Method for streaming packet captures from network access devices to a cloud server over http

A method for streaming packet captures over the Internet, comprising:

• maintaining, by a management server, a persistent hypertext transport protocol (HTTP) connection with each of a plurality of network access devices over the Internet, wherein each of the network access devices provides network access to a plurality of client devices over a local area network (LAN);
• transmitting, by the management server, a bytecode to at least a portion of the network access devices, the bytecode based on a filtering expression for packet captures (PCAPs), the bytecode representing one or more PCAPs filtering rules;
• receiving PCAPs from at least a portion of the network access devices, wherein the PCAPs were captured by the network access devices based on the PCAPs filtering rules;
• and
• merging the PCAPs received from the network access devices into merged PCAPs.

A non-transitory machine-readable medium having instructions stored therein, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method of streaming packet captures over the Internet, the method comprising:

• maintaining, by a management server, a persistent hypertext transport protocol (HTTP) connection with each of a plurality of network access devices over the Internet, wherein each of the network access devices provides network access to a plurality of client devices over a local area network (LAN);
• transmitting, by the management server, a bytecode to at least a portion of the network access devices, the bytecode based on a filtering expression for packet captures (PCAPs), the bytecode representing one or more PCAPs filtering rules;
• receiving PCAPs from at least a portion of the network access devices, wherein the PCAPs were captured by the network access devices based on the PCAPs filtering rules;
• and
• merging the PCAPs received from the network access devices into merged PCAPs.