit version will run on the members only version without modification. The main difference is in enhancements which makes the members only version faster and more comprehensive.

Members get access to new releases earlier than the general public. Members only versions include optimized C libraries for toolkits such as: ASFinder and AppPorts for extra speed. Included in the members only version is the enhanced HTML report generator: t2_report++ which features C backends for speed, unknown port and application analysis and tracking (via RRDtool.)

All the differences between the members only version and the not-for-profit version are documented in detail CHANGELOG which is included with all distributions. For current information, check the latest CHANGELOG on the CAIDA web site.


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