Cacti is an open source web-based network monitoring tool designed as the front end application for the RRDtool (Round-Robin database tool), it allows a user to poll the services at an interval of time and resulting in the graph format.
Cacti is generally used to get a graph data for the CPU and network bandwidth utilization and monitors the network traffic by polling a router or switch via SNMP protocol.
Here is the small tutorial on how to install Cacti on Ubuntu 16.04 / Ubuntu 14.04 & Linux Mint 18.
Prerequisites
Log in as the root user or switch to the root user.
sudo su -
OR
su -
Update the repository index using the apt command.
apt-get update
Cacti run on top of AMP server. So, install Apache, MySQL and PHP packages on your machine.
### Ubuntu 16.04 / LinuxMint ### apt install -y apache2 mariadb-server mariadb-client php-mysql libapache2-mod-php ### Ubuntu 14.04 ### Below command will install MariaDB 5.5. Consider installing MariaDB 10 apt install -y apache2 mariadb-server mariadb-client php5-mysql libapache2-mod-php5
Note: While installing MariaDB on Ubuntu 14.04, the installer will prompt you to set the MySQL root password. Whereas, in Ubuntu 16.04 or LinuxMint, there will be no prompt.
There are few PHP extensions you would need to install for the proper functioning of Cacti monitoring tool.
### Ubuntu 16.04 / LinuxMint ### apt-get -y install php-xml php-ldap php-mbstring php-gd php-gmp ### Ubuntu 14.04 ### apt-get -y install php5-ldap php5-gd php5-gmp
Also, install the SNMP and RRDtool.
### Ubuntu 16.04 / LinuxMint ### apt-get -y install snmp php-snmp rrdtool librrds-perl ### Ubuntu 14.04 ### apt-get -y install snmp php5-snmp rrdtool librrds-perl
Create Database
Create a database for Cacti. You can login to MariaDB without the password using the sudo mysql -u root -pcommand in Ubuntu 16.04 and Linuxmint.
# mysql -u root -p Enter password: Welcome to the MariaDB monitor. Commands end with ; or \g. Your MariaDB connection id is 18 Server version: 5.5.37-MariaDB MariaDB Server Copyright (c) 2000, 2014, Oracle, Monty Program Ab and others. Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement. MariaDB [(none)]>
Now, create a database for Cacti installation.
create database cacti;
Grant permission to the newly created database.
GRANT ALL ON cacti.* TO cactiuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'cactipassword'; flush privileges; exit
The newly created database user (cactiuser) should have access to the mysql.time_zone_name Table. To do that, import the mysql_test_data_timezone.sql to mysql database first.
mysql -u root -p mysql < /usr/share/mysql/mysql_test_data_timezone.sql
Then, log in to MySQL.
mysql -u root -p
Grant the permission to cactiuser.
GRANT SELECT ON mysql.time_zone_name TO cactiuser@localhost; flush privileges; exit
Database Tuning
Cacti recommend changing MySQL variables settings for better performances. So, edit the configuration file.
### Ubuntu 16.04 / LinuxMint ### nano /etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-server.cnf ### Ubuntu 14.04 ### nano /etc/mysql/my.cnf
Add variables in [mysqld] section.
In Ubuntu 16.04 / LinuxMint 18:
collation-server = utf8mb4_unicode_ci max_heap_table_size = 128M tmp_table_size = 64M join_buffer_size = 64M innodb_buffer_pool_size = 512M innodb_doublewrite = off innodb_additional_mem_pool_size=96M innodb_flush_log_at_timeout = 3 innodb_read_io_threads = 32 innodb_write_io_threads = 16
In Ubuntu 14.04:
max_heap_table_size = 181M tmp_table_size = 64M join_buffer_size = 64M innodb_buffer_pool_size = 904M innodb_doublewrite = off innodb_file_per_table = on innodb_additional_mem_pool_size=96M innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit = 2
Set Timezone
As a mandatory requirement, we need to set the timezone in the php configuration file. Edit the php.ini file.
### Ubuntu 16.04 / LinuxMint ### nano /etc/php/7.0/apache2/php.ini ### Ubuntu 14.04 ### nano /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
Update your timezone, shown like below.
date.timezone = EST
Install Cacti
The Cacti package available on OS repository is too old, and for this setup, we are going to use the latest version of Cacti from cacti.net. Use the wget command to download the latest Cacti package from the official website on a terminal.
wget https://www.cacti.net/downloads/cacti-latest.tar.gz
Extract the downloaded Cacti archive using the tar command and move the extracted files to /opt directory.
tar -zxvf cacti-latest.tar.gz mv cacti-1* /opt/cacti
Import the default database to the Cacti database.
mysql -u root -p cacti < /opt/cacti/cacti.sql
Edit the config file to specify the database type, name, hostname, user, and password information.
nano /opt/cacti/include/config.php
Make the changes accordingly.
/* make sure these values reflect your actual database/host/user/password */ $database_type = "mysql"; $database_default = "cacti"; $database_hostname = "localhost"; $database_username = "cactiuser"; $database_password = "cactipassword"; $database_port = "3306"; $database_ssl = false;
Edit the crontab file.
nano /etc/crontab
Add the following entry in the crontab to poll every five min.
*/5 * * * * www-data php /opt/cacti/poller.php > /dev/null 2>&1
Edit apache configuration file to perform the remote installation.
nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/cacti.conf
Use the following configuration.
Alias /cacti /opt/cacti
<Directory /opt/cacti>
Options +FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
<IfVersion >= 2.3>
Require all granted
</IfVersion>
<IfVersion < 2.3>
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
</IfVersion>
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
<IfModule mod_php.c>
php_flag magic_quotes_gpc Off
php_flag short_open_tag On
php_flag register_globals Off
php_flag register_argc_argv On
php_flag track_vars On
# this setting is necessary for some locales
php_value mbstring.func_overload 0
php_value include_path .
</IfModule>
DirectoryIndex index.php
</Directory>Enable the created virtual host.
a2ensite cacti
Restart MariaDB and Apache2 services.
service mysql restart service apache2 restart
Create a log file and allow Apache user (www-data) to write a data on Cacti directory.
touch /opt/cacti/log/cacti.log chown -R www-data:www-data /opt/cacti/log/ chown -R www-data:www-data /opt/cacti/resource/ chown -R www-data:www-data /opt/cacti/cache/ chown -R www-data:www-data /opt/cacti/scripts/ chown -R www-data:www-data /opt/cacti/rra
Setup Cacti
Open a web browser and visit the following URL to start the installation of Cacti.
Accept the license agreement and click on Next to continue.
Cacti perform pre-installation checks and reports any issues on this page.
You can ignore few red alerts for MariaDB parameters in case you are running an old version of MySQL / MariaDB.
Also, you can safely ignore the warning for updating MySQL 5.5 to 5.6+ or suggesting to use MariaDB 10.
If you want to install MySQL 5.7 and MariaDB 10, then follow below links.
READ: How to install MySQL 5.7 on Ubuntu 14.04 / Linux Mint 17
READ: How to install MariaDB 10 on Ubuntu 14.04 / Linux Mint 17
Select New Primary Server for the new installation and then click Next.
It will show you if there is any package is missing which is mandatory for the cacti.
You can safely ignore the error for Spine as we are using the built-in poller for remote polling.
READ: How to Install and Use Spine Poller with Cacti
In this page, Cacti checks and reports for permission problems you may have in the Cacti installation directory.
Select all templates and click Finish to complete the Cacti installation.
Access Cacti Dashboard
Enter User Name and Password (Default: admin/admin) to login to Cacti.
You must change the default password.
Cacti Dashboard:
By default, the Local machine has been added for monitoring in Cacti. You can Go to Graphs >> Default Tree >> Local Linux Machine to see the usage graph of Cacti server.
In our next article, we will see how to configure cacti to monitor remote Linux machines.
READ: How to monitor remote Linux machines with Cacti
That’s All.