[HOWTO] Install Cacti on Fedora using yum

[chris.y2k.r1]

I had the worst time figuring out how to install Cacti without using the custom compilations that are specified in Lee Carter's Linux Install instructions. While Lee's instructions are quite thorough and do work if followed to the letter,like many other's have found, if you use the custom install commands, nothing else you install using Fedora's "yum install" command is compatible with the cacti installation. This makes installing something like SSL, Sendmail or Postfix in conjunction with cacti a cumbersome task to say the least. As a result of these complications, I set out to find a simple way to install Cacti so that it conforms to the standard Fedora libraries and configuration file requirements. This facilitates simple and easy integration of other services (also using "yum install [software]) with Cacti as well as simplifying the notoriously convoluted custom installation of Cacti itself. The benefits of this process are two fold. As previously stated, it simplifies the installation of cacti as well as conforming to standards that enable all types of software to easily integrate and communicate with cacti utilizing the beloved "yum install ..." method.

Next you will find these installation ins ructions. Please feel free to provide any feedback in the case I may have omitted a step, etc. I am human and I am writing this documentation post a successful install as opposed to during. So, please feel free to spout out any constructive criticism you may have as well as any additional pointers that may help smooth out the process.

Enjoy!!

Chris

P.S. - MODS Perhaps this should be stickied? I take no offense if you disagree...?


The following instructions assume you are running a Fedora installation where the install "everything" option was selected. This will install everything needed to run Cacti except Cacti itself and net-snmp. If you have NOT installed "everything" then make sure to use yum to install PHP, MYSQL, HTTP (If you want HTTPS access then do this: "yum install httpd mod_ssl openssl" as root now), SNMP and RRD TOOL. If you did install "everything" during the Fedora installation then all of these (including SSL) will already be installed.


1.) As root:
yum install net-snmp
yum install cacti

2.) Modify Cacti.conf to allow some users to log in. It's installed and defaulted to 'deny all' (gedit /etc/httpd/conf.d/cacti.conf)

3.) Change php.config to reflect the true location of the binary, 'php'. Standard FC4 location is /usr/bin/php. Add the MYSQL database name, localhost, user name, password values to this file as well. (See www.cacti.net/downloads/docs/contrib/Cacti-Linux-How-To.pdf for detailed cacti/MYSQL configuration procedures)

4.) Create the MYSQL cacti database in accordance with the cacti installation instructions at www.cacti.net/downloads/docs/contrib/Cacti-Linux-How-To.pdf make sure to create a user for the cacti database (I used database name: cactidb, server name: localhost, user name: cacti, password cactipw) and grant access (R/W/E) to this user as well as to root.

5.) yum install net-snmp

6.) Make sure the user created for MYSQL (in my case 'cacti') has permissions to write to /usr/share/cacti/rra and /usr/share/cacti/log

7.) Using an Internet browser open: localhost/cacti and follow the instructions. If you followed these instructions exactly, the program paths displayed by the initial page will be correct.

*Be aware that there are two (2) cacti directories on a Fedora Core 4 installation using the yum install method. One exists in /var/www/html/cacti and the other in /usr/share/cacti. /usr/share/cacti is the directory in which configuration changes should be made. The previously mentioned directory houses the php and html pages that make up the cacti user/administrative interface.

This method makes adding Thold notifications very simple. Just see the thread on installing THold in this forum and use "yum install postfix" to get email notifications for downed or overloaded devices. Much simpler to integrate other services with this type of (yum) install.


Feel free to question/comment: chris_y2k_r1@yahoo.com

[rony]

Moved to Information/HowTo's

[chris.y2k.r1]

[chris.y2k.r1]

Everyone - If you use this documentation and find something omitted / misspelled command(s) / something incorrect, please let us know!!

P.S. - If it works well for you, let us know that too


Thanks!!
Chris

[praddie]

Thanks Chris got Cacti working by following the instructions given by u. thanks again.

[chris.y2k.r1]

[new-to-linux]

Thanks Chris for the giude. I have followed most of it but am now a bit lost. I am new to linux so please forgive me if I sound liike I am dumb.
I have yum rrd tool and cacti and and at the stage where you mention I need to modify the php.config file I can not find this file so I presume this is the config.php file ??
Also you mention I need to create the cacti database but when I reference the pdf it talks about the cacti.sql file should I down load the source to get this file to create my database??.
My installation does not seem to have the two directories you mentioned I have usr/share/cacti but do not have the var/www/html/cacti one

Thanks for any help you can give

[markz]

I must admit I was completely lost on the install too, Fedora core 5. I did not have rrdtool installed and when I downloaded it and tried make it said there were problems with freetype, libpng and libart_lgpl even though I had these installed.

So I used

[markz]

Well if you do yum installs the cacti.sql will of course be available from the rpm install, so no need for the download of the tar.

The only problem being, that you may not have installed mysql by an rpm. It seems to want to look for /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock. Is the location of mysql.sock configurable? Otherwise a symbolic link.

[new-to-linux]

In the end I uninstalled the cacti version I installed via yum.

Downloaded the rpm version from the cacti site and yum that, finished off the install following the documentation that came with the cacti rpm. Now all is good an I am up and running.

The version I received via yum was a alpha version so not sure if that was the problem, The version I got off the cacti site was for a I386 machine and this work for me.

I was doing this on a fedora core 4 install with most options installed and before installing cacti i yum rrdtool and net-snmp.

[natter]

I come from the apt-get world. How do I get rrdtool and cacti into the yum repository? Thanks, Eric

[root@monitor yum.repos.d]# yum install rrdtool
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Setting up Install Process
Setting up repositories
base 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00
updates 100% |=========================| 951 B 00:00
addons 100% |=========================| 951 B 00:00
extras 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00
Reading repository metadata in from local files
Parsing package install arguments
Nothing to do

[root@monitor yum.repos.d]# yum install cacti
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Setting up Install Process
Setting up repositories
Reading repository metadata in from local files
Parsing package install arguments
Nothing to do

[gandalf]

I'm runnding FC6 and got it using

[natter]

Sweet, got it.

Added this to my /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo file:

[extras2]
name=Fedora Extras - $releasever - $basearch
baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/extras/6/$basearch/
gpgcheck=0
gpgkey=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/extras/RPM-GPG-KEY-Fedora-Extras

Then ran a 'yum update'

Then 'yum install cacti'

All done. Thanks for the help Gandalf!

[gandalf]

[natter]

So, after I did my install, should I not have un-commented the /etc/cron.d/cacti job?

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