I have read the book "Cacti 0.8 Network Monitoring, Monitor your network with ease!" by Dinangkur Kundu and S.M.Ibrahim Lavlu. The book is 116 pages.

According to the book the target audience for this book is for anyone who wants to manage a network using Cacti. To read the book you do not need to be a Linux Guru. And I agree, even if it probably helps if you have basic knowledge of Linux/UNIX, RRD, MySQL and SNMP.

Many of the OpenSource software projects out there is excellent but usually require a rather skilled person or a very interested person with alot of time to start working. Downloading the software and start reading the manual that comes with the software is often quite hard and a book like this narrow that gap and make a complex software like Cacti easier to use.

I find the Cacti GUI sometimes very cumbersome and this book, with its step by step guides to setup, makes graphing of network attached devices easy. The book explains how Cacti works and the underlaying technology like RRD well. RRD is the excellent Round Robin Database and tool and it is created by Tobias Oetiker. What I’m lacking is that when it has described the basics, it stops.  I would really like a deeper explanation of RRD because Cacti is a graphing tool which uses RRD and a deeper knowledge of RRD would make your graphs better and give you the information you want.

I also lack the deeper explanation of advanced Cacti topics like SNMP query XML syntax and other topics.The book is only 116 pages and in my opinion the book would be much more valuable if 50 extra pages would have been used to dig deeper into more advanced topics and explain more extensive what al the options in Cacti means.

I really miss a howto for Cacti addons like wethermaps, weathermaps is taking Cacti another step in visualiation of complex data.

I would recommend this book for newbies into Cacti that will get ther first graphs implementation a boost, for anyone that has used Cacti I would go for the RRD homepage, Cacti homepage and Cacti forums, blogs and other sources on internet.

Links:

• To buy the book Cacti 0.8 Network Monitoring, Monitor your network with ease!
• An example Chapter 4, creating and using templates
• Cacti homepage
• Cacti Forum
• RRD tools
• op5 Statistics, a supported version of Cacti

This description is op5 Statistics centric, however op5 Statistics is based on Cacti so it will work there as well. The only differences between op5 Statistics and Cacti to this guide is the paths to different files.

Links to the files used is located at the bottom.

1. Create a directory called /opt/statistics/scripts/custom

#mkdir /opt/statistics/scripts/custom

Put the file esxiograph.sh in /opt/statistics/scripts/custom

2. Test the script by manually running the script

./esxiograph.sh io_vm vmware-stockholm demo.op5.com <user> <password>

usage:0.02 read:0.00 write:0.02

It works

3. Import the xml files

console->import templates

Browse to the xml file and choose default rrd settings

Do it with both xml files.

4. Add the graph

console->new graph

Choose your vmware ESX server

Graph template choose "ESX – IO Load per VS" to graph the host vmware ESX server load

or "ESX – IO Load per VM" to graph a particular guest host.

Click Create

Enter guest name (if you pick ESX – IO Load per VM), login and password. Change the title to " -IO load" if it is a guest IO you are graphing otherwise all graphs will have the same name.

Click Create

note: The login and password will be non-encrypted in a op5 Statistcs or Cacti MySQL database, use a read only user!

5. Repeat 4 with all ESX servers and guest host you want to graph.

Hint: to get a list of virtual machines run:

/opt/plugins/check_esx3.pl -H  -u xxxxx -p yyyyyy
 -l runtime -s list

CHECK_ESX3.PL OK - 26/28 VMs up: xxxx.op5.se(UP), yyyyy.op5.se(UP), zzzzz.op5.com(UP)....

6. Create a graph tree

Console->Graph Trees

Click add

Enter a name i.e. vmware ESX

7. Put the graphs in your graph tree with the ESX server at root

console->Graph Management

Enter ESX in search field so you only have yor hraphs containing ESX

click checkbox next to – VS IO Load

Choose action scrolllist "Place on tree (vmware ESX)"

Click Go

Choose [Root]

8. Put the guest machines under your vmware server in the tree

console->Graph Trees

Click add

Enter name "Guest machines"

9. Put the guest graphs under the leaf in the graph tree

console -> Graph Management

Enter ESX in search field

Click the checkbox next to all guests

Choose "Place on tree (vmware ESX)"

Choose "Guest Machines"

10. Now you should have a graph tree that looks similiar to this:

Congratulations, now you can look at some nice vmware I/O graphs.

Links:

• op5 Statistics
• Cacti
• Files used in this guide
• IXX IT-Partner AB
  
• op5 check_esx3.pl