Some suitable features of Cacti consist of:

• Rapid polling of metrics
• Assist for multiple information acquisition strategies
• Support for advanced graph template
• Consumer control functionality with ACL

Cacti offer an intuitive and smooth to use internet interface which may be used for small LAN installations up to complicated networks with lots of servers and networking devices. So, now we are going to start the installation of Cacti on Ubuntu 20.04.

Step 1: Update & Upgrade Your System

sudo apt -y update && sudo apt -y upgrade

Step 2: Install PHP & PHP Extensions

Run the below command to install the required PHP extensions.

sudo apt install -y php-mysql libapache2-mod-php php-xml php-ldap php-mbstring php-gd php-gmp

Verify the PHP version by typing.

php -v

Output:

sabir@Ubuntu20:~$ php -v
PHP 7.4.3 (cli) (built: May 26 2020 12:24:22) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.4.0, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
with Zend OPcache v7.4.3, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

Then set your timezone, memory limit and max_execution time by editing /etc/php/7.4/apache2/php.ini

sudo nano /etc/php/7.4/apache2/php.ini

date.timezone = Asia/Karachi
memory_limit = 512M
max_execution_time = 60

Do the same changes for /etc/php/7.4/cli/php.ini file.

Step 3:Install Apache Server

Apache is one of the best web server that suits with the Cacti. So, install it by running.

sudo apt-get install -y apache2

As the installation of Apache done, apply a security configuration to the Apache by permitting Prod ServerTokens only. Open the security.conf file with your favorite editor.

sudo nano /etc/apache2/conf-enabled/security.conf

Then change the following line.

ServerTokens Prod

Finally allow firewall access to http, https.

sudo ufw allow http
sudo ufw allow https

And restart the Apache server.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Step 4:Install MariaDB Database

Make sure that you’ve already installed MariaDB on your Ubuntu system. If you don’t know how to install it, then follow the below link to go to the MariaDB installation page first & then continue from here to Install Cacti on Ubunut 20.04.

How To Install MariaDB on Ubuntu 20.04

You can also install it from Ubuntu repository by hitting.

sudo apt install -y mariadb-server mariadb-client

Once the installation finished, run the below command to secure the installation.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Then change the MariaDB settings to work properly with the Cacti. Edit the config file by hitting below command.

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

And make the below changes under [mysqld] section.

collation-server = utf8mb4_unicode_ci
max_heap_table_size = 128M
tmp_table_size = 64M
join_buffer_size = 64M
innodb_file_format = Barracuda
innodb_large_prefix = 1
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 512M
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

Then restart the MariaDB services to take effects of the configuration changes.

sudo systemctl restart mariadb

As the services restarted , create a new Database for Cacti:

sudo mysql -u root -p

create database cacti;
grant all privileges on cacti.* to osradar@localhost identified by 'yourpassword';
flush privileges;
quit;

Now, run the below command to give permissions to new user for accessing the mysql.time_zone_name table.

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

Now, login to MySQL and give permissions to “osradar” user.

sudo mysql -u root -p

GRANT SELECT ON mysql.time_zone_name TO osradar@localhost;
flush privileges;
exit

Step 5: Install SNMP & rrdtool on Ubuntu 20.04

Now, run the below command to get install the SNMP and rrdtool for the monitoring of devices.

sudo apt install -y snmp php-snmp rrdtool librrds-perl

Step 6: Downloading & Configuring Cacti

Fetch the latest version of Cacti by running the below command or you can visit the official page to download the latest version of cacti.

wget https://www.cacti.net/downloads/cacti-latest.tar.gz

After the download finished extract the downloaded package.

tar -zxvf cacti-latest.tar.gz

Then move the resultant to the /opt directory.

sudo mv cacti-1* /opt/cacti

Now, hit the given command to import the default DB data to new cacti DB.

sudo mysql -u root -p cacti < /opt/cacti/cacti.sql

And then specify the DB type, DB name, host name, user & passwd info by editing the below file.

sudo nano /opt/cacti/include/config.php

Update to the similar changes.

/* make sure these values reflect your actual database/host/user/password */
$database_type = "mysql";
$database_default = "cacti";
$database_hostname = "localhost";
$database_username = "osradar";
$database_password = "'yourpassword'";
$database_port = "3306";
$database_ssl = false;

Now, create a crontab file to schedule the polling job.

sudo nano /etc/cron.d/cacti

Then add the below line.

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

After it create a new site for the Cacti.

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

And make the following changes

Alias /cacti /opt/cacti
<Directory /opt/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 .
     </IfVersion>
DirectoryIndex index.php
</Directory>

Then fire the below command to enable the created site.

sudo a2ensite cacti

Finally restart the apache server to take effects.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Now, create a log file and also permit the Apache user (www-data) to write info on to cacti directory. You can do so by hitting the below command.

sudo touch /opt/cacti/log/cacti.log
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /opt/cacti/

Step 7 Finalizing Cacti Installation

As we’ve done all the necessary steps to Install & Configure Cacti on our Ubuntu system. So, now we are going to test our Installation. Go to your browser and type locahost/cacti or 127.0.0.1/cacti to finalize our Installation.

Provide the below details to set up Cacti installation.

Username = admin
Password = admin

For security reasons, change the password and provide new strong password.

Accept the License Agreement and hit Begin button.

Make sure that all requirements are okay.

And then hit “Next“.

Select the type of Server, as we are going to Install our first Server so I’m selecting the Primary Server.

Then press “Next” button.

And check the Directory Permissions.

After it press “Next“. And make sure all the options are okay(green tick).

Now, agree to the statement after reading it carefully. And then press “Next“

On the next page you can see the default profile page as we’ve already setup the cron job for every 5 minutes. Then click “Next”.

Then select the profile template and press “Next”.

Hit “Next” button to move on to the next step.

Finally finish the installation by checking the “Confirm Installation” box and click on “Install” button.

Then click on “Get Started” button when installation finished.

Now, you will be directed to the dashboard where you can perform different tasks. Navigate to the graphics section to see the graphic details of local or remote machines.

Now, you can see the graphs, resources and values and other network resources via cacti on your system. So, this is how you can install and configure Cacti on Ubuntu 20.04.If you’ve any question regarding this tutorial, feel free to ask in comments.

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Cacti is an open source monitoring tool which covers network as well as graphing.  It was designed to provide an easy way to monitor your system on industry-standard data logging tool -RRDtoll.Cacti is an important tool to harnesses the power of RRDtool’s storage and functionality of graphing. Cacti is user-friendly and easy to use for managing network monitoring and configurations. Some dependencies needed to install Cacti on Centos 8.

Here are some important features of Cacti. 

• User Management

•  Advanced graphing templates

•  Data acquisition methods in multiple formats

• Faster polling of metrics 

Why we need monitoring?

 Monitoring is a main feature of any infrastructure. In order to look over your systems that what’s going on it’s best way to use some tools like Cacti to monitor.

 So, in this tutorial we will cover the cacti installation and its related modules.

Step 1: How to Install build tools and system dependencies. 

First of all install all development tools and gcc tools for system dependencies.

After it install Gcc & Development Tools

Now install SNMP packages

Step 2: Install php and required extensions. 

sudo dnf install -y net-snmp net-snmp-utils rrdtool

Install PHP and its extension as it is required.

sudo dnf install @php
sudo dnf install -y php php-{mysqlnd,curl,gd,intl,pear,recode,ldap,xmlrpc,snmp,mbstring,gettext,gmp,json,xml,common}

Make sure PHP is installed version is correct and loaded modules.

Now edit this file /etc/php.ini file.

$ grep date.timezone /etc/php.ini
; http://php.net/date.timezone
date.timezone = Africa/Nairobi

Set PHP memory limit to 400M

memory.limit = 400M;

Start php-fpm service.

sudo systemctl enable –now php-fpm

Make sure status is working.

Step 3: How to install Apache Web Server. 

Type given command to Install Apache httpd server.

sudo dnf install @httpd

Now, enable Apache services.

sudo systemctl enable –now httpd

Verify that Apache is running properly.

Make sure to give firewall permissions on https ports.

sudo firewall-cmd –add-service={http,https} –permanent
sudo firewall-cmd –reload

Step 4: Install and configure database server.

If you’ve already installed a Database Server let’s start with that. If you don’t have install MySQL or MariaDB database server.
When you’ve done installation of any database Server follow the next steps.
Let’s create a database alongwith user for Cacti.

$ mysql -u root -p
CREATE DATABASE cacti;
GRANT ALL ON cacti.* TO ‘cacti’@’localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘StrongDBPassword’;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES
exit

Set up tuning MariaDB database
Do settings with this file /etc/my.cnf.d/mariadb-server.cnf in [mysqld] section.
Restart mariadb service after setting upon according to your own requirements.

sudo systemctl restart mariadb

Step 5: Download and Configure Cacti. 

Create a directory and download the latest release of Cacti in it.

mkdir cacti && cd cacti
curl -SL https://www.cacti.net/downloads/cacti-latest.tar.gz | tar –strip 1 -xzf –

Now move the created folder to /var/www/html directory.

cd ..
sudo mv cacti/ /var/www/html/

Import database data.

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

Make sure timezone setting is done.

mysql_tzinfo_to_sql /usr/share/zoneinfo | mysql -u root -p mysql

Give Cacti user access to timezone database.

Configure SELinux.

sudo semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t “/var/www/html/cacti(/.*)?”
sudo restorecon -Rv /var/www/html/cacti

Now again restart Apache service to attain modifications.

sudo systemctl restart httpd php-fpm

Now the last step is to configure cacti.
Access the file /var/www/html/cacti/include/config.php.
Set up database connection parameters according to your own requirements.

Create a log file for Cacti system.

tocuh /var/www/html/cacti/log/cacti.log

Grant directory Permissions.

sudo chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html/cacti

Setup cron job.

sudo crontab -u apache -e

Add following line in above line.

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

Step 6: Access Cacti Installation wizard. 

You can visit this link http://[ServerIP/Hostname]/cacti to enter into Installation Wizard.

Change the default credentials.

Now make sure to change the password.

Accept Licencse Agreement and proceed.

Make sure to have all options green.

Choose your installation type.

Verify Directory Permission Checks.

Check out all binaries located & move further.

Choose your required option.

Choose the template you want.

Make sure settings are okay.

Confirm Installation.

After a while installation process will be completed.

Step 7: Monitor Linux Servers with Cacti

Let’s start & enable snmpd daemon to start.

sudo systemctl enable –now snmpd

Make sure it’s working properly.

Now add the linux server for monitoring.

Login as Cacti admin to see the process.

Console>Create>New Device

Now give server details & save configuration.

Congratulations! You’ve all done.
If have any question about this tutorial leave a comment.

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