IN and OUT traffic etc...

[tr911]

Myself and a coworker have been arguing about the Cacti graphs. The definition of "IN" and "OUT" in the traffic graphs.

My theory is "IN" means inbound no matter which actual direction the information is flowing to the Ethernet port
and "OUT" means outbound when information is flowing from the Ethernet port.

His theory is "IN" means that all traffic traversing from WAN to LAN would be inbound and
traffic traversing from LAN to WAN would be outbound..

So, Guys and Gals, give me your opinions please...

Thanks
Tommy

[tr911]

Hmmmmmm, I guess no one knows the answer to this question.

[TuRBo58]

IMO "IN" means INto the device through that interface and "OUT" means flowing out of the device through that interface. For example, for the LAN side interface card eth0 in a router IN would be traffic coming into the router from the LAN. For the WAN side interface eth1, OUT would be going out to the Internet or whatever is the WAN side network. So a DNS request from a PC on the LAN would reflect in eth0's IN traffic but it would reflect in eth1's OUT traffic. The DNS reply would come IN through eth1 and OUT to the PC on eth0.