Cacti installation and configuration

From the official project site:
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.

Required softwares:
You need to install the following software on RHEL / Fedora / CentOS Linux:
1. MySQL Server : Store cacti data.
2. NET-SNMP server - SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) is a protocol used for network management.
3. PHP with net-snmp module - Access SNMP data using PHP.
4. Apache / lighttpd / ngnix webserver : Web server to display graphs created with PHP and RRDTOOL.

Install the software:
First, login as root user and type the following command to install mysql, apache and php:
# yum install mysql-server mysql php-mysql php-pear php-common php-gd php-devel php php-mbstring php-cli php-snmp php-pear-Net-SMTP php-mysql httpd

Configure MySQL server:
First, set root password:
# mysqladmin -u root password redhat#123

Create cacti MySQL database:
Create a database called cacti, enter:
# mysql -u root -p -e 'create database cacti'

Create a user called cacti with a password called redhat#123, enter:
# mysql -u root -p
mysql> GRANT ALL ON cacti.* TO cacti@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'redhat#123';
mysql> FLUSH privileges;
mysql> \q

Install snmpd:
Type the following command to install net-snmpd
# yum install net-snmp-utils php-snmp net-snmp-libs

Configure snmpd, open /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf
# vi /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf

Append / modify it as follows (see snmpd.conf man page for details):
com2sec local     localhost           public
group MyRWGroup v1         local
group MyRWGroup v2c        local
group MyRWGroup usm        local
view all    included  .1                               80
access MyRWGroup ""      any       noauth    exact  all    all    none
syslocation Unknown (edit /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf)
syscontact Root  (configure /etc/snmp/snmp.local.conf)
pass .1.3.6.1.4.1.4413.4.1 /usr/bin/ucd5820stat

Save and close the file. Turn on snmpd service:
# /etc/init.d/snmpd start
# chkconfig snmpd on

Make sure you are getting information from snmpd:
# snmpwalk -v 1 -c public localhost IP-MIB::ipAdEntIfIndex

Sample ouptut:
IP-MIB::ipAdEntIfIndex.10.10.29.68 = INTEGER: 2
IP-MIB::ipAdEntIfIndex.67.yy.zz.eee = INTEGER: 3
IP-MIB::ipAdEntIfIndex.127.0.0.1 = INTEGER: 1

Install cacti:
First, make sure EPEL repo is enabled. Type the following command to install cacti:
# yum install cacti

Install cacti tables:
Type the following command to find out cacti.sql path:
# rpm -ql cacti | grep cacti.sql

Sample output:
/usr/share/doc/cacti-0.8.7d/cacti.sql

Type the following command to install cacti tables (you need to type the cacti user password):
# mysql -u cacti -p cacti < /usr/share/doc/cacti-0.8.7d/cacti.sql

Configure cacti:
Open /etc/cacti/db.php file, enter:
# vi /etc/cacti/db.php

Make changes as follows:
/* make sure these values refect your actual database/host/user/password */
$database_type = "mysql";
$database_default = "cacti";
$database_hostname = "localhost";
$database_username = "cacti";
$database_password = "redhat#123";
$database_port = "3306";

Save and close the file.

Configure httpd service:
Open /etc/httpd/conf.d/cacti.conf file, enter:
# vim /etc/httpd/conf.d/cacti.conf

You need to update allow from line. Either set to ALL or your LAN subnet to allow access to cacti:
 # Cacti: An rrd based graphing tool
#
Alias /cacti    /usr/share/cacti

<Directory /usr/share/cacti/>
        Order Deny,Allow
        Deny from all
        Allow from 10.0.0.0/8
</Directory>

Another option is create /usr/share/cacti/.htaccess file and password protect the directory. Finally, restart httpd:
# service httpd restart

Setup cacti cronjob:
Open /etc/cron.d/cacti file, enter:
# vi /etc/cron.d/cacti

Uncomment the line:
*/5 * * * *     cacti   /usr/bin/php /usr/share/cacti/poller.php > /dev/null 2>&1

Save and close the file.

Run cacti installer:
Now cacti is ready to install. Fire a webbrowser and type the url:
http://your.server.ip.address/cacti/

Just follow on screen instructions. The default username and password for cacti is admin / admin. Upon first login, you will be force to change the default password.

After installation of cacti, proceed with the default setting and check the device list for system status.

In case system status is “unknown” check the httpd and cacti logs and enter the date.timezone = 'Asia Calcutta' in /etc/php.ini

Now open the device 'localhost' and save its configuration and reboot the system,

Note: cacti will take certain time to generate the graph

Apart from logs, we can check any error by running poller by below command

# php /usr/share/cacti/poller.php
# php /usr/share/cacti/cmd.php

Note: In case if you dont want to make your default httpd path /usr/share/cacti/ in that case, we need to install cacti by source file as given in below link.

http://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/38270-installing-cacti-on-centos-5

Reference Link:
http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/fedora-rhel-install-cacti-monitoring-rrd-software/
http://forums.cacti.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=49363