# Cacti (tm) Documentation

Cacti is designed to be a complete graphing solution based on the RRDTool's framework. Its goal is to make a network administrator's job easier by taking care of all the necessary details necessary to create meaningful graphs.

Please see the official Cacti website for information, support, and updates.

## Developers

- Ian Berry (raX)

- Larry Adams (TheWitness)

- Tony Roman (rony)

- J.P. Pasnak, CD (Linegod)

- Jimmy Conner (cigamit)

- Reinhard Scheck (gandalf)

- Andreas Braun (browniebraun)

- Mark Brugnoli-Vinten (netniV)

## Thanks

A very special thanks to Tobi Oetiker, the creator of RRDTool and the very popular MRTG. The users of Cacti Especially anyone who has taken the time to create an issue report, or otherwise help fix a Cacti related problems. Also to anyone who has contributed to supporting Cacti.

Cacti is licensed under the GNU GPL:

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

## Table of Contents

1. Cacti Installation

   This section contains information on how to install and/or upgrade the Cacti system. It covers requirements, different platforms and the steps needed to get your system working under normal circumstances.

2. Cacti Overview

   This section describes Cacti components and their purpose as well as providing examples including on how to create Templates in Cacti.

3. Advanced Operations

   This section covers more advanced material such as using a advanced data collection and replacement variables that can be used within Templates, etc.

4. Plugins

   This section contains all Plugin related information. Guidelines, hooks, references, etc. More information can be found on the Cacti Forums.

5. How To's

   This section contains how to's for several topics.

6. Contributing

   This section contains information on how to contribute to Cacti.

7. Development Standards

   This section contains the relevant information on how to ensure that any contribution is kept to the same standards that are applied for the Cacti Group. It should be noted that non-compliance does not mean automatically exclusion of proposed changes.

### Cacti Installation

1. Requirements

2. General Installing Instructions

3. Installing Cacti on Linux

   3.1. Installation Under CentOS 7 - LAMP Stack

   3.2. Installation Under CentOS 7 - LEMP Stack

   3.3. Installation Under Ubuntu/Debian - LAMP Stack

4. Installing Under Windows

5. Upgrading Cacti Under Linux/UNIX

6. Upgrading Cacti Under Windows

7. Upgrading Cacti Under FreeBSD

### Cacti Overview

1. Overview

   1.1. Navigating the User Interface

   1.2. Principles of Operation

   1.3. Graph Overview

   1.4. How to Graph Your Network

   1.5. Viewing Graphs

   1.6. Graph a Single SNMP OID

2. Management

   2.1. Devices

   2.2. Sites

   2.3. Trees

   2.4. Graphs

   2.5. Data Sources

   2.6. Aggregates

3. Data Collection

   3.1. Data Collectors

   3.2. Data Input Methods

   3.3. Data Queries

   3.3.1. SNMP Data Queries Walkthrough

   3.3.2. SNMP New Data Query Walkthrough

   3.3.3. Script Data Query Walkthrough

4. Templates

   4.1. Device

   4.2. Graph

   4.3. Data Source

   4.4. Aggregate

   4.5. Color

5. Automation

   5.1. Networks

   5.2. Discovered Devices

   5.3. Device Rules

   5.4. Graph Rules

   5.5. Tree Rules

   5.6. SNMP Options

6. Presets

   6.1. Data Profiles

   6.2. CDEFS

   6.3. VDEFS

   6.4. Colors

   6.5. GPRINTs

7. Import/Export

   7.1. Import Templates

   7.2. Export Templates

8. Configuration

   8.1. Settings

   8.2. Users

   8.3. User Groups

   8.4. User Domains

   8.5. Plugins

9. Utilities

   9.1. System Utilities

   9.2. Data Debug

   9.3. External Links

### Advanced Operations

1. Data Collection

   1.1. How to Graph a Custom Collection Script

   1.2. PHP Script Server

   1.3. Spine Data Collection

   1.4. Command Line Scripts

2. Frequently Asked Questions

3. Replacement Variables

4. RRDTool Specific Features

5. RRDProxy Specific Features

6. Debugging

7. Version Specific Release Notes

### Plugin Development

1. Plugin Overview

2. Plugin Guidelines

3. Creating Plugins

4. References

5. Hook API Reference

### How Tos

1. Determine template version

2. Using SSH Tunnels

3. Data Query Templates

4. How To Setup Remote Pollers

### Contributing

1. Contributing

2. Translations

### Development Standards

1. Documentation

2. Code Formatting

3. PHP Specific Constructs

4. File System Layout

5. Patch Creation

6. SQL Standards

7. Security

Copyright (c) 2004-2020 The Cacti Group