Cacti+nagios Application (i) Installation and deployment of CACTI and RRDtool

Introduction to Cacti and RRDtool

I. Overview

Linux uses the most is MRTG performance monitoring, MRTG configuration is relatively simple, MRTG is really very good dongdong, but I think it is after all, is a very old software, the author of the years ago has developed a rrdtool to replace the software, now has developed very mature. Since there is a better choice, why do we have to use MRTG?

Simply put, RRDtool is a powerful drawing engine, and many languages can invoke RRDtool drawings.

The architecture of the entire system is this:

Based on SNMP protocol, the monitored end is a server, or some network equipment,

A network management workstation that uses a Linux (or FreeBSD) operating system and installs NET-SNMP tools, uses RRDtool to collect data, stores data, and displays it with cacti invocation rrdtool.

Cacti is written in PHP, based on B/s structure.

Second, introduce

MRTG Advantages: Simple, easy to start, the basic installation after the change of the configuration file can be.

Disadvantages:

1, the use of text-style database, data can not be reused;

2, only by day, week, month, year to view the data;

3, can only draw two DS (a line, a block);

4. Every time you take the data, you need to draw once, wasting system resources;

5, no management function;

Advantages of RRDtool:

1, using RRD storage format, data can be reused, for example, I can add the data from one RRD file to the data in another RRD file.

2, you can define any time section of the drawing, that is, you can draw a six months since the figure of the data, you can draw a picture of half an hour since.

3, can draw any DS.

4, Cdef allows you to arbitrarily manipulate the data.

Disadvantages:

1, the role of RRDtool is only to store data and paint, it does not MRTG integrated data acquisition function;

2, the use of the command line is very complex, very many parameters.

3, no management function.

Simply put, RRDtool is the engine of a powerful drawing.

Because of its very complex command, very unfriendly to the user, I once wanted to use PHP to write a system. Luckily, I found cacti half a year ago (www.cacti.net). For the tool I have only one word to describe: "great! ”。

Cacti is actually a set of PHP program, it uses Snmpget to collect data, use RRDtool drawing. Its interface is very beautiful, so that you do not need to understand the RRDtool parameters can easily draw beautiful graphics. More valuable is that it provides a powerful data management and user management functions, a map belongs to a host, each host can be mounted on a tree-like structure. The user's management, as an open source software, it actually do to specify a user can view the "tree", host, or even each map, but also with LDAP to authenticate users! I can't help admiring the thoughtful consideration of the author! Cacti also provides you with the ability to add templates to your own snmp_query and script! It can be said that cacti will rrdtool all the "shortcomings" are made up!