# 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.

## Core Developers - Both active and emeritus

Active Developers

### Developers working on Cacti, its Architecture, Documentation and Future Releases.

- Larry Adams (TheWitness)
- Mark Brugnoli-Vinten (netniV)
- Jimmy Conner (cigamit)
- Petr Macek (xmacan)
- Andreas Braun (browniebraun)
- Thomas Urban (phalek)
- Jing Chen (ddb4github)

### Contributors to Docuemntation, QA, Packaging, the Forums and our YouTube page.

- Sean Mancini (bmfmancini)
- J.P. Pasnak, CD (Linegod)
- Chris Bell (Windows) (BSOD2600)
- Paul Gevers (Debian) (paulgevers)
- Morten Stevens (Fedora) (mortenstevens)

### Members of the original Cacti Group that have since moved on in their careers.

### We continue to wish them the best.

- Ian Berry (raX)
- Reinhard Scheck (gandalf)
- Tony Roman (rony)
- Andy Blyler (ablyler)

## 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 a bug report, or otherwise help fix a Cacti related problem. 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. Plugin Development

   This section contains all Plugin development 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.

### Known Issues

List of Known issues

### 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

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. Spine Data Collection

   3.3. Data Input Methods

   3.4. Data Queries

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. Settings (w/o Auth)

   8.1. General

   8.2. Paths

   8.3. Device Defaults

   8.4. Poller

   8.5. Data

   8.6. Visual

   8.7. Performance

   8.8. Spikes

   8.9. Mail/Reporting/DNS

9. Settings - Auth

   9.1. Local Auth

   9.2. LDAP Auth

   9.3. Basic Auth

   9.4. Domains Auth

10. Configuration - Users, Groups and Domains

    10.1. Users

    10.2. User Groups

    10.3. User Domains

11. Configuration - Plugins

12. Utilities

    12.1. System Utilities

    12.2. Data Debug

    12.3. External Links

13. Reporting

    13.1. Reports Admistrative Interface

    13.2. Reports User Interface

    13.3. Report Items Page

    13.4. Report Preview Page

    13.5. Report Events Page

    13.6. Other Options for Adding Report Items

14. The Cacti Log

### Advanced Operations

1. Data Collection

   1.1. Command Line Scripts

   1.2. PHP Script Server

   1.3. Spine Data Collection

   1.4. Performance Setting (Boost)

2. Frequently Asked Questions

3. Replacement Variables

4. RRDtool Specific Features

5. RRDProxy Specific Features

6. Spikekill

7. Debugging

8. Version Specific Release Notes

### Plugin Development

1. Plugin Overview

2. Plugin Guidelines

3. Creating Plugins

4. References

5. Hook API Reference

### Plugins

1. Supported Plugins

2. Syslog Plugin documentation

3. Mactrack Plugin documentation

4. ReportIt Plugin documentation Older version, pdf format

### How Tos

1. How To Work with Templates

2. How To Create a Data Input Method

3. How To Work with Data Queries

4. How To Work with Existing SNMP Data Queries

5. How To Work with New SNMP Data Queries

6. How To Work with Script Data Queries

7. How To Setup Remote Pollers

8. How To Determine Template Version

9. How To Setup SSH Tunnels

10. Enable SSL for Cacti

11. Graph a Single SNMP OID

12. How To Extend snmpd with custom script/data

13. Change poller interval from 5 minutes to 1 minute

14. Convert from Package based install to source on Ubuntu/Debian

### Video Tutorials

Watch Howto's and Tutorials on the Cacti Official YouTube page if you prefer. If you would have any ideas for videos or would like to contribute let us know !

Cacti Official Youtube Channel

### Contributing

1. Open Source Code

2. Language Translations

### Development Standards

1. Documentation

2. Code Formatting

3. PHP Specific Constructs

4. File System Layout

5. Patch Creation

6. SQL Standards

7. Security

### Template Specific Documentation

This section will be for template specific configuration requriments

1. Apache Server Template

2. ESXi/VMWare Template

Copyright (c) 2004-2024 The Cacti Group