Howto: Install Cacti on Ubuntu 6.10 Server

[Linuturk]

I've attached a howto on installing Cacti (the network monitoring tool at www.cacti.net) on a fresh install of Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft Server.

[airtonix]

um why did you use a bloated piece of software to create a simple howto?

here it is for normal web users...

Installing Cacti on Ubuntu Server 6.10 (Edgy Eft)


These instructions are produced from my experiences in installing and configuring Cacti to run on a fresh install of Ubuntu Server 6.10 (Edgy Eft). Needless to say, if your configuration is modified from previous installations, these instructions should be adopted to these changes.
I've pulled some material from the slightly dated wiki page at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Cacti and from several posts on the Ubuntu forums.



Install the LAMP server via the alternate installation disk
Setup the following partitions

Swap – 1 GB and first on second drive
/ - On hda
/home – the remainder of hdb

On first boot, edit the sources.list file to include the universe and multiverse.
Configure /etc/network/interfaces if the installer did not configure it automatically
Edit/create /etc/resolv.conf with the DNS information for the network if you are configuring the server with a static IP.

nameserver 192.168.1.1

Optional: Install openssh-server for remote access to complete the configurations away from the server.
Apply all upgrades, including kernel upgrades. Kernel upgrades will require a reboot of the server. You may have to open the graphical component of Aptitude and force certain meta packages.
Install screen package
Edit /etc/apache2/apache2.conf and add in support for the .php file extension. Restart Apache.

grep for AddType in this file and uncomment the two lines you find

Create info.php file under /var/www (the web root) to make sure the LAMP is correctly working.

<?php phpinfo() ?>

Remove the Apache default page.
Install phpmyadmin to give a graphical interface to the database
Make sure the root access on the MySQL database is NOT password protected.
Create the cacti database

mysqladmin --user=root create cacti
Install the snmpd and php5-cli packages
Run php -m | grep mysql If nothing is returned, run this command

sudo dpkg-reconfigure php5-mysql and answer yes to all three questions

Install the cacti package.

Auto configure when prompted
Leave the “Password of your database's administrative user” prompt empty
Leave the “MySQL application password for Cacti” prompt empty.
Select “Apache2” for the “Web server type”

Visit http://server.ip.address/cacti/ to finish the installation

Confirm there aren't any missing binaries
Login with “admin” and “admin” the first time.
Change the password to match the local administrative password.
Be patient when waiting for the graphs to show up. It usually takes up to 5 minutes.

Create a password for the MySQL administrative account

sudo mysqladmin -u root password “password”

[marcin_ant]

In my opinion this "howto" should be considered as a bug report. Because I think that it's just a bug that dbconfig-common cannot create database for cacti and requires user activity to work properly.

It's also unacceptable behaviour because user has no way to choose mysql server (local or remote) or even database name with installation procedure.

And more there are also problems when trying to upgrade or reinstall cacti while it's 'rules' script cannot remove and then create empty database for cacti properly.

[Linuturk]

I would have to disagree.

If you check Cacti's main site, you still have to follow these basic steps to get it installed.

There are times when you might be migrating cacti off another database, and you don't want the databases erased/created automatically.

[marcin_ant]

And now I will have to disagree.

Ubuntu mission is to provide software that "just work".
And after 'apt-get install cacti' cacti should just work on http://localhost/cacti.
But instead of we got information that database configuration failed. And user has to investigate why and needs to know how and where create empty database (also needs to know that this database has to be named 'cacti').

In my opinion this situation is not acceptable. Especially because debconf asks user if should configure database for cacti - and then fails.

It's just a bug for me.

[Linuturk]

Well, I had forgotten about that little gem of the setup. I have to agree with you now.

[marcin_ant]

That's good that you agree with me.

Now, maybe we could find some solution? I did a little investigation and I know that we got a problem in file:

/usr/share/dbconfig-common/internal/mysql

and in function called: dbc_mysql_createuser (line 239)

This function fails to create user and then we also cannot create database because db is not created by root user but by cacti user.

Problem is in line 271

if dbc_mysql_check_user; then
dbc_status=nothing
dbc_logline "already exists"
else
l_dbname=$dbc_dbname
-> problem here -> _dbc_nodb="yes" dbc_mysql_exec_file "$l_sqlfile"
l_ret=$?
_dbc_nodb=""

if [ "$l_ret" = "0" ]; then
dbc_logline "success"
dbc_logpart "verifying access for $dbc_dbuser@$l_dballow:"
if ! dbc_mysql_check_user ; then
l_ret=1
dbc_logline "failed"
else
dbc_status=create
dbc_logline "success"
fi
else
dbc_logline "failed"
fi
fi

we got function dbc_check_user and because we don't have user yet then line marked with "problem here" should be executed. But unfortunately it is not.

If you know how to patch this then please help me to fix this bug.

[marcin_ant]

This howto is outdated.

Currently all these steps mentioned in this howto are not necessary with dbconfig-common 1.8.33 and above which has fix for bug #113310 and now can create database for cacti properly.

So, currently to install cacti you just need to:

apt-get install mysql-server-5.0 (if it's not installed already)

apt-get install cacti

and follow screen instructions. Then go to http://localhost/cacti and enjoy.



Marcin

[tehlotus]

I recognize this thread is a tad old, but I am trying to run apt-get install cacti on edgy 6.10 and the package does not exist. I also went through several repositories and could not find it.

Anyone have insight to this issue?

$ sudo apt-get install cacti
Password:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package cacti

[Linuturk]

Make sure your extra repositories are enabled.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories

[tehlotus]

My bad, I actually did not apt-get update after I modified my changes. Found what I was looking for but I do appreciate the URL for Repositories.

[Linuturk]

~$ sudo aptitude search cacti
Password:
p cacti - Frontend to rrdtool for monitoring systems and services
p cacti-cactid - Multi-Threading poller for cacti