CACTIPresented By:Sweta Dargad

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 Sources, and Round Robin Archives in a database, cacti handles the data gathering. There is also SNMP support for those used to creating traffic graphs with MRTG.

MRTG The Multi Router Traffic Grapher, or just

simply MRTG, is free software for monitoring and measuring the traffic load on network links. It allows the user to see traffic load on a network over time in graphical form.

The primary features of Cacti include:

unlimited graph items auto-padding support for graphs graph data manipulation flexible data sources data gathering on a non-standard timespan custom data-gathering scripts built-in SNMP support graph templates data source templates host templates tree, list, and preview views of graph data user-based management and security

Data Sources To do 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.

Data Sources can also be created, which correspond to actual data on the graph.

For instance, if a user would want to graph the ping times to a host, you could create a data source utilizing a script that pings a host and returns it's value in milliseconds. 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 automatically maintained at 5 minute intervals.

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 gather data on non-standard timespans while store varying amounts of data.      

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. A color selection area and automatic text padding function also aid in the creation of graphs to make the process easier.

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 14all, there is a "tree view", which allows you to put graphs onto a hierarchical tree for organizational purpose

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.

Auto-Padding support to make sure graph legend text lines up.

Graph data can be manipulated using the CDEF math functions built into RRDTool. These CDEF functions can be defined in cacti and can be used globally on each graph.

Support for all of RRDTool's graph item types including AREA, STACK, LINE[1-3], GPRINT, COMMENT, VRULE, and HRULE.

graphs

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 comes to viewing graphs.

Data Gathering

Contains a "data input" mechanism which allows users to define custom scripts that can be used to gather data. Each script can contain arguments that must be entered for each data source created using the script (such as an IP address).

Built in SNMP support that can use php-snmp, ucd-snmp, or net-snmp.

Ability to retrieve data using SNMP or a script with an index. An example of this would be populating a list with IP interfaces or mounted partitions on a server. Integration with graph templates can be defined to enable one click graph creation for hosts.

A PHP-based poller is provided to execute scripts, retrieve SNMP data, and update your RRD files.

Graph Display

The tree view allows users to create "graph hierarchies" and place graphs on the tree. This is an easy way to manage/organize a large number of graphs.

The list view lists the title of each graph in one large list which links the user to the actual graph.

The preview view displays all of the graphs in one large list format. This is similar to the default view for the 14all cgi script for RRDTool/MRTG.

User Management

User based management allows administrators to create users and assign different levels of permissions to the cacti interface.

Permissions can be specified per-graph for each user, making cacti suitable for co location situations.

Each user can keep their own graph settings for varying viewing preferences.

Templating

Lastly, cacti is able to scale to a large number of data sources and graphs through the use of templates. This allows the creation of a single graph or data source template which defines any graph or data source associated with it. Host templates enable you to define the capabilities of a host so cacti can poll it for information upon the addition of a new host.

Templates

Graph templates enable common graphs to be grouped together by templating. Every field for a normal graph can be templated or specified on a per-graph basis.

Data source templates enable common data source types to be grouped together by templating. Every field for a normal data source can be templated or specified on a per-data source basis.

Host templates are a group of graph and data source templates that allow you to define common host types. Upon the creation of a host, it will automatically take on the properties of its template.

Download Cacti

The latest stable version is 0.8.8a, released 04/29/12. Cacti requires MySQL, PHP, RRDTool, net-snmp, and a webserver that

supports PHP such as Apache or IIS. Please see the requirements section of the manual for information on how to fulfill these requirements under certain operating systems. Please use the install guide for either Unix or Windows for information about installing Cacti.

Linux/Unix in tar.gz format Windows in ZIP format Gentoo Linux users install Cacti using: emerge cacti Debian Linux users install Cacti using: apt-get install cacti Fedora Linux users yum install cacti SUSE Linux users Available in Yast or SUSE media. Version may not be the latest.

References http://www.net-snmp.org/ http://www.cacti.net/features.php http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/cacti/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cacti_

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