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Install yaf with Homebrew
Yet another flowmeter: processes packet data from pcap(3). Version 2.19.4 via Homebrew; verified 2026-07-21.
install
Additional install commands
overview
Package summary
Yet another flowmeter: processes packet data from pcap(3)
Project links
Commands and aliases
- airdaemon
- filedaemon
- getFlowKeyHash
- yaf
- yafMeta2Pcap
- yafcollect
- yafscii
history
Project history and usage
YAF, Yet Another Flowmeter, is CERT NetSA's packet-to-flow sensor for turning live traffic or PCAP captures into bidirectional IPFIX flow records. In package-manager terms it is the flow-metering front end of a larger network-security toolchain rather than a general packet sniffer.
Project history
The NetSA documentation describes YAF as the data collection component of the CERT NetSA Security Suite. Its original purpose was experimental: tracking work in the IETF IPFIX working group, especially bidirectional flow representation, archival storage formats, structured export, and deep packet inspection fields.
A 2010 USENIX LISA paper by Christopher M. Inacio and Brian Trammell presented YAF as a reference implementation of an IPFIX metering and exporting process and as a platform for rapid deployment of new flow-meter capabilities. The modern NetSA site keeps both a stable 2.x documentation set and a 3.x pre-release line, showing that the tool remained maintained long after its research-prototype origins.
Adoption history
YAF adoption is tied to operational network monitoring, especially environments that already use SiLK, super_mediator, Analysis Pipeline, Mothra, or other IPFIX-compatible collectors. Its niche is converting high-volume packet observation into compact flow records that analysts can store, query, and correlate without preserving every packet payload.
How it is used
Common usage is to run `yaf` against a live interface, a pcap file, or a list of captures, export IPFIX to a collector, or write an IPFIX-based file for later processing. The documentation emphasizes flow building, DPI fields for protocols such as DNS, SSL, HTTP, and SMTP, and PCAP indexing workflows for retrospective analysis.
For package users, the important distinction is that YAF is not a packet-display tool like tcpdump or Wireshark. It is a sensor component that summarizes packet streams into flow data for downstream security analytics.
Why package nerds care
YAF is interesting to package nerds because it packages a research-grade IPFIX metering implementation as a Unix sensor daemon and CLI suite. It also sits at the boundary between standards work, security operations, and package-manager distribution: libpcap in, IPFIX and SiLK-style workflows out.
Timeline
- 2006: The public YAF release history begins with the 0.1.0 series.
- 2010: YAF was presented at USENIX LISA as Yet Another Flowmeter, a reference IPFIX metering and exporting implementation.
- 2011: The release history records the YAF 2.0.0 line.
- 2020s: The NetSA site documents YAF 2.x as stable and YAF 3.x as a pre-release line.
Related projects
- SiLK, super_mediator, Analysis Pipeline, and Mothra are the NetSA tools most directly connected to YAF output.
- libpcap and tcpdump are adjacent capture-layer tools, while IPFIX collectors are the protocol-level peers that consume YAF export streams.
Sources
security posture
No protected-tool coverage found yet
No matching local secret-handling manifest was found for yaf. Nucleus package metadata is still published here so future coverage has a stable package URL.
Install behavior
- No Homebrew bottle metadata was recorded.
Recommended review
Before unattended agent use, check whether the tool reads plaintext credentials, writes remote state, publishes artifacts, or shells out to plugins.
executables
Installed executables
| Command | Kind | Exposure | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
airdaemon | executable | indexed executable | Discovered from the local executable index. |
filedaemon | executable | indexed executable | Discovered from the local executable index. |
getFlowKeyHash | executable | indexed executable | Discovered from the local executable index. |
yaf | executable | indexed executable | Discovered from the local executable index. |
yafMeta2Pcap | executable | indexed executable | Discovered from the local executable index. |
yafcollect | executable | indexed executable | Discovered from the local executable index. |
yafscii | executable | indexed executable | Discovered from the local executable index. |
freshness
Version and freshness
These signals separate page generation age, package-manager activity, and upstream release comparison. Version lag is warned only when an evidence URL and comparable versions are present.
page generated2026-08-03
manager version2.19.4
manager updated2026-07-21
local dataunknown
upstreamnot available
latest detectednot detected
- okNo freshness warnings were generated.
install metadata
Package metadata
| Package key | brew:yaf |
|---|---|
| Version | 2.19.4 |
| Package manager | Homebrew |
| Homepage | https://tools.netsa.cert.org/yaf/ |
| Last updated | 2026-07-21T16:51:42Z |
| Pulse | updated |
| Bottle | not recorded |
| Service | none declared |
source trail
Generated from repository data
This page is generated by av-web from the private package SQLite artifact built by scripts/generate-pkg-sqlite.py.
Combined YAML source
View the package source record on GitHub.
Used sources
- Geiger risk classifier
- cross-ecosystem install command graph
- curated package history
- pkg.so package database
- pkgdb category and tag curation