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repository, which I now tend to think is a bad idea for anything other than core OS components (as it can be years out of date, and installs to different locations than you would do manually, making subsequent upgrades a royal pain in the ass, I digress).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)

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