Book Image

Cacti 0.8 Beginner's Guide

By : Thomas Urban
Book Image

Cacti 0.8 Beginner's Guide

By: Thomas Urban

Overview of this book

Cacti is a performance measurement tool that provides easy methods and functions for gathering and graphing system data. You can use Cacti to develop a robust event management system that can alert on just about anything you would like it to. But to do that, you need to gain a solid understanding of the basics of Cacti, its plugin architecture, and automation concepts. Cacti 0.8 Beginner's Guide will introduce you to the wide variety of features of Cacti and will guide you on how to use them for maximum effectiveness. Advanced topics like the plugin architecture and Cacti automation using the command-line interface will help you build a professional performance measurement system.Designed as a beginner's guide, the book starts off with the basics of installing and using Cacti, and also covers the advanced topics that will show you how to customize and extend the core Cacti functionalities. The book offers essential tutorials for creating advanced graphs and using plugins to create enterprise-class reports to show your customers and colleagues. From data templates to input methods and plugin installation to creating your own customized plugins, this book provides you with a rich selection of step-by-step instructions to reach your goals. It covers all you need to know to implement professional performance measurement techniques with Cacti and ways to fully customize Cacti to fit your needs. By the end of the book, you will be able to implement and extend Cacti to monitor, display, and report the performance of your network exactly the way you want.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
Cacti 0.8Beginner's Guide
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Pop Quiz Answers
Index

General user settings


There are a few general settings which can be checked for each user. These settings include the Authentication Realm or access to the different Graph Options.

Graph Options

The Graph Options are not related to any options to the actual graphs, but describe the type of view on the graphs which the user has access to. There are three different options available:

  • User has rights to Tree View

  • User has rights to List View

  • User has rights to Preview View

These views relate to the small tabs on the upper right of the Cacti screen when you are using the Graphs tab:

Authentication Realm

The Authentication Realm defines the type of access authentication used when a user logs in to Cacti. There are three different options available:

  • Local

  • LDAP

  • Web Basic

The Local realm uses the built-in authentication from Cacti. LDAP authentication can authenticate users against any LDAP server including Active Directory servers. Web Basic authentication is handled by the web server itself (for example...