Cacti Beginner's Guide - Second Edition电子书

Title Page

Second Edition

Copyright

Cacti Beginner's Guide

Second Edition

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewer

www.PacktPub.com

Why subscribe?

Customer Feedback

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Downloading the color images of this book

Errata

Piracy

Questions

Installing Cacti

Preparing the system - basic prerequisites

Web server

PHP

MySQL database

NET-SNMP package

Installing Cacti on a CentOS 7 system

Preparing the system

Time for action - installing the missing packages and preparing the system

What just happened?

Downloading and extracting Cacti

Time for action - downloading Cacti

What just happened?

Creating the database

Time for action - creating the database

What just happened?

Configuring Cacti

Time for action - configuring Cacti

What just happened?

Creating the poller cron entry and Cacti's system user

Time for action - creating the poller's cron entry and Cacti's system account

What just happened?

Installing the Spine poller

Time for action - installing Spine

What just happened?

Differences between source and APT/yum installations

Have a go hero - remote server for database hosting

Installing Cacti on a Windows system

The community-built Windows installer

Time for action - starting the Windows setup

What just happened?

Installing the Spine poller under Windows

Upgrading Cacti

Time for action - upgrading Cacti

What just happened?

Using Cacti for the first time

Time for action - configuring Cacti

What just happened?

The Cacti web interface explained

The Console tab

Create section

Management section

Data Collection section

Templates section

Automation section

Presets section

Import/Export section

Configuration section

Utilities section

The graphs tab

The nectar tab

The clog tab

Before we continue

Pop quiz - a few questions about Chapter 1

Summary

Using Graphs to Monitor Networks and Devices

An introduction to Cacti graphs and RRDtool

Creating graphs with RRDtool

Basic RRDtool graph creation

Advanced RRDtool graph creation

Adding a label and title to the graph

Adding a legend to the graph

Adding a threshold line to the graph

Adding threshold breaches to the graph

Variable definition (VDEF)

Further reading

Have a go hero - create your own visual warnings

Adding devices to Cacti

Creating a new site

Time for action - creating a new site in Cacti

Creating a device

Time for action - creating a new device in Cacti

Selecting host templates for the device

Time for action - adding a host template to the device

Adding graphs to the device

Time for action - adding graphs to the device

Adding interface graphs to a device

Time for action - adding interface graphs to a device

Adding devices to the Cacti tree

Creating a tree

Time for action - creating a Cacti tree

Sub-tree items

Time for action - adding a sub-tree

Adding the device to the tree

Time for action - adding a device to the Cacti tree

Before we continue

Pop quiz - a few questions about Chapter 2

Summary

Creating and Using Templates

An introduction to templates

Data Source templates

Data input methods

Data queries

Graph templates

Device templates

Defining a data source template

Time for action - defining a data source template

What just happened?

Have a go hero - create your own TCP connections template

Defining a graph template

CDEF definition

Time for action - defining a CDEF in Cacti

Defining the graph template

Time for action - defining the graph template

Adding the threshold line

Time for action - Adding new graph template items

Adding the green, yellow, and red areas

Time for action - adding the color areas

Adding a legend to the graph

Time for action - adding a legend

Back to the basics - rrdtool graph command

Defining a device template

Time for action - defining a host template

Assigning a host template to a device

Importing/exporting templates

Importing templates

Time for action - importing a template

Exporting templates

Time for action - exporting a template

The template repository

Before we continue

Pop quiz - a few questions about Chapter 3

Summary

User Management

An introduction to Cacti user management

Users

Groups

Permissions

Creating a user

Time for action - creating the first Cacti user

General User Settings

Graph Options

Login Options

Authentication Realm

Permissions tabs

Permissions

Normal User permissions

Template Editor

General Administration

System Administration

External Link Permissions

Plugin Permissions

Group Membership

Graph Permissions

Device Permissions

Template Permissions

Tree Permissions

User Settings

Time for action - setting general permissions

Tree Permissions

Time for action - setting Tree Permissions

User Groups

Time for action - creating a User Group for Customer A

The template user

Time for action - installing the missing packages

Copying permissions - the Batch Copy mode

Time for action - Batch Copy

Integrate LDAP/Active Directory authentication

External User management

Time for action - setting up Active Directory authentication

Managing users with the Cacti CLI

Importing a list of users

Time for action - importing users from the CLI

Input validation

Checking the existence of the template user

Reading in the import file

Before we continue

Pop quiz - a few questions about Chapter 4

Summary

Data Management

An introduction to Cacti data management

Data input methods

Data queries

Creating data input methods

Preparation - creating the script

Gathering the data

Preparing the data for output

Installation of the script

Modifying the secure log permissions

Time for action - creating a data input method - step 1

Time for action - creating a data input method - step 2

The data template

Creating data queries

Building the XML data file

XML header

XML input

XML output

Installing the XML file

Creating the data query within Cacti

Time for action - creating a data query - step 1

Time for action - creating a data query - step 2

Creating a remote SSH data input method

Preparation

The remote script

The local script

Input variables

The SSH command execution

Preparing the data

SSH public key authentication

Time for action - create SSH keys with ssh-keygen tool

Creating the data input method

Time for action - creating the data input method

Creating the data template

Creating the graph template

Adding the graph to the device

Alternative methods

Have a go hero - remote command execution using SNMP

Before we continue

Pop quiz - a few questions about Chapter 5

Summary

Cacti Maintenance

An introduction to Cacti maintenance

Database

RRD files

The Cacti directory structure

The cache directory

The cli directory

The docs directory

The include directory

The install directory

The lib directory

The locales directory

The log directory

The mibs directory

The plugin directory

The resource directory

The rra directory

The scripts directory

Backup and restore procedures

The MySQL/MariaDB database

Time for action - backup your Cacti database

What just happened?

Enhancing the database backup

Automatic file naming

Remove old backup files

The database backup

Compress the backup

The whole script

The Cacti files

Building the backup file list

Time for action - backup your Cacti files

Enhancing the database backup script

Time for action - enhancing the backup script

What just happened?

Adding remote transfer with SCP

Time for action - Adding SCP to the backup script

What just happened?

Creating the cronjob - automating the backup

Time for action - creating a cronjob

What just happened?

Restoring from a backup

Restoring the Cacti database

Time for action - Restoring the Cacti database

What just happened?

Restoring the Cacti files

Restoring all Cacti files

Restoring a single file from the backup

Log file management

Time for action - configuring logrotate

What just happened?

Cacti maintenance

List RRD files with no associated host

Time for action - finding orphaned RRD files

What just happened?

A short overview of the Cacti CLI functionality

Repairing templates

Repairing the database

Pop quiz - a few questions about Chapter 6

Summary

Network and Server Monitoring

An introduction to network and server monitoring

Network devices

VMware ESX

Linux server

Windows WMI monitoring

Monitoring a network device

Configuring SNMP access on Cisco Switch

Time for action - setup SNMP on Cisco devices

What just happened?

Adding Cisco Switch to Cacti

Time for action - adding a Cisco Switch to Cacti

What just happened?

Configuring SNMP access on a Cisco PIX firewall

Time for action - setting up SNMP access on Cisco PIX

What just happened?

Adding Cisco PIX firewall to Cacti

Time for action - adding a Cisco PIX firewall to Cacti

What just happened?

Monitoring VMware ESX servers

Preparing the SNMP access for VMware ESXi 6/6.5

Time for action - enabling SSH access on a ESXi 6/6.5 server

What just happened?

Enabling the SNMP service on a VMware ESXi 6/6.5 server

Time for action - enabling the SNMP service on a VMware ESXi host

What just happened?

Adding VMware ESX servers to Cacti

Time for action - adding a VMware ESX host to Cacti

Windows monitoring

Windows SNMP setup

Time for action - enabling the SNMP server feature

What just happened?

Configuration of the Windows SNMP service

Time for action - configuring the Windows SNMP service

WMI setup

Time for action - setting up a Windows WMI user

What just happened?

Installing the CactiWMI add-on

Installing the wmi.php Cacti interface

Time for action - installing the CactiWMI add-on - Part 1

Installing the wmic command

Time for action - installing the CactiWMI add-on - Part 2

What just happened?

Performance measurement with CactiWMI

Time for action - measuring performance with CactiWMI

What just happened?

Linux monitoring

Linux SNMP setup

Time for action - enabling SNMP on a Linux server

What just happened?

Pop quiz - a few questions about Chapter 7

Summary

Plugin Architecture

Introduction to the plugin architecture

Why plugins?

Plugin features

Common plugins

MAC Track plugin

Network Weathermap

Thold

Configuring the plugin architecture

Time for action - configuring the plugin architecture

What just happened?

Downloading and installing plugins

Plugin architecture (PIA) directory structure

Pre-Cacti 1.x plugins

The plugin repository

The Graph Export (gexport) plugin

Time for action - installing the gexport plugin

What just happened?

Removing a plugin

Time for action - removing the gexport plugin

What just happened?

Updating a plugin

Adding plugin permissions

Pop quiz - a few questions about Chapter 8

Summary

Plugins

Plugin design

Plugin hooks

Plugin settings

The cycle_config_settings function

Displaying plugin data within Cacti

The cycle_show_tab function

Commonly used plugins

Creating a new plugin

File structure

Concept and design

PIA hooks

The tree_after hook

The draw_navigation_text hook

The config_arrays hook

The config_settings hook

The config_form hook

The api_device_save hook

The plugin setup

The plugin_cbEnhancedInfo_install function

Time for action - adding the realm permission functions

What just happened?

The cbEnhancedInfo_draw_navigation_text function

The cbEnhancedInfo_config_form function

The cbEnhancedInfo_api_device_save function

The cbEnhancedInfo_setup_table_new function

Time for action - adding additional fields to the host table

What just happened?

The cbEnhancedInfo_config_settings function

The cbEnhancedInfo_config_arrays function

Data presentation

Retrieving data from the database

Time for action - retrieving data from the database

What just happened?

Presenting data on the tree view page

Time for action - presenting data on the tree view page

What just happened?

Creating the table list web page

The action section

Deleting data

What just happened?

The data retrieval section

Time for action - sorting and retrieving data

What just happened?

Data presentation

Time for action - presenting the data

What just happened?

Creating the add items form

The form_display function

The data retrieval section

The data presentation section

The form_save function

Time for action - retrieving data from the form post

What just happened?

Time for action - creating a new database item

What just happened?

Time for action - updating an existing item

What just happened?

Installing the plugin

Publishing

Pop Quiz - A few questions about Chapter 9

Summary

Threshold Monitoring with Thold

Threshold monitoring

Thold

Installing Thold

Downloading and installing Thold

Time for action - installing Thold

What just happened?

Configuring Thold

General options

Default alerting options

Default email options

Default baseline options

Syslog and SNMP notification

Using Thold

Assigning permissions and setting up an email address

Time for action - giving permission to a user

What just happened?

Creating a notification list

Time for action - creating a notification list

What just happened?

Creating a threshold

Time for action - creating your first threshold - Part 1

What just happened?

The threshold creation page

Template and General Settings section

Threshold setup section

Other Settings section

Time for action - creating your first threshold - Part 2

Testing the threshold

Time for action - creating an artificial load

Viewing threshold breaches

Time for action - viewing breached thresholds

What just happened?

Creating threshold templates

Time for action - creating your first threshold template

What just happened?

Assigning threshold templates

Time for action - assigning a threshold template

What just happened?

Thold daemon

Time for action - enabling the thold daemon

What just happened?

Pop quiz - a few questions about Chapter 10

Summary

Enterprise Reporting

Overview of Nectar and CereusReporting

Nectar

CereusReporting

Nectar

Report generation

Time for action - create your first Nectar report

What just happened?

Time for action - adding report items

What just happened?

CereusReporting

Installation

Time for action – installing CereusReporting

What just happened?

Plugin configuration

Time for action - configuring CereusReporting

What just happened?

Report generation

On-demand report generation

Time for action - creating an on-demand report

Pre-defined report generation

Time for action - creating a pre-defined report

Scheduling a report

Time for action - scheduling a pre-defined report

What just happened?

Report backup and restore

Time for action - backing up and restoring a pre-defined report

What just happened?

Report scheduling and polling performance

Time for action - setting up cron-based report generation

What just happened?

Advanced reporting features of CereusReporting

TCPDF report engine

Cacti Data Source Statistics (DSSTATS) reports

Availability reports

SmokePing reports

Report templates

Pop quiz - a few questions about Chapter 11

Summary

Cacti Automation for NOC

Overview of Cacti automation

The Cacti CLI

Users

Permissions

Trees

Devices

Graphs

Overview of automation

Trees

Graphs

Using the Cacti CLI

Adding permissions

Time for action - adding permissions to a user

What just happened?

Adding a Cacti tree

Time for action - adding a Cacti tree

What just happened?

Adding a device

Time for action - adding a single device to Cacti

What just happened?

Importing a list of devices into Cacti

Adding a graph to a device

Automation - true Cacti automation

Automation rules

Tree rules

Time for action - adding a new tree rule

Time for action - applying an automation rule to devices

Graph rules

Time for action - adding a graph rule

Further information

Pop quiz - Let's test your knowledge about Chapter 12

Summary

Migrating Cacti to a New Server

Overview of a Cacti migration

The Cacti files

The database

RRD files

The poller

Firewall/network settings

Differences between a 32-bit and 64-bit system

Cacti files

Enhancing the backup script

Time for action - enhancing your Cacti backup

What just happened?

Time for action - removing RRD files from your Cacti backup

What just happened?

The RRD files

Time for action - dumping and loading an RRD file

What just happened?

Enhancing the backup script to dump RRD data

Time for action - enhancing your Cacti backup

What just happened?

Creating the initial cacti backup

Time for action - creating the complete Cacti backup

What just happened?

Preparing the target system

Restoring the Cacti files

Time for action - restoring Cacti files

What just happened?

Restoring the database

Time for action - restoring the Cacti database

What just happened?

Restoring the RRD files

Time for action - restoring the RRD files

What just happened?

Updating the Cacti configuration

Time for action - updating the Cacti configuration

What just happened?

Further information

Pop quiz - let's test your knowledge

Summary

Multiple Poller with Cacti

Overview of the remote poller architecture

The master server

The remote poller server

The network

The database

Firewall/network settings

Setting up the master system

Time for action – configuring the master system

What just happened?

Setting up the remote poller system

Time for action – setting up the remote poller system

What just happened?

Prepare the remote poller

Time for action – setting up the remote poller system

What just happened?

Final configuration of the master poller

Time for action – setting up the remote poller system

What just happened?

Adding devices to the remote poller

Time for action – setting up the remote poller system

What just happened?

Further information

Pop quiz – let's test your knowledge about Chapter 14

Summary

Online Resources

Cacti website

Spine

Plugin architecture hook API reference

Cacti documentation

Cacti forum

Cacti GitHub page

Cacti bug reporting

Cacti GitHub plugin repository

Howie's stuff

RRDTool

Tobi Oetiker

RRDTool, Cacti, and time zones

Xing German Cacti group

LinkedIn Cacti group

NMID plugins and CereusReporting

Further Information

The Round Robin database tool

The RRD file architecture

SNMP - the Simple Network Management Protocol

The Management Information Base

SNMPv1

Security

SNMPv2/SNMPv2c

Security

SNMPv3

SNMP support in Cacti

MRTG - Multi Router Traffic Grapher

Where to get support?

Cacti forums

Mailing list

Commercial support

Pop Quiz Answers

Chapter 1 — Installing Cacti

Chapter 2 — Using Graphs to Monitor Networks and Devices

Chapter 3 — Creating and Using Templates

Chapter 4 — User Management

Chapter 5 — Data Management

Chapter 6 — Cacti Maintenance

Chapter 7 — Network and Server Monitoring

Chapter 8 — Plugin Architecture

Chapter 9 — Plugins

Chapter 10 — Threshold Monitoring with Thold

Chapter 11 — Enterprise Reporting

Chapter 12 — Cacti Automation for NOC

Chapter 13 — Migrating Cacti to a New Server

Chapter 14 — Multiple Poller with Cacti