Knowledgebase

Introduction

Cacti is an open-source network monitoring tool that uses the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to monitor network traffic and bandwidth utilization of network devices such as routers and switches. It serves as the front-end application for Round Robin Databases (RRDtool), stores and displays time-series data in graph formats. In this article, you will learn how to install Cacti Monitoring tool on Ubuntu 20.04 server.

Prerequisites

• Deploy a fully updated Rcs Ubuntu 20.04 Server.
• Create a non-root user with sudo access.
• Install LAMP on your server.

1. Configure PHP

Edit the first php.ini file.

$ sudo nano /etc/php/*/apache2/php.ini

Change the following lines and make sure to uncomment the date.timezone value. To search for a specific line, use Control+W, enter the search phrase, then press Enter Save and close the file.

memory_limit = 512M
max_execution_time = 300
date.timezone = "Africa/Nairobi"

Edit the second php.ini file.

$ sudo nano /etc/php/*/cli/php.ini

Change the following lines. Save and close the file.

memory_limit = 512M
max_execution_time = 300
date.timezone = "Africa/Nairobi"

Restart the Apache service to apply the changes.

$ sudo systemctl restart apache2

2. Configure MariaDB Server

Edit the MariaDB default configuration file.

$ sudo nano /etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-server.cnf

Modify the following lines. Save and close the file.

innodb_file_format=Barracuda
innodb_large_prefix=1
collation-server=utf8mb4_unicode_ci
character-set-server=utf8mb4
innodb_doublewrite=ON
max_heap_table_size=128M
tmp_table_size=128M
join_buffer_size=128M
innodb_buffer_pool_size=1G
innodb_flush_log_at_timeout=3
innodb_read_io_threads=32
innodb_write_io_threads=16
innodb_io_capacity=5000
innodb_io_capacity_max=10000
innodb_buffer_pool_instances=9

Make sure to comment out the following code to avoid configuration issues:

# collation-server = utf8mb4_general_ci

Restart the MariaDB service to apply the changes.

$ sudo systemctl restart mariadb

Log in to the MariaDB shell.

$ sudo mysql -u root -p

Create a database named cactidb.

CREATE DATABASE cactidb CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;

Grant all permissions of the created database to cactiuser.

GRANT ALL ON cactidb.* TO cactiuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'StrongPassword';

Flush the privileges.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Exit from the MariaDB shell.

exit;

Import timezone data to the MySQL database.

$ sudo mysql -u root -p mysql < /usr/share/mysql/mysql_test_data_timezone.sql

Log in to MariaDB shell.

$ sudo mysql -u root -p

Grant required privileges on MySQL timezone.

GRANT SELECT ON mysql.time_zone_name TO cactiuser@localhost;

Flush the privileges.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Exit from the MariaDB shell.

exit;

3. Install Cacti

Download the latest version of Cacti from its official website. You can download it with the following command:

$ wget https://files.cacti.net/cacti/linux/cacti-latest.tar.gz

Extract the downloaded file.

$ sudo tar -zxvf cacti-latest.tar.gz

Move the extracted directory to the Apache root directory.

$ sudo mv cacti-1* /var/www/html/cacti

Import the database to the cactidb.

$ sudo mysql -u root -p cactidb < /var/www/html/cacti/cacti.sql

Edit the Cacti configuration file config.php.

$ sudo nano /var/www/html/cacti/include/config.php

Change the following lines, save and close the file.

$database_type     = 'mysql';
$database_default  = 'cactidb';
$database_hostname = 'localhost';
$database_username = 'cactiuser';
$database_password = 'StrongPassword';
$database_port     = '3306';

Create the log file.

$ sudo touch /var/www/html/cacti/log/cacti.log

Set the ownership and permission of the cacti directory.

$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/cacti/
$ sudo chmod -R 775 /var/www/html/cacti/

Create a new Cacti cron job file.

$ sudo nano /etc/cron.d/cacti

Add the following line, save and close the file.

*/5 * * * * www-data php /var/www/html/cacti/poller.php > /dev/null 2>&1

4. Configure Apache

Create an Apache virtual host configuration file for Cacti.

$ sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/cacti.conf

Add the following lines, save and close the file.

Alias /cacti /var/www/html/cacti

<Directory /var/www/html/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 Cacti configuration file.

$ sudo a2ensite cacti

Restart the Apache service to apply the configuration.

$ sudo systemctl restart apache2

Verify the status of the Apache service.

$ sudo systemctl status apache2

5. Access Cacti Web Interface

Open your web browser and access the Cacti web interface using the URL http://ServerIP/cacti. For example:

http://192.0.2.10/cacti

Conclusion

You have successfully installed Cacti on your server. To log in, use admin as your username and admin as your password. You will access the password reset screen to change your admin password. You can now configure Cacti.

More Information

For more information on Cacti, please see the official documentation.