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rwdedupe(1)			 SiLK Tool Suite		     rwdedupe(1)

NAME
     rwdedupe - Eliminate duplicate SiLK Flow records

SYNOPSIS
       rwdedupe [--ignore-fields=FIELDS] [--packets-delta=NUM]
	     [--bytes-delta=NUM] [--stime-delta=NUM] [--duration-delta=NUM]
	     [--temp-directory=DIR_PATH] [--buffer-size=SIZE]
	     [--note-add=TEXT] [--note-file-add=FILE]
	     [--compression-method=COMP_METHOD] [--print-filenames]
	     [--output-path=PATH] [--site-config-file=FILENAME]
	     {[--xargs] | [--xargs=FILENAME] | [FILE [FILE ...]]}

       rwdedupe --help

       rwdedupe --help-fields

       rwdedupe --version

DESCRIPTION
     rwdedupe reads SiLK Flow records from one or more input sources.  Records
     that appear in the input file(s) multiple times will only appear in the
     output stream once; that is, duplicate records are not written to the out-
     put.  The SiLK Flows are written to the file specified by the --output-path
     switch or to the standard output when the --output-path switch is not pro-
     vided and the standard output is not connected to a terminal.

     Note: As part of its processing, rwdedupe re-orders the records before
     writing them.

     rwdedupe reads SiLK Flow records from the files named on the command line
     or from the standard input when no file names are specified and --xargs is
     not present.  To read the standard input in addition to the named files,
     use "-" or "stdin" as a file name.  If an input file name ends in ".gz",
     the file is uncompressed as it is read.  When the --xargs switch is pro-
     vided, rwdedupe reads the names of the files to process from the named text
     file or from the standard input if no file name argument is provided to the
     switch.  The input to --xargs must contain one file name per line.

     By default, rwdedupe will consider one record to be a duplicate of another
     when all the fields in the records match exactly.	From another point on
     view, any difference in two records results in both records appearing in
     the output.  Note that all means every field that exists on a SiLK Flow
     record.  The complete list of fields is specified in the description of
     --ignore-fields in the "OPTIONS" section below.

     To have rwdedupe ignore fields in the comparison, specify those fields in
     the --ignore-fields switch.  When --ignore-fields=FIELDS is specified, a
     record is considered a duplicate of another if all fields except those in
     FIELDS match exactly.  rwdedupe will treat FIELDS as being identical across
     all records.  Put another way, if the only difference between two records
     is in the FIELDS fields, only one of those records will be written to the
     output.

     The --packets-delta, --bytes-delta, --stime-delta and --duration-delta
     switches allow for "fuzziness" in the input.  For example, if
     --stime-delta=NUM is specified and the only difference between two records
     is in the sTime fields, and the fields are within NUM milliseconds of each
     other, only one record will be written to the output.

     During its processing, rwdedupe will try to allocate a large (near 2GB)
     in-memory array to hold the records.  (You may use the --buffer-size switch
     to change this maximum buffer size.)  If more records are read than will
     fit into memory, the in-core records are temporarily stored on disk as de-
     scribed by the --temp-directory switch.  When all records have been read,
     the on-disk files are merged to produce the output.

     By default, the temporary files are stored in the /tmp directory.	Because
     of the sizes of the temporary files, it is strongly recommended that /tmp
     not be used as the temporary directory, and rwdedupe will print a warning
     when /tmp is used.  To modify the temporary directory used by rwdedupe,
     provide the --temp-directory switch, set the SILK_TMPDIR environment vari-
     able, or set the TMPDIR environment variable.

OPTIONS
     Option names may be abbreviated if the abbreviation is unique or is an ex-
     act match for an option.  A parameter to an option may be specified as
     --arg=param or --arg param, though the first form is required for options
     that take optional parameters.

     --ignore-fields=FIELDS
	 Ignore the fields listed in FIELDS when determining if two flow records
	 are identical; that is, treat FIELDS as being identical across all
	 flows.  By default, all fields are treated as significant.

	 FIELDS is a comma separated list of field-names, field-integers, and
	 ranges of field-integers; a range is specified by separating the start
	 and end of the range with a hyphen (-).  Field-names are case-insensi-
	 tive.	Example:

	  --ignore-fields=stime,12-15

	 The list of supported fields are:

	 sIP,1
	     source IP address

	 dIP,2
	     destination IP address

	 sPort,3
	     source port for TCP and UDP, or equivalent

	 dPort,4
	     destination port for TCP and UDP, or equivalent

	 protocol,5
	     IP protocol

	 packets,pkts,6
	     packet count

	 bytes,7
	     byte count

	 flags,8
	     bit-wise OR of TCP flags over all packets

	 sTime,9
	     starting time of flow (milliseconds resolution)

	 duration,10
	     duration of flow (milliseconds resolution)

	 sensor,12
	     name or ID of sensor at the collection point

	 in,13
	     router SNMP input interface or vlanId if packing tools were config-
	     ured to capture it (see sensor.conf(5))

	 out,14
	     router SNMP output interface or postVlanId

	 nhIP,15
	     router next hop IP

	 class,20,type,21
	     class and type of sensor at the collection point (represented in-
	     ternally by a single value)

	 initialFlags,26
	     TCP flags on first packet in the flow

	 sessionFlags,27
	     bit-wise OR of TCP flags over all packets except the first in the
	     flow

	 attributes,28
	     flow attributes set by flow generator

	 application,29
	     guess as to the content of the flow.  Some software that generates
	     flow records from packet data, such as yaf(1), will inspect the
	     contents of the packets that make up a flow and use traffic signa-
	     tures to label the content of the flow.  SiLK calls this label the
	     application; yaf refers to it as the appLabel.  The application is
	     the port number that is traditionally used for that type of traffic
	     (see the /etc/services file on most UNIX systems).  For example,
	     traffic that the flow generator recognizes as FTP will have a value
	     of 21, even if that traffic is being routed through the standard
	     HTTP/web port (80).

     --packets-delta=NUM
	 Treat the packets field on two records as being the same if the values
	 differ by NUM packets or less.  If not specified, the default is 0.

     --bytes-delta=NUM
	 Treat the bytes field on two records as being the same if the values
	 differ by NUM bytes or less.  If not specified, the default is 0.

     --stime-delta=NUM
	 Treat the start-time field on two records as being the same if the val-
	 ues differ by NUM milliseconds or less.  If not specified, the default
	 is 0.

     --duration-delta=NUM
	 Treat the duration field on two records as being the same if the values
	 differ by NUM milliseconds or less.  If not specified, the default is
	 0.

     --temp-directory=DIR_PATH
	 Specify the name of the directory in which to store data files tem-
	 porarily when more records have been read that will fit into RAM.  This
	 switch overrides the directory specified in the SILK_TMPDIR environment
	 variable, which overrides the directory specified in the TMPDIR vari-
	 able, which overrides the default, /tmp.

     --buffer-size=SIZE
	 Set the maximum size of the buffer to use for holding the records, in
	 bytes.  A larger buffer means fewer temporary files need to be created,
	 reducing the I/O wait times.  The default maximum for this buffer is
	 near 2GB.  The SIZE may be given as an ordinary integer, or as a real
	 number followed by a suffix "K", "M" or "G", which represents the nu-
	 merical value multiplied by 1,024 (kilo), 1,048,576 (mega), and
	 1,073,741,824 (giga), respectively.  For example, 1.5K represents 1,536
	 bytes, or one and one-half kilobytes.	(This value does not represent
	 the absolute maximum amount of RAM that rwdedupe will allocate, since
	 additional buffers will be allocated for reading the input and writing
	 the output.)

     --output-path=PATH
	 Write the binary SiLK Flow records to PATH, where PATH is a filename, a
	 named pipe, the keyword "stderr" to write the output to the standard
	 error, or the keyword "stdout" or "-" to write the output to the stan-
	 dard output.  If PATH names an existing file, rwdedupe exits with an
	 error unless the SILK_CLOBBER environment variable is set, in which
	 case PATH is overwritten.  If this switch is not given, the output is
	 written to the standard output.  Attempting to write the binary output
	 to a terminal causes rwdedupe to exit with an error.

     --note-add=TEXT
	 Add the specified TEXT to the header of the output file as an annota-
	 tion.	This switch may be repeated to add multiple annotations to a
	 file.	To view the annotations, use the rwfileinfo(1) tool.

     --note-file-add=FILENAME
	 Open FILENAME and add the contents of that file to the header of the
	 output file as an annotation.	  This switch may be repeated to add
	 multiple annotations.	Currently the application makes no effort to en-
	 sure that FILENAME contains text; be careful that you do not attempt to
	 add a SiLK data file as an annotation.

     --compression-method=COMP_METHOD
	 Specify the compression library to use when writing output files.  If
	 this switch is not given, the value in the SILK_COMPRESSION_METHOD en-
	 vironment variable is used if the value names an available compression
	 method.  When no compression method is specified, output to the stan-
	 dard output or to named pipes is not compressed, and output to files is
	 compressed using the default chosen when SiLK was compiled.  The valid
	 values for COMP_METHOD are determined by which external libraries were
	 found when SiLK was compiled.	To see the available compression methods
	 and the default method, use the --help or --version switch.  SiLK can
	 support the following COMP_METHOD values when the required libraries
	 are available.

	 noneDo not compress the output using an external library.

	 zlibUse the zlib(3) library for compressing the output, and always com-
	     press the output regardless of the destination.  Using zlib pro-
	     duces the smallest output files at the cost of speed.

	 lzo1x
	     Use the lzo1x algorithm from the LZO real time compression library
	     for compression, and always compress the output regardless of the
	     destination.  This compression provides good compression with less
	     memory and CPU overhead.

	 snappy
	     Use the snappy library for compression, and always compress the
	     output regardless of the destination.  This compression provides
	     good compression with less memory and CPU overhead.  Since SiLK
	     3.13.0.

	 bestUse lzo1x if available, otherwise use snappy if available, other-
	     wise use zlib if available.  Only compress the output when writing
	     to a file.

     --print-filenames
	 Print to the standard error the names of input files as they are
	 opened.

     --site-config-file=FILENAME
	 Read the SiLK site configuration from the named file FILENAME.  When
	 this switch is not provided, rwdedupe searches for the site configura-
	 tion file in the locations specified in the "FILES" section.

     --xargs
     --xargs=FILENAME
	 Read the names of the input files from FILENAME or from the standard
	 input if FILENAME is not provided.  The input is expected to have one
	 filename per line.  rwdedupe opens each named file in turn and reads
	 records from it as if the filenames had been listed on the command
	 line.

     --help
	 Print the available options and exit.

     --help-fields
	 Print the description and alias(es) of each field and exit.

     --version
	 Print the version number and information about how SiLK was configured,
	 then exit the application.

LIMITATIONS
     When the temporary files and the final output are stored on the same file
     volume, rwdedupe will require approximately twice as much free disk space
     as the size of input data.

     When the temporary files and the final output are on different volumes,
     rwdedupe will require between 1 and 1.5 times as much free space on the
     temporary volume as the size of the input data.

EXAMPLE
     In the following examples, the dollar sign ("$") represents the shell
     prompt.  The text after the dollar sign represents the command line.

     Suppose you have made several rwfilter(1) runs to find interesting traffic:

      $ rwfilter --start-date=2008/02/04 ... --pass=data1.rw
      $ rwfilter --start-date=2008/02/04 ... --pass=data2.rw
      $ rwfilter --start-date=2008/02/04 ... --pass=data3.rw
      $ rwfilter --start-date=2008/02/04 ... --pass=data4.rw

     You now want to merge that traffic into a single output file, but you want
     to ensure that any records appearing in multiple output files are only
     counted once.  You can use rwdedupe to merge the output files to a single
     file, data.rw:

      $ rwdedupe data1.rw data2.rw data3.rw data4.rw --output=data.rw

ENVIRONMENT
     SILK_TMPDIR
	 When set and --temp-directory is not specified, rwdedupe writes the
	 temporary files it creates to this directory.	SILK_TMPDIR overrides
	 the value of TMPDIR.

     TMPDIR
	 When set and SILK_TMPDIR is not set, rwdedupe writes the temporary
	 files it creates to this directory.

     SILK_CLOBBER
	 The SiLK tools normally refuse to overwrite existing files.  Setting
	 SILK_CLOBBER to a non-empty value removes this restriction.

     SILK_COMPRESSION_METHOD
	 This environment variable is used as the value for --compression-method
	 when that switch is not provided.  Since SiLK 3.13.0.

     SILK_CONFIG_FILE
	 This environment variable is used as the value for the --site-con-
	 fig-file when that switch is not provided.

     SILK_DATA_ROOTDIR
	 This environment variable specifies the root directory of data reposi-
	 tory.	As described in the "FILES" section, rwdedupe may use this envi-
	 ronment variable when searching for the SiLK site configuration file.

     SILK_PATH
	 This environment variable gives the root of the install tree.	When
	 searching for configuration files, rwdedupe may use this environment
	 variable.  See the "FILES" section for details.

     SILK_TEMPFILE_DEBUG
	 When set to 1, rwdedupe prints debugging messages to the standard error
	 as it creates, re-opens, and removes temporary files.

FILES
     ${SILK_CONFIG_FILE}
     ${SILK_DATA_ROOTDIR}/silk.conf
     /data/silk.conf
     ${SILK_PATH}/share/silk/silk.conf
     ${SILK_PATH}/share/silk.conf
     /usr/local/share/silk/silk.conf
     /usr/local/share/silk.conf
	 Possible locations for the SiLK site configuration file which are
	 checked when the --site-config-file switch is not provided.

     ${SILK_TMPDIR}/
     ${TMPDIR}/
     /tmp/
	 Directory in which to create temporary files.

SEE ALSO
     rwfilter(1), rwfileinfo(1), sensor.conf(5), silk(7), yaf(1), zlib(3)

SiLK 3.22.2			   2026-08-27			     rwdedupe(1)

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