The counters agent is started automatically by the daemon at boottime so there is no need to launch it yourself.
Counters will collect packet and byte counter data on each experimental interface on the node as well as periodically calculcating rate data based on a recent window of counters. The user can request chunks of data or ask that data of a particular type be streamed each X seconds to the caller.
Rate data is automtically broadcast to the group PassiveRates. If noone has joined this group, no data is sent. This automatic broadcast may disappear later.