Cacti complete network graphing solution. Oz Melamed E&M Computing Jun 2009

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Cacti

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About Cacti

Cacti is a complete network graphing solution designed to harness the power of RRDTool's data storage and graphing functionality.

Cacti provides a fast poller, advanced graph templating, multiple data acquisition methods, and user management features out of the

box.

All of this is wrapped in an intuitive, easy to use interface that makes sense for LAN-sized installations up to complex networks with

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Screen Shot

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What is Cacti?

Cacti is a complete frontend to RRDTool, it stores all of the necessary information to

create graphs and populate them with data in a MySQL database.

The frontend is completely PHP driven. Along with being able to maintain Graphs, Data

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Data Sources

To handle data gathering, you can feed cacti the paths to any external script/command

along with any data that the user will need to "fill in", cacti will then gather this data in a

cron-job and populate a MySQL database/the round robin archives.

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Data Sources

After defining options for RRDTool such as how to store the data you will be able to

define any additional information that the data input source requires, such as a host to ping in this case.

Once a data source is created, it is

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Graphs

Once one or more data sources are defined, an RRDTool graph can be created using the data.

Cacti allows you to create almost any

imaginable RRDTool graph using all of the standard RRDTool graph types and

consolidation functions.

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Graphs

Not only can you create RRDTool based graphs in cacti, but there are many ways to display them.

Along with a standard "list view" and a "preview mode", which resembles the

RRDTool frontend 4 all, there is a "tree view", which allows you to put graphs onto a

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User Management

Due to the many functions of cacti, a user

based management tool is built in so you can add users and give them rights to certain

areas of cacti.

This would allow someone to create some users that can change graph parameters,

while others can only view graphs. Each user also maintains their own settings when it

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Features - Graphs

Unlimited number of graph items can be defined for each graph optionally utilizing CDEFs or data sources from within cacti.

Automatic grouping of GPRINT graph items to AREA, STACK, and LINE[1-3] to allow for quick re-sequencing of graph items.

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Cacti Scripts

Best Post - Complete List of Cacti Scripts and Templates

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Data Sources

Data sources can be created that utilize

RRDTool's "create" and "update" functions. Each data source can be used to gather local or remote data and placed on a graph.

Supports RRD files with more than one data source and can use an RRD file stored

anywhere on the local file system.

Round robin archive (RRA) settings can be customized giving the user the ability to

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Installation

Cacti requires that the following software : Part of RedHat Distribution :

MySQL 4.1.x or 5.x or greater PHP 4.3.6 or greater

A Web Server e.g. Apache or IIS Free Download:

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About RRDtool

RRDtool is the OpenSource industry

standard, high performance data logging and graphing system for time series data.

http://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/

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Start httpd & mysql

chkconfig httpd on

chkconfig --list|grep -i http

httpd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

service httpd start servive httpd status chkconfig mysqld

chkconfig --list|grep -i sql

mysqld 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

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Configure MySQL

Set a password for the root user

shell> mysqladmin --user=root password somepassword

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Install and Configure Cacti

Download software (free)

Extract the distribution tarball. cd /var/www/html

tar xzvf cacti-version.tar.gz mv cacti-version cacti

cd cacti

Create the MySQL database:

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Mysql Configuration

shell>mysql -u root -ppassword mysql>show databases;

mysql>use cacti; mysql>show tables;

shell>cat cacti.sql | mysql -u root -ppassword -D cacti

mysql>GRANT ALL ON cacti.* TO

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Configure php

Edit include/config.php and specify the database type, name, host, user and password for your Cacti configuration. $database_type = "mysql";

$database_default = "cacti";

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Crontab

Add a line to your /etc/crontab file similar to: */5 * * * * php /var/www/html/cacti/poller.php

> /dev/null 2>& 1

Point your web browser to:

http://your-server/cacti/

Log in the with a username/password of

admin. You will be required to change this

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Add new graph

http://www.cacti.net/downloads/docs/html/how_to.html

The minimal steps to create a graph from a script are simply:

Create a Data Input Method to tell Cacti how to call the script and what to expect from it.

Create a Data Source to tell cacti how and where the data will be stored.

Create a Graph to tell cacti how the data will be presented in graph form.

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