Cacti is a free and open-source web-based network monitoring and graphing tool that helps to track your device’s network performance in almost real-time.

Cacti gathers performance metrics from servers and network devices and graphs and stores them for reporting and historical analysis.

Here, we will see how to install Cacti on Ubuntu 22.04.

Requirement (from Cacti website)

  • Web Server that supports PHP e.g. Apache, Nginx, or IIS
  • Build environment when using spine (gcc, automake, autoconf, libtool, help2man)
  • RRDtool 1.3 or greater, 1.5+ recommended
  • PHP 5.4 or greater, 5.5+ recommended
  • MySQL 5.6 or MariaDB 5.5 or greater

Here is our setup:

Ubuntu 22.04 (minimal)
1 vCPU + 4GB RAM
1

PrerequisitesFirst, update the repository index

sudo apt update
2

Install Apache & PHP ExtensionsInstall the required PHP extensions, nano and cron

sudo apt install -y apache2 libapache2-mod-php php php-mysql php-xml php-mbstring php-json php-gd php-gmp php-zip php-ldap php-intl nano cron

PHP Settings for Cacti

Cacti necessitates the following values in the php.ini files. It might be necessary to modify these values for both the web service located at /etc/php/8.1/apache2/php.ini and the Command Line Interface (CLI) located at /etc/php/8.1/cli/php.ini, provided your system operates on PHP version 8.1.

Search and uncomment accordingly for both files below:

  • date.timezone = Asia/Kuala_Lumpur
  • memory_limit = 512M
  • max_execution_time = 60
sudo nano /etc/php/8.1/apache2/php.ini
sudo nano /etc/php/8.1/cli/php.ini
sudo sed -i 's/;date.timezone =/date.timezone = US/Central/g' /etc/php/8.1/apache2/php.ini /etc/php/8.1/cli/php.ini
sudo sed -i 's/^memory_limit = .*/memory_limit = 512M/g' /etc/php/8.1/apache2/php.ini /etc/php/8.1/cli/php.ini
sudo sed -i 's/^max_execution_time = .*/max_execution_time = 60/g' /etc/php/8.1/apache2/php.ini /etc/php/8.1/cli/php.ini
3

Install MariaDB DatabaseMariaDB, originating from the MariaDB Foundation, is an open-source database server. It represents a branch derived from the widely known MySQL database management system.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y mariadb-server mariadb-client
sudo mysql_secure_installation

Output:

  • Enter current password for root (enter for none): << Just Press Enter
  • Switch to unix_socket authentication [Y/n] N<< Disable Unix Socket Authentication
  • Change the root password? [Y/n] Y<< Set MariaDB root password
  • New password: xxx<< Enter new MariaDB root password
  • Re-enter new password: xxx<< Re-enter new MariaDB root password
Show more +
4

Tune Database for CactiTo install Cacti, you’ll need to adjust several MariaDB settings by modifying the configuration file.

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

Add/update the below settings in the [mysqld] section, and uncomment collation-server as shown below.

collation-server = utf8mb4_unicode_ci
max_heap_table_size = 128M
tmp_table_size = 64M
join_buffer_size = 8M
innodb_file_format = Barracuda
innodb_doublewrite = off
innodb_large_prefix = 1
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 1024MB
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

5

Install SNMP for Cactiand restart MariaDB and Apache services.

sudo apt install -y snmp php-snmp rrdtool librrds-perl
sudo systemctl restart mariadb
sudo systemctl restart apache2
6

Install Cacti on Ubuntu 22.04Create Database for Cacti

sudo mysql -u root -p
CREATE DATABASE cacti DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
GRANT ALL ON cacti.* TO cactiuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'P@5sword4C@cti';
ALTER DATABASE cacti CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
flush privileges;
exit

To grant access to the mysql.time_zone_name table for the database user (cactiuser), you should begin by importing the mysql_test_data_timezone.sql file into the mysql database.

sudo mysql -u root -p

Grant permission to the database user (cactiuser).

GRANT SELECT ON mysql.time_zone_name TO cactiuser@localhost;
flush privileges;
exit
7

Download Cacti PackageFirst, use the wget command to download the most recent version of the Cacti package.

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

Afterward, utilize the tar command to extract the Cacti archive, and relocate the extracted files to the /var/www/html directory.

tar -zxvf cacti-latest.tar.gz
sudo mv cacti-1* /var/www/html/cacti

And then import the default Cacti database data to the newly created database.

sudo nano /var/www/html/cacti/include/config.php

Then, make the changes according to your requirement.

Finally, restart the Apache service.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

You might also have to adjust the ownership of the Cacti directory to the Apache user (www-data).

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

Add the following entry in the cron to allow Cacti poller to poll every five minutes.

echo “*/5 * * * * www-data php /var/www/html/cacti/poller.php > /dev/null 2>&1” | sudo tee /etc/cron.d/cacti

8

Setup cactiVisit the following URL to begin the installation of Cacti.

http://Your.IP.Address/cacti

Login to Cacti to initiate the setup.

The default username and password are admin.

Categorized in:

Network,

Last Update: August 9, 2024