Introduction

[http://www.cacti.net/ Cacti] is a complete network graphing solution designed to harness the power of RRDTool's data storage and graphing functionality. Cacti provides a fast poller, advanced graph templating, multiple data acquisition methods, and user management features out of the box. All of this is wrapped in an intuitive, easy to use interface that makes sense for LAN-sized installations up to complex networks with hundreds of devices.

Installing Cacti on Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake)

Caveats

• You do not get a successful Cacti install if you use the command-line method (sudo apt-get install)
• If you have already created a MySQL root password before installing Cacti, the Cacti install will fail.
• If this procedure doesn't work for you, try the previous procedure which is documented below.

Enable the extra software repositories

• Go to: System > Administration > Software Properties

• Click on all the empty checkboxes to enable the additional software repositories

Install MySQL server

• Go to: System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager

• Click on "Search" and type "mysql-server" in the pop-up window
• Click on the checkbox next to "mysql-server" and choose to "Mark for installation"
• Click "Mark" on the pop-up screen asking if you want to install the dependancies
• Click "Apply" and then click "Apply" again on the pop-up screen to confirm this action.

Install Cacti

• Go to: System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager

• Click on "Search" and type "cacti" in the pop-up window
• Click on the checkbox next to "cacti" and choose to "Mark for installation"
• Click "Mark" on the pop-up screen asking if you want to install the dependancies
• Click "Apply" and then click "Apply" again on the pop-up screen to confirm this action.
• Click "Forward" on the warning titled "Configuring libphp-adodb"
• Leave the question "Password of your database's administrative user:" blank and hit "Forward".
• Leave the question "MySQL application password for Cacti" blank and hit "Forward".
  • Note: The system will create a random password for you, so you don't need to enter one
• On the "Webserver type" question, select "Apache2" and then click "Forward"

Setup Cacti

• Visit the website of your Cacti server, should be similar to "http://localhost/cacti/"

• This should automatically initiate the "Cacti Installation Guide" in your web-browser
• Click "Next", "Next", and "Finish" to complete this guide
• Login to Cacti with the default username and password of "admin" and "admin"
• You will be forced to change the "admin" password to something new

• Cacti is now successfully installed!

Recommended: Create a root password for MySQL

• Go to: Applications > Accessories > Terminal

  • Note: Choose a password and place it between the quotation marks below

sudo mysqladmin -u root password "YourPasswordGoesHere"

Previous Documentation on Installing Cacti

Installing Cacti for Ubuntu - Part 1

1. Open up a terminal window, easiest to log in as root

2. Install Apache2 (If not already installed) by installing the following packages