Cacti provides an exceptionally easy to use system monitoring solution. Essential graphs are included by default, such as load average and memory usage. For additional graphs, download templates from Cacti’s website/forum or create your own.
This tutorial assumes MySQL and Nginx have been installed.
Step 1 – Install SNMPD
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sudo apt-get install snmpd |
Step 2 – Configure SNMPD
Edit /etc/default/snmpd, find the following line:
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#export MIBS=/usr/share/mibs/netsnmp/ |
Replace it with:
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export MIBS=ALL |
Then add the following line to the ACCESS CONTROL area of /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf:
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rocommunity public localhost # Full access from localhost |
Step 3 – Download non-free MIB files
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sudo apt-get install snmp-mibs-downloader sudo service snmpd restart # Reload new configuration and MIB files |
Step 4 – Install Cacti and Spine (Cacti poller)
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sudo apt-get install cacti cacti-spine |
During the installation of Cacti, you will be asked if you’d like dbconfig-common to setup MySQL for Cacti automatically. This creates a user and database for Cacti, and then imports the necessary data. If dbconfig-common is unable to configure the database, or you decline to use it, visit this guide for help setting up MySQL on your own.
Step 5 – Add a symbolic link to Cacti’s web interface
Choose a location to access Cacti from, such as /cacti or /stats and create a symbolic link with that name.
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cd /srv/www/notblog.org/public_html ln -s /usr/share/cacti/site cacti sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /usr/share/cacti/site |
- Line 1: Change directory to the root of our site
- Line 2: Create a symbolic link to Cacti’s web interface named cacti
- Line 3: Optional Change owner and group of Cacti’s web interface to www-data
Step 6 – Finish configuration via Cacti’s web interface
Visit your Cacti installation with your browser of choice. Log in to the default administrator account:
- Username: admin
- Password: admin
Click Settings in the menu on the left. Verify each page of settings are correct, then visit this guide for more information on creating your first graphs.
To avoid 404 errors on jquery dependecies in cacti pages, add a symbolic link in your “public_html” to /usr/share/javascript and make www-data.www-data the owner of the javascript directory :
ln -s /usr/share/javascript /srv/www/notblog.org/public_html/
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /usr/share/javascript
In fact, this javascript is installed with cacti.