[[ga-flow-support-vendor-specific-ies]]
= Vendor-specific Information Elements
:description: Learn how to include vendor-specific information elements in {page-component-title} to collect additional data from your devices.

NetFlow (v5/v9) allow the collection of pre-defined flow-related metrics.
In addition to that IPFIX also supports vendor-specific "Information Elements" beside the pre-defined ones (see https://www.iana.org/assignments/ipfix/ipfix.xhtml#ipfix-information-elements).
{page-component-title} supports the collection of vendor-specific IPFIX data.

== Adding Vendor-specific Definitions
Any additional definitions need to be placed in the directory `$\{OPENNMS_HOME}/etc/ipfix.d`.
The following example shows a definition for a vendor "Foobar-Company" with a Private Enterprise Number (PEN) of "1234".
After the starting `scope` definition the file just lists all defined information elements including their names, their identfiers and their data-types.
See https://www.iana.org/assignments/ipfix/ipfix.xhtml#ipfix-information-element-data-types for available data-types.
[source, xml]
----
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ipfix-elements>
    <scope>
        <pen>1234</pen>
        <name>Foobar-Company</name>
    </scope>

    <element>
        <id>123</id>
        <name>myMetricA</name>
        <dataType>unsigned64</dataType>
    </element>
...
    <element>
        <id>456</id>
        <name>myMetricB</name>
        <dataType>unsigned64</dataType>
    </element>
</ipfix-elements>
----
In order for the newly placed files to become active, {page-component-title} needs to be restarted.
When Minions are in use, the configuration is automatically propagated to them.
