Dedicated Server<\/b><\/a>) running CentOS 7.<\/p>\nWhile good for learning how to set up Cacti on CentOS, it is better to install Cacti on a running server once you are familiar with the process, as monitoring is crucial for production-facing assets.<\/p>\n
Tutorial<\/h2>\n
Let’s update all installed packages. Not only does this apply any known security fixes, but it also resolves issues in the base CentOS system.<\/p>\n
yum update -y<\/code><\/p>\nCacti depends on Apache, PHP, the MariaDB MySQL fork, and the associated modules needed to make PHP and Apache work together. We’ll install those next.<\/p>\n
yum install nano httpd httpd-devel mariadb-server php-mysql php-pear php-common php-gd php-devel php php-mbstring php-cli -y<\/code><\/p>\nSNMP is also crucial to the Cacti stack. We’ll install net-snmp, the php-snmp module so PHP can retrieve SNMP data, and finally rrdtool.<\/p>\n
yum install php-snmp net-snmp-utils net-snmp-libs rrdtool -y<\/code><\/p>\nLet’s start bringing up the various components Cacti needs. We’ll begin by launching Apache, MariaDB and SNMP.<\/p>\n
systemctl start httpd.service
\nsystemctl start snmpd.service
\nsystemctl start mariadb.service<\/code><\/p>\nAll of these should be configured to start at boot. Here we configure these components to launch when the server starts.<\/p>\n
systemctl enable httpd.service
\nsystemctl enable snmpd.service
\nsystemctl enable mariadb.service<\/code><\/p>\nWe must now secure access to Cacti. Leaving monitoring solutions open to public viewing is a security risk. This next step adds password authentication for Cacti.<\/p>\n
mysql_secure_installation<\/code><\/p>\nCacti needs a database, which will now be created. We’ll also create a cacti user and grant it all database privileges.<\/p>\n
mysql -u root -p
\nMariaDB> CREATE DATABASE cactidb;
\nMariaDB> CREATE USER 'cactiuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'cactipassword';
\nMariaDB> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON cactidb.* TO 'cactiuser'@'localhost';
\nMariaDB> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
\nMariaDB> exit<\/code><\/p>\nIt is finally time to install Cacti itself.<\/p>\n
yum install epel-release -y
\nyum install cacti -y<\/code><\/p>\nCacti ships with a cacti.sql database dump that should be imported into MySQL. We need to find where it was stored in order to perform the import.<\/p>\n
rpm -ql cacti|grep cacti.sql
\n\/usr\/share\/doc\/cacti-0.8.8h\/cacti.sql <\/code><\/p>\nNow we’ll actually import the schema we’ve just found. This command loads the cacti.sql dump into the database we created previously.<\/p>\n
mysql -u cactiuser -p cactidb < \/usr\/share\/doc\/cacti-0.8.8h\/cacti.sql<\/code><\/p>\nCacti needs to know how to connect to the database. We must add the database name and credentials to its database configuration file.<\/p>\n
nano \/etc\/cacti\/db.php
\n[...]
\ndatabase_default = \"cactidb\";
\ndatabase_hostname = \"localhost\";
\ndatabase_username = \"cactiuser\";
\ndatabase_password = \"cactipassword\";
\n[...]<\/code><\/p>\nApache must be accessible from the network so we can view Cacti’s statistics. Edit \/etc\/httpd\/conf.d\/cacti.conf.<\/p>\n
nano \/etc\/httpd\/conf.d\/cacti.conf<\/code><\/p>\nChange these two lines:<\/p>\n
<Directory \/usr\/share\/cacti\/>
\n<IfModule mod_authz_core.c>
\n# httpd 2.4
\nRequire host localhost <---- This one
\n<\/IfModule>
\n<IfModule !mod_authz_core.c>
\n# httpd 2.2
\nOrder deny,allow
\nDeny from all
\nAllow from localhost <---- This one
\n<\/IfModule>
\n<\/Directory><\/code><\/p>\nto:<\/p>\n
<Directory \/usr\/share\/cacti\/>
\n<IfModule mod_authz_core.c>
\n# httpd 2.4
\nRequire all granted
\n<\/IfModule>
\n<IfModule !mod_authz_core.c>
\n# httpd 2.2
\nOrder deny,allow
\nDeny from all
\nAllow from all
\n<\/IfModule>
\n<\/Directory><\/code><\/p>\nRestart Apache so it picks up the configuration changes we’ve just made.<\/p>\n
systemctl restart httpd.service<\/code><\/p>\nThere is a crontab entry for Cacti that must be activated in order for it to create its graphs. Uncomment the line in \/etc\/cron.d\/cacti.<\/p>\n
nano \/etc\/cron.d\/cacti<\/code><\/p>\n#*\/5 * * * * cacti \/usr\/bin\/php \/usr\/share\/cacti\/poller.php > \/dev\/null 2>&1<\/code><\/p>\nto:<\/p>\n
*\/5 * * * * cacti \/usr\/bin\/php \/usr\/share\/cacti\/poller.php > \/dev\/null 2>&1<\/code><\/p>\nIn order for Cacti to log its results, we’ll need to create an empty cacti.log.<\/p>\n
mkdir \/var\/log\/cacti
\ntouch \/var\/log\/cacti\/cacti.log<\/code><\/p>\nThe remaining installation steps are done via the web interface. Visit http:\/\/your_ip\/cacti to finish the process.<\/p>\n
When prompted for a username and password, enter “admin” for both. These should be changed as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n
This CentOS 7 server is now being monitored by Cacti. While the results of monitoring an empty server are not terribly interesting, the true utility of monitoring becomes quickly apparent when it is used on a production server managing actual workloads. If this guide was helpful to you, kindly share it with others who may also be interested. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How to Install Cacti on CentOS 7 Cacti is a configurable, scalable network and resource monitoring system based on the RRDTool suite. It works on systems ranging from simple LAN installations, to multi data center LANs. Cacti provides user management, as well as acquisition of data from multiple sources in an easy-to-use interface. This guide<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-networking","operating_system-centos-7"],"yoast_head":"\n
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