Cacti

File / Path	Usage
/usr/share/cacti/	Main software location
/usr/share/cacti/index.php	Target of Apache config (the Cacti website)
/usr/share/cacti/include/config.php	MySQL config
/etc/cacti/	More config files
/var/lib/cacti/rra	RRD files
/etc/apache2/conf.d/cacti.conf	Apache config

Installation

1. Start installation…
   • apt-get install cacti-cactid
2. OK past libphp-adodb warning
3. Select Apache2 webserver
4. Select Yes for cacti database auto-configuration by dbconfig-common?
5. Enter MySQL root password
6. Enter password for cacti MySQL account (eg cacti)
7. Log into server using URL http://server/cacti

Upgrade

There is an upgrade procedure on Cacti's website (http://www.cacti.net/downloads/docs/html/upgrade.html), I'm not sure I agree with the order of the steps, in that I suspect it could prolong the time for which you can't capture data, but otherwise it seems fine. I don't know that my procedure is any better, but it works for me.

Be aware that I originally installed Cacti from the Ubuntu repository, which I now tend to think is a bad idea for anything other than core OS components (as it can be years out of date, and installs to different locations than you would do manually, making subsequent upgrades a royal pain in the ass, I digress). So your files may not be in the same location as above (originally I had a site subfolder).

1. Download the latest version, and uncompress
   • EG cd /usr/share
   • EG wget http://www.cacti.net/downloads/cacti-0.8.7i.tar.gz
   • EG tar -xzvf cacti-0.8.7i.tar.gz
2. Update the MySQL config in the new version
   • EG vi cacti-0.8.7i/include/config.php
3. Backup your existing database
   • EG mysqldump -u root -p -l cacti > /home/user/cacti-v0.8.7e.mysql
4. Check the poller cron job, if the poller.php path is changing, add an entry for the new path (we can remove the old path once everything is working)
   • EG vi /etc/cron.d/cacti
5. Check the path that RRA's are expected to go to
   • Compare the $config["rra_path"] value in /include/global.php, if necessary override in /include/config.php
6. Check the Apache config
7. Switch the folders around
   • EG mv cacti cacti-v0.8.7e
   • EG mv cacti-0.8.7i cacti
8. Browse to your installation, and upgrade the database
9. Once complete go to System Utilities > View Cacti Log File, and check everything is looking OK
10. Remove additional path from crontab (if you added one)

If you've upgraded an installation that was installed automatically with aptitude or apt-get then you'll need to stop it being mangled/downgraded in the future, to do so run

aptitude hold 'cacti'

Templates

• http://forums.cacti.net/about15067.html
• Disk: http://forums.cacti.net/about12742.html
• Disk Usage: http://docs.cacti.net/usertemplate:data:host_mib:disk_usage
• MySQL: http://code.google.com/p/crunchtools/source/browse/#hg%2Fcacti%2Fgraph_mysql_stats