Install Cacti ( Network Graphing Tool ) on CentOS and RHEL System

Definition from Cacti official site:

Cacti is a complete frontend to RRDTool, it stores all of the necessary information to create graphs and populate them with data in a MySQL database. The frontend is completely PHP driven. Along with being able to maintain Graphs, Data Sources, and Round Robin Archives in a database, cacti handles the data gathering. There is also SNMP support for those used to creating traffic graphs with MRTG.

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Step 1: Set Up Apache, MySQL and PHP

In order to install cacti you required a webserver, database and PHP to work. If you have already installed it skip this step else follow below commands.

# yum install httpd httpd-devel
# yum install mysql mysql-server
# yum install php php-pear php-common php-gd php-devel php-mbstring php-cli php-mysql

Step 2: Install other Required Packages

Cacti required RRDTool to retrieve manage data ,PHP SNMP module to access data and net-snmp. Use following commands to install it.

# yum install rrdtool php-snmp net-snmp-utils p net-snmp-libs php-pear-Net-SMTP

Step 3: Start Services

Start all the required services to work with them using following commands.

# service httpd start
# service mysqld start
# service snmpd start

Configure all services to auto start on system boot.

# chkconfig --levels 345 httpd on
# chkconfig --levels 345 mysqld on
# chkconfig --levels 345 snmpd on

Step 4: Install Cacti on RHEL/CentOS Systems

Install cacti on your system using yum package manager.

# yum install cacti

Step 5: Setup MySQL database and User Accounts

Setup MySQL database and user account for cacti installation and assign priviledges to user on database.

# mysql -u root -p
mysql> create database cacti;
mysql> GRANT ALL on cacti.* to [email protected]'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'SecretPassword';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> quit;

Step 6: Restore Cacti Database

Use below command to restore default cacti database

# mysql -u cactiusr -p cacti < /usr/share/doc/cacti-0.8.8a/cacti.sql

It may change location of cacti.sql file as per version installed of cacti. Use below command to locate file.

# rpm -ql cacti | grep cacti.sql
/usr/share/doc/cacti-0.8.8a/cacti.sql

Step 7: Edit Database Configuration File

Make below changes in cacti database configuration file to connect application with database.

# vi /etc/cacti/db.php

$database_type = "mysql";
$database_default = "cacti";
$database_hostname = "localhost";
$database_username = "cactiusr";
$database_password = "SecretPassword";
$database_port = "3306";
$database_ssl = false;

Step 8: Configure Aapche to Network Accessible

Edit cacti apache configuration file to make is accessible over network.

# vim /etc/httpd/conf.d/cacti.conf

Alias /cacti    /usr/share/cacti

<Directory /usr/share/cacti/>
       <IfModule mod_authz_core.c>
                # httpd 2.4
               Require host 192.168.1.0/32
       </IfModule>
       <IfModule !mod_authz_core.c>
                # httpd 2.2
               Order deny,allow
               Deny from all
               Allow from 192.168.1.0/32
       </IfModule>
</Directory>

Step 9: Enable Cacti Cron

Edit /etc/cron.d/cacti in editor and un comment following line.

# vi /etc/cron.d/cacti

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

Step 10: Start Cacti Web Installer.

Access Cacti url in your brower, First time it will redirect to web installer. Follow the steps as per below screenshots.

URL: http://192.168.1.190/cacti/

After Finish the setup, it will redirect to loign scren, use below given username and password to login. At first login it will force to change password.

Username: admin
Password: admin

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