1MRTG-REFERENCE(1) mrtg MRTG-REFERENCE(1)
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6 mrtg-reference - MRTG 2.17.4 configuration reference
7
9 The runtime behaviour of MRTG is governed by a configuration file.
10 Run-of-the-mill configuration files can be generated with cfgmaker.
11 (Check cfgmaker). But for more elaborate configurations some hand-
12 tuning is required.
13 This document describes all the configuration options understood by the
15 mrtg software.
16
18 MRTG configuration file syntax follows some simple rules:
19 · Keywords must start at the beginning of a line.
21 · Lines which follow a keyword line which start with a blank are
23 appended to the keyword line
24 · Empty Lines are ignored
26 · Lines starting with a # sign are comments.
28 · You can add other files into the configuration file using
30 Include: file
32 Example:
34 Include: base-options.inc
36 If included files are specified with relative paths, both the
38 current working directory and the directory containing the main
39 config file will be searched for the files. The current working
40 directory will be searched first.
41 If the included filename contains an asterisk, then this is taken
43 as a wildcard for zero or more characters, and all matching files
44 are included. Thus, you can use this statement to include all
45 files in a specified subdirectory.
46 Example:
48 Include: servers/*.cfg
50 In this case, you should be very careful that your wildcard pattern
52 does not find a match relative to the current working directory if
53 you mean it to be relative to the main config file directory, since
54 the working directory is checked for a match first (as with a
55 normal Include directive). Therefore, use of something like '*/*'
56 is discouraged.
57
59 WorkDir
60 WorkDir specifies where the logfiles and the webpages should be
61 created.
62 Example:
64 WorkDir: /usr/tardis/pub/www/stats/mrtg
66
68 HtmlDir
69 HtmlDir specifies the directory where the html (or shtml, but we'll get
70 on to those later) lives.
71 NOTE: Workdir overrides the settings for htmldir, imagedir and logdir.
73 Example:
75 Htmldir: /www/mrtg/
77 ImageDir
79 ImageDir specifies the directory where the images live. They should be
80 under the html directory.
81 Example:
83 Imagedir: /www/mrtg/images
85 LogDir
87 LogDir specifies the directory where the logs are stored. This need
88 not be under htmldir directive.
89 Example:
91 Logdir: /www/mrtg/logs
93 Forks (UNIX only)
95 With system that supports fork (UNIX for example), mrtg can fork itself
96 into multiple instances while it is acquiring data via snmp.
97 For situations with high latency or a great number of devices this will
99 speed things up considerably. It will not make things faster, though,
100 if you query a single switch sitting next door.
101 As far as I know NT can not fork so this option is not available on NT.
103 Example:
105 Forks: 4
107 EnableIPv6
109 When set to yes, IPv6 support is enabled if the required libraries are
110 present (see the mrtg-ipv6 manpage). When IPv6 is enabled, mrtg can
111 talk to routers using SNMP over IPv6 and targets may be specified by
112 their numeric IPv6 addresses as well as by hostname or IPv4 address.
113 If IPv6 is enabled and the target is a hostname, mrtg will try to
115 resolve the hostname to an IPv6 address and, if this fails, to an IPv4
116 address. Note that mrtg will only use IPv4 if you specify an IPv4
117 address or a hostname with no corresponding IPv6 address; it will not
118 fall back to IPv4 if it simply fails to communicate with the target
119 using IPv6. This is by design.
120 Note that many routers do not currently support SNMP over IPv6. Use the
122 IPv4Only per target option for these routers.
123 IPv6 is disabled by default.
125 Example:
127 EnableIPv6: Yes
129 EnableSnmpV3
131 When set to yes, uses the Net::SNMP module instead of the SNMP_SESSION
132 module for generating snmp queries. This allows the use of SNMPv3 if
133 other snmpv3 parameters are set.
134 SNMPv3 is disabled by default.
136 Example:
138 EnableSnmpV3: yes
140 Refresh
142 How many seconds apart should the browser (Netscape) be instructed to
143 reload the page? If this is not defined, the default is 300 seconds (5
144 minutes).
145 Example:
147 Refresh: 600
149 Interval
151 How often do you call mrtg? The default is 5 minutes. If you call it
152 less often, you should specify it here. This does two things:
153 · The generated HTML page contains the right information about the
155 calling interval ...
156 · A META header in the generated HTML page will instruct caches about
158 the time-to-live of this page .....
159 In this example, we tell mrtg that we will be calling it every 10
161 minutes. If you are calling mrtg every 5 minutes, you can leave this
162 line commented out.
163 Example:
165 Interval: 10
167 Note that unless you are using rrdtool you can not set Interval to less
169 than 5 minutes. If you are using rrdtool you can set interval in the
170 format
171 Interval: MM[:SS]
173 Down to 1 second. Note though, setting the Interval for an rrdtool/mrtg
175 setup will influence the initial creation of the database. If you
176 change the interval later, all existing databases will remain at the
177 resolution they were initially created with. Also note that you must
178 make sure that your mrtg-rrd Web-frontend can deal with this kind of
179 Interval setting.
180 MaxAge
182 MRTG relies heavily on the real time clock of your computer. If the
183 time is set to a wrong value, especially if it is advanced far into the
184 future, this will cause mrtg to expire lots of supposedly old data from
185 the log files.
186 To prevent this, you can add a 'reasonability' check by specifying a
188 maximum age for log files. If a file seems to be older, mrtg will not
189 touch it but complain instead, giving you a chance to investigate the
190 cause.
191 Example:
193 MaxAge: 7200
195 The example above will make mrtg refuse to update log files older than
197 2 hours (7200 seconds).
198 WriteExpires
200 With this switch mrtg will generate .meta files for CERN and Apache
201 servers which contain Expiration tags for the html and gif files. The
202 *.meta files will be created in the same directory as the other files,
203 so you will have to set "MetaDir ." and "MetaFiles on" in your
204 apache.conf or .htaccess file for this to work
205 NOTE: If you are running Apache-1.2 or later, you can use the
207 mod_expire to achieve the same effect ... see the file htaccess.txt
208 Example:
210 WriteExpires: Yes
212 NoMib2
214 Normally we ask the SNMP device for 'sysUptime' and 'sysName'
215 properties. Some do not have these. If you want to avoid getting
216 complaints from mrtg about these missing properties, specify the nomib2
217 option.
218 An example of agents which do not implement base mib2 attributes are
220 Computer Associates - Unicenter TNG Agents. CA relies on using the
221 base OS SNMP agent in addition to its own agents to supplement the
222 management of a system.
223 Example:
225 NoMib2: Yes
227 SingleRequest
229 Some SNMP implementations can not deal with requests asking for
230 multiple snmp variables in one go. Set this in your cfg file to force
231 mrtg to only ask for one variable per request.
232 Examples
234 SingleRequest: Yes
236 SnmpOptions
238 Apart from the per target timeout options, you can also configure the
239 behaviour of the snmpget process on a more profound level. SnmpOptions
240 accepts a hash of options. The following options are currently
241 supported:
242 timeout => $default_timeout,
244 retries => $default_retries,
245 backoff => $default_backoff,
246 default_max_repetitions => $max_repetitions,
247 use_16bit_request_ids => 1,
248 lenient_source_port_matching => 0,
249 lenient_source_address_matching => 1
250 The values behind the options indicate the current default value. Note
252 that these settings OVERRIDE the per target timeout settings.
253 A per-target SnmpOptions[] keyword will override the global settings.
255 That keyword is primarily for SNMPv3.
256 The 16bit request ids are the only way to query the broken SNMP
258 implementation of SMC Barricade routers.
259 Example:
261 SnmpOptions: retries => 2, only_ip_address_matching => 0
263 Note that AS/400 snmp seems to be broken in a way which prevents mrtg
265 from working with it unless
266 SnmpOptions: lenient_source_port_matching => 1
268 is set.
270 IconDir
272 If you want to keep the mrtg icons in someplace other than the working
273 (or imagedir) directory, use the IconDir variable for defining the url
274 of the icons directory.
275 Example:
277 IconDir: /mrtgicons/
279 LoadMIBs
281 Load the MIB file(s) specified and make its OIDs available as symbolic
282 names. For better efficiancy, a cache of MIBs is maintained in the
283 WorkDir.
284 Example:
286 LoadMIBs: /dept/net/mibs/netapp.mib,/usr/local/lib/ft100m.mib
288 Language
290 Switch output format to the selected Language (Check the translate
291 directory to see which languages are supported at the moment. In this
292 directory you can also find instructions on how to create new
293 translations).
294 Currently the following laguages are supported:
296 big5 brazilian bulgarian catalan chinese croatian czech danish dutch
298 eucjp french galician gb gb2312 german greek hungarian icelandic
299 indonesia iso2022jp italian korean lithuanian malay norwegian polish
300 portuguese romanian russian russian1251 serbian slovak slovenian
301 spanish swedish turkish ukrainian
302 Example:
304 Language: danish
306 LogFormat
308 Setting LogFormat to 'rrdtool' in your mrtg.cfg file enables rrdtool
309 mode. In rrdtool mode, mrtg relies on rrdtool to do its logging. See
310 mrtg-rrd.
311 Example:
313 LogFormat: rrdtool
315 LibAdd
317 If you are using rrdtool mode and your rrdtool Perl module (RRDs.pm) is
318 not installed in a location where perl can find it on its own, you can
319 use LibAdd to supply an appropriate path.
320 Example:
322 LibAdd: /usr/local/rrdtool/lib/perl/
324 PathAdd
326 If the rrdtool executable can not be found in the normal "PATH", you
327 can use this keyword to add a suitable directory to your path.
328 Example:
330 PathAdd: /usr/local/rrdtool/bin/
332 RRDCached
334 If you are running RRDTool 1.4 or later with rrdcached, then you can
335 configure MRTG to take advantage of this for updates, either by using
336 the RRDCACHED_ADDRESS environment variable, or by setting the RRDCached
337 keyword in the configuration file. Note that, if both are set, the
338 configuration file keyword will take precedence.
339 Only UNIX domain sockets are fully supported prior to RRDTool v1.5, and
341 you should note that using RRDCached mode will disable all Threshold
342 checking normally done by MRTG. Appropriate warning messages will be
343 printed if necessary.
344 Examples:
346 RRDCached: unix:/var/tmp/rrdcached.sock
348 RRDCached: localhost:42217
350 RunAsDaemon
352 The RunAsDaemon keyword enables daemon mode operation. The purpose of
353 daemon mode is that MRTG is launched once and not repeatedly (as it is
354 with cron). This behavior saves computing resourses as loading and
355 parsing of configuration files happens only once on startup, and if the
356 configuration file is modified.
357 Using daemon mode MRTG itself is responible for timing the measurement
359 intervals. Therfore its important to set the Interval keyword to an
360 apropiate value.
361 Note that when using daemon mode MRTG should no longer be started from
363 cron as each new process runs forever. Instead MRTG should be started
364 from the command prompt or by a system startup script.
365 If you want mrtg to run under a particular user and group (it is not
367 recomended to run MRTG as root) then you can use the --user=user_name
368 and --group=group_name options on the mrtg commandline.
369 mrtg --user=mrtg_user --group=mrtg_group mrtg.cfg
371 Also note that in daemon mode restarting the process is required in
373 order to activate changes in the config file.
374 Under UNIX, the Daemon switch causes mrtg to fork into background after
376 checking its config file. On Windows NT the MRTG process will detach
377 from the console, but because the NT/2000 shell waits for its children
378 you have to use this special start sequence when you launch the
379 program:
380 start /b perl mrtg mrtg.cfg
382 You may have to add path information equal to what you add when you run
384 mrtg from the commandline.
385 Example
387 RunAsDaemon: Yes
389 Interval: 5
390 This makes MRTG run as a daemon beginning data collection every 5
392 minutes
393 If you are daemontools and still want to run mrtg as a daemon you can
395 additionally specify
396 NoDetach: Yes
398 this will make mrtg run but without detaching it from the terminal.
400 If the modification date on the configuration file changes during
402 operation, then MRTG will re-read the configuration on the next polling
403 cycle. Note that sub-files which are included from the main
404 configuration do not have their modification times monitored, only the
405 top-level file is so checked.
406 ConversionCode
408 Some devices may produce non-numeric values that would nevertheless be
409 useful to graph with MRTG if those values could be converted to
410 numbers. The ConversionCode keyword specifies the path to a file
411 containing Perl code to perform such conversions. The code in this file
412 must consist of one or more Perl subroutines. Each subroutine must
413 accept a single string argument and return a single numeric value. When
414 RRDtool is in use, a decimal value may be returned. When the name of
415 one of these subroutines is specified in a target definition (see
416 below), MRTG calls it twice for that target, once to convert the the
417 input value being monitored and a second time to convert the output
418 value. The subroutine must return an undefined value if the conversion
419 fails. In case of failure, a warning may be posted to the MRTG log file
420 using Perl's warn function. MRTG imports the subroutines into a
421 separate name space (package MRTGConversion), so the user need not
422 worry about pollution of MRTG's global name space. MRTG automatically
423 prepends this package declaration to the user-supplied code.
424 Example: Suppose a particular OID returns a character string whose
426 length is proportional to the value to be monitored. To convert this
427 string to a number that can be graphed by MRTG, create a file
428 arbitrarily named "MyConversions.pl" containing the following code:
429 # Return the length of the string argument
431 sub Length2Int {
432 my $value = shift;
433 return length( $value );
434 }
435 Then include the following global keyword in the MRTG configuration
437 file (assuming that the conversion code file is saved in the mrtg/bin
438 directory along with mrtg itself):
439 ConversionCode: MyConversions.pl
441 This will cause MRTG to include the definition of the subroutine
443 Length2Int in its execution environment. Length2Int can then be invoked
444 on any target by appending "|Length2Int" to the target definition as
445 follows:
446 Target[myrouter]: 1.3.6.1.4.1.999.1&1.3.6.1.4.1.999.1:public@mydevice|Length2Int
448 See "Extended Host Name Syntax" below for complete target definition
450 syntax information.
451
453 Each monitoring target must be identified by a unique name. This name
454 must be appended to each parameter belonging to the same target. The
455 name will also be used for naming the generated webpages, logfiles and
456 images for this target.
457 Target
459 With the Target keyword you tell mrtg what it should monitor. The
460 Target keyword takes arguments in a wide range of formats:
461 Basic
463 The most basic format is "port:community@router" This will generate
464 a traffic graph for the interface 'port' of the host 'router' (dns
465 name or IP address) and it will use the community 'community' (snmp
466 password) for the snmp query.
467 Example:
469 Target[myrouter]: 2:public@wellfleet-fddi.domain
471 If your community contains a "@" or a " " these characters must be
473 escaped with a "\".
474 Target[bla]: 2:stu\ pi\@d@router
476 SNMPv2c
478 If you have a fast router you might want to try to poll the ifHC*
479 counters. This feature gets activated by switching to SNMPv2c.
480 Unfortunately not all devices support SNMPv2c yet. If it works,
481 this will prevent your counters from wraping within the 5 minute
482 polling interval, since we now use 64 bit instead of the normal 32
483 bit.
484 Example:
486 Target[myrouter]: 2:public@router1:::::2
488 SNMPv3
490 As an alternative to SNMPv2c, SNMPv3 provides access to the ifHC*
491 counters, along with encryption. Not all devices support SNMPv3,
492 and you will also need the perl Net::SNMP library in order to use
493 it. It is recommended that cfgmaker be used to generate
494 configurations involving SNMPv3, as it will check if the Net::SNMP
495 library is loadable, and will switch to SNMPv2c if v3 is
496 unavailable.
497 SNMP v3 requires additional authentication parameters, passed using
499 the SnmpOptions[] per-target keyword.
500 Example:
502 Target[myrouter]: 2:router1:::::3
503 SnmpOptions[myrouter]: username=>'user1'
504 noHC
506 Not all routers that support SNMPv2 or SNMPv3 provide the ifHC*
507 counters on every interface. The noHC[] per-target keyword signals
508 that the low-speed counters ifInOctets and ifOutOctets should be
509 queried instead. cfgmaker will automatically insert this tag if
510 SNMPv2 or SNMPv3 is specified but the ifHC* counters are
511 unavailable.
512 Example:
514 Target[myrouter]: #Bri0:router1:::::3
515 SnmpOptions[myrouter]: username=>'user1'
516 noHC[myrouter]: yes
517 Reversing
519 Sometimes you are sitting on the wrong side of the link, and you
520 would like to have mrtg report Incoming traffic as Outgoing and
521 vice versa. This can be achieved by adding the '-' sign in front of
522 the "Target" description. It flips the incoming and outgoing
523 traffic rates.
524 Example:
526 Target[ezci]: -1:public@ezci-ether.domain
528 Explicit OIDs
530 You can also explicitly define which OID to query by using the
531 following syntax 'OID_1&OID_2:community@router' The following
532 example will retrieve error counts for input and output on
533 interface 1. MRTG needs to graph two variables, so you need to
534 specify two OID's such as temperature and humidity or error input
535 and error output.
536 Example:
538 Target[myrouter]: 1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.14.1&1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.20.1:public@myrouter
540 MIB Variables
542 MRTG knows a number of symbolic SNMP variable names. See the file
543 mibhelp.txt for a list of known names. One example are the
544 ifInErrors and ifOutErrors. This means you can specify the above
545 as:
546 Example:
548 Target[myrouter]: ifInErrors.1&ifOutErrors.1:public@myrouter
550 SnmpWalk
552 It may be that you want to monitor an snmp object that is only
553 reachable by 'walking'. You can get mrtg to walk by prepending the
554 OID with the string WaLK or if you want a particular entry from the
555 table returned by the walk you can use WaLKx where x is a number
556 starting from 0 (!).
557 Example:
559 Target[myrouter]: WaLKstrangeOid.1&WaLKstrangeOid.2:public@myrouter
561 Target[myrouter]: WaLK3strangeOid.1&WaLK4strangeOid.2:public@myrouter
563 SnmpGetNext
565 A special case of an snmp object that is only reachable by
566 'walking' occurs when a single snmpgetnext will return the correct
567 value, but snmpwalk fails. This may occur with snmp V2 or V3, as
568 the snmpgetbulk method is used in these versions. You can get mrtg
569 to use getnext instead of getbulk by prepending the OID with the
570 string GeTNEXT.
571 Example:
573 Target[myrouter]: GeTNEXTstrangeOid&GeTNEXTstrangeOid:public@myrouter
575 Counted SNMP Walk
577 In other situations, an snmpwalk is needed to count rows, but the
578 actual data is uninteresting. For example, counting the number of
579 mac-addresses in a CAM table, or the number of simultaneous dialup
580 sessions. You can get MRTG to count the number of instances by
581 prepending the OID with the string CnTWaLK. The following will
582 retrieve the number of simultaneous VOIP calls on some routers:
583 Example:
585 Target[myrouter]: CnTWaLK1.3.6.1.4.1.9.10.55.1.1.1.1.3&CnTWaLK1.3.6.1.4.1.9.10.55.1.1.1.1.3:public@myrouter
587 Interface by IP
589 Sometimes SNMP interface index can change, like when new interfaces
590 are added or removed. This can cause all Target entries in your
591 config file to become offset, causing MRTG to graphs wrong
592 instances etc. MRTG supports IP address instead of ifindex in
593 target definition. Then MRTG will query snmp device and try to map
594 IP address to the current ifindex. You can use IP addresses in
595 every type of target definition by adding IP address of the
596 numbered interface after OID and separation char '/'.
597 Make sure that the given IP address is used on your same target
599 router, especially when graphing two different OIDs and/or
600 interface split by '&' delimiter.
601 You can tell cfgmaker to generate such references with the option
603 --ifref=ip.
604 Example:
606 Target[myrouter]: /1.2.3.4:public@wellfleet-fddi.domain
608 Target[ezci]: -/1.2.3.4:public@ezci-ether.domain
609 Target[myrouter]: ifInErrors/1.2.3.4&ifOutErrors/1.2.3.4:public@myrouter
610 Interface by Description
612 If you can not use IP addresses you might want to use the interface
613 names. This works similar to the IP address aproach except that the
614 prefix to use is a \ instead of a /
615 You can tell cfgmaker to generate such references with the option
617 --ifref=descr.
618 Example:
620 Target[myrouter]: \My-Interface2:public@wellfleet-fddi.domain
622 Target[ezci]: -\My-Interface2:public@ezci-ether.domain
623 Target[myrouter]: ifInErrors\My-If2&ifOutErrors\My-If3:public@myrouter
624 If your description contains a "&", a ":", a "@" or a " " you can
626 include them but you must escape with a backlash:
627 Target[myrouter]: \fun\:\ ney\&ddd:public@hello.router
629 Interface by Name
631 This is the only sensible way to reference the interfaces of your
632 switches.
633 You can tell cfgmaker to generate such references with the option
635 --ifref=name.
636 Example:
638 Target[myrouter]: #2/11:public@wellfleet-fddi.domain
640 Target[ezci]: -#2/11:public@ezci-ether.domain
641 Target[myrouter]: ifInErrors#3/7&ifOutErrors#3/7:public@myrouter
642 If your description contains a "&", a ":", a "@" or a " " you can
644 include them but you must escape with a backlash:
645 Target[myrouter]: #\:\ fun:public@hello.router
647 Note that the # sign will be interpreted as a comment character if
649 it is the first non white-space character on the line.
650 Interface by Ethernet Address
652 When the SNMP interface index changes, you can key that interface
653 by its 'Physical Address', sometimes called a 'hard address', which
654 is the SNMP variable 'ifPhysAddress'. Internally, MRTG matches the
655 Physical Address from the *.cfg file to its current index, and then
656 uses that index for the rest of the session.
657 You can use the Physical Address in every type of target definition
659 by adding the Physical Address after the OID and the separation
660 char '!' (analogous to the IP address option). The Physical
661 address is specified as '-' delimited octets, such as
662 "0a-0-f1-5-23-18" (omit the double quotes). Note that some routers
663 use the same Hardware Ethernet Address for all of their Interfaces
664 which prevents unique interface identification. Mrtg will notice
665 such problems and alert you.
666 You can tell cfgmaker to generate configuration files with hardware
668 ethernet address references by using the option --ifref=eth.
669 Example:
671 Target[myrouter]: !0a-0b-0c-0d:public@wellfleet-fddi.domain
673 Target[ezci]: -!0-f-bb-05-71-22:public@ezci-ether.domain
674 Target[myrouter]: 1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.14!0a-00-10-23-44-51& *BREAK*
675 1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.14!0a-00-10-23-44-51:public@myrouter
676 Target[myrouter]: ifInErrors!0a-00-10-23-44-51& *BREAK*
677 ifOutErrors!0a-00-10-23-44-51:public@myrouter
678 Join the lines at *BREAK* ...
680 Interface by Type
682 It seems that there are devices that try to defy all monitoring
683 efforts: the interesting interfaces have neither ifName nor a
684 constant ifDescr not to mention a persistent ifIndex. The only way
685 to get a constant mapping is by looking at the interface type,
686 because the interface you are interested in is unique in the device
687 you are looking at ...
688 You can tell cfgmaker to generate such references with the option
690 --ifref=type.
691 Example:
693 Target[myrouter]: %13:public@wellfleet-fddi.domain
695 Target[ezci]: -%13:public@ezci-ether.domain
696 Target[myrouter]: ifInErrors%13&ifOutErrors%14:public@myrouter
697 Extended positioning of ifIndex
699 There are OIDs that contain the interface index at some inner
700 position within the OID. To use the above mentioned Interface by
701 IP/Description/Name/Type methods in the target definition the
702 keyword 'IndexPOS' can be used to indicate the position of ifIndex.
703 If 'IndexPOS' is not used the ifIndex will be appended at the end
704 of the OID.
705 Example:
707 Target[myrouter]: OID.IndexPOS.1/1.2.3.4&OID.IndexPOS.1/1.2.3.4:public@myrouter
709 Replace OID by your numeric OID.
711 Extended Host Name Syntax
713 In all places where ``community@router'' is accepted, you can add
714 additional parameters for the SNMP communication using colon-
715 separated suffixes. You can also append a pipe symbol ( | ) and the
716 name of a numeric conversion subroutine as described under the
717 global keyword "ConversionCode" above. The full syntax is as
718 follows:
719 community@router[:[port][:[timeout][:[retries][:[backoff][:[version]][|name]]]]]
721 where the meaning of each parameter is as follows:
723 port
725 the UDP port under which to contact the SNMP agent (default:
726 161)
727 The complete syntax of the port parameter is
729 remote_port[!local_address[!local_port]]
731 Some machines have additional security features that only allow
733 SNMP queries to come from certain IP addresses. If the host
734 doing the query has multiple interface, it may be necessary to
735 specify the interface the query should come from.
736 The port parameter allows the specification of the port of the
738 machine being queried. In addition, the IP address (or
739 hostname) and port of the machine doing the query may be
740 specified.
741 Examples:
743 somehost
745 somehost:161
746 somehost:161!192.168.2.4!4000 use 192.168.2.4 and port 4000 as source
747 somehost:!192.168.2.4 use 192.168.2.4 as source
748 somehost:!!4000 use port 4000 as source
749 timeout
751 initial timeout for SNMP queries, in seconds (default: 2.0)
752 retries
754 number of times a timed-out request will be retried (default:
755 5)
756 backoff
758 factor by which the timeout is multiplied on every retry
759 (default: 1.0).
760 version
762 for SNMP version. If you have a fast router you might want to
763 put a '2' here. For authenticated or encrypted SNMP, you can
764 try to put a '3' here. This will make mrtg try to poll the 64
765 bit counters and thus prevent excessive counter wrapping. Not
766 all routers support this though. SNMP v3 requires additional
767 setup, see SnmpOptions[] for full details.
768 Example:
770 3:public@router1:::::2
772 name
774 the name of the subroutine that MRTG will call to convert the
775 input and output values to integers. See the complete example
776 under the global keyword "ConversionCode" above.
777 Example:
779 1.3.6.1.4.1.999.1&1.3.6.1.4.1.999.2:public@mydevice:161::::2|Length2Int
781 This would retrieve values from the OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.999.1 for
783 input and .2 for output on mydevice using UDP port 161 and SNMP
784 version 2, and would execute the user-defined numeric
785 conversion subroutine Length2Int to convert those values to
786 integers.
787 A value that equals the default value can be omitted. Trailing
789 colons can be omitted, too. The pipe symbol followed by the name
790 parameter, if present, must come at the end. There must be no
791 spaces around the colons or pipe symbol.
792 Example:
794 Target[ezci]: 1:public@ezci-ether.domain:9161::4
796 This would refer to the input/output octet counters for the
798 interface with ifIndex 1 on ezci-ether.domain, as known by the SNMP
799 agent listening on UDP port 9161. The standard initial timeout
800 (2.0 seconds) is used, but the number of retries is set to four.
801 The backoff value is the default.
802 Numeric IPv6 addresses
804 If IPv6 is enabled you may also specify a target using its IPv6
805 address. To avoid ambiguity with the port number, numeric IPv6
806 addresses must be placed in square brackets.
807 Example:
809 Target[IPv6test]: 2:public@[2001:760:4::]:6161::4
811 External Monitoring Scripts
813 If you want to monitor something which does not provide data via
814 snmp you can use some external program to do the data gathering.
815 The external command must return 4 lines of output:
817 Line 1
819 current state of the first variable, normally 'incoming bytes
820 count'
821 Line 2
823 current state of the second variable, normally 'outgoing bytes
824 count'
825 Line 3
827 string (in any human readable format), telling the uptime of
828 the target.
829 Line 4
831 string, telling the name of the target.
832 Depending on the type of data your script returns you might want to
834 use the 'gauge' or 'absolute' arguments for the Options keyword.
835 Example:
837 Target[myrouter]: `/usr/local/bin/df2mrtg /dev/dsk/c0t2d0s0`
839 Note the use of the backticks (`), not apostrophes (') around the
841 command.
842 If you want to use a backtick in the command name this can be done
844 but you must escape it with a backslash ...
845 If your script does not have any data to return but does not want
847 mrtg to complain about invalid data, it can return 'UNKNOWN'
848 instead of a number. Note though that only rrdtool is realy
849 equipped to handle unknown data well.
850 Multi Target Syntax
852 You can also combine several target definitions in a mathematical
853 expression. Any syntactically correct expression that the Perl
854 interpreter can evaluate to will work. An expression could be used,
855 for example, to aggregate both B channels in an ISDN connection or
856 to calculate the percentage hard disk utilization of a server from
857 the absolute used space and total capacity.
858 Examples:
860 Target[myrouter]: 2:public@wellfleetA + 1:public@wellfleetA
862 Target[myrouter]: .1.3.6.1.4.1.999.1&.1.3.6.1.4.1.999.2:public@mydevice /
864 .1.3.6.1.4.1.999.3&.1.3.6.1.4.1.999.4:public@mydevice * 100
865 Note that whitespace must surround each target definition in the
867 expression. Target definitions themselves must not contain
868 whitespace, except in interface descriptions and interface names,
869 where each whitespace character is escaped by a backslash.
870 MRTG automatically rounds the result of the expression to an
872 integer unless RRDTool logging is in use and the gauge option is in
873 effect for the target. Internally MRTG uses Perl's Math::BigFloat
874 package to calculate the result of the expression with 40 digits of
875 precision. Even in extreme cases, where, for example, you take the
876 difference of two 64-bit integers, the result of the expression
877 should be accurate.
878 SNMP Request Optimization
880 MRTG is designed to economize on its SNMP requests. Where a target
881 definition appears more than once in the configuration file, MRTG
882 requests the data from the device only once per round of data
883 collection and uses the collected data for each instance of a
884 particular target. Recognition of two target definitions as being
885 identical is based on a simple string match rather than any kind of
886 deeper semantic analysis.
887 Example:
889 Target[Targ1]: 1:public@CiscoA
891 Target[Targ2]: 2:public@CiscoA
892 Target[Targ3]: 1:public@CiscoA + 2:public@CiscoA
893 Target[Targ4]: 1:public@CISCOA
894 This results in a total of three SNMP requests. Data for
896 1:public@CiscoA and 2:public@CiscoA are requested only once each,
897 and used for Targ1, Targ2, and Targ3. Targ4 causes another SNMP
898 request for 1:public@CISCOA, which is not recognized as being
899 identical to 1:public@CiscoA.
900 MaxBytes
902 The maximum value either of the two variables monitored are allowed to
903 reach. For monitoring router traffic this is normally the bytes per
904 second this interface port can carry.
905 If a number higher than MaxBytes is returned, it is ignored. Also read
907 the section on AbsMax for further info. The MaxBytes value is also
908 used in calculating the Y range for unscaled graphs (see the section on
909 Unscaled).
910 Since most links are rated in bits per second, you need to divide their
912 maximum bandwidth (in bits) by eight (8) in order to get bytes per
913 second. This is very important to make your unscaled graphs display
914 realistic information. T1 = 193000, 56K = 7000, 10 MB Ethernet =
915 1250000, 100 MB Ethernet = 12500000. The MaxBytes value will be used by
916 mrtg to decide whether it got a valid response from the router.
917 If you need two different MaxBytes values for the two monitored
919 variables, you can use MaxBytes1 and MaxBytes2 instead of MaxBytes.
920 Example:
922 MaxBytes[myrouter]: 1250000
924 Title
926 Title for the HTML page which gets generated for the graph.
927 Example:
929 Title[myrouter]: Traffic Analysis for Our Nice Company
931
933 PageTop
934 Things to add to the top of the generated HTML page. Note that you can
935 have several lines of text as long as the first column is empty.
936 Note that the continuation lines will all end up on the same line in
938 the html page. If you want linebreaks in the generated html use the
939 '\n' sequence.
940 Example:
942 PageTop[myrouter]: <H1>Traffic Analysis for ETZ C95.1</H1>
944 Our Campus Backbone runs over an FDDI line\n
945 with a maximum transfer rate of 12.5 megabytes per
946 Second.
947 RouterUptime
949 In cases where you calculate the used bandwidth from several interfaces
950 you normally don't get the router uptime and router name displayed on
951 the web page.
952 If these interfaces are on the same router and the uptime and name
954 should be displayed you have to specify its community and address again
955 with the RouterUptime keyword.
956 If you want to use a special OID for querying the router uptime, use
958 prepend the oid.
959 Example:
961 Target[kacisco.comp.edu]: 1:public@194.64.66.250 + 2:public@194.64.66.250
963 RouterUptime[kacisco.comp.edu]: public@194.64.66.250
964 RouterUptime[kacisco.comp.edu]: hrSystemUptime.0:public@194.64.66.250
966 RouterName
968 If the default name of the router is incorrect/uninformative, you can
969 use RouterName to specify a different OID on either the same or a
970 different host.
971 A practical example: sysName on BayTech DS72 units always display
973 "ds72", no matter what you set the Unit ID to be. Instead, the Unit ID
974 is stored at 1.3.6.1.4.1.4779.1.1.3.0, so we can have MRTG display this
975 instead of sysName.
976 Example:
978 RouterName[kacisco.comp.edu]: 1.3.6.1.4.1.4779.1.1.3.0
980 A different OID on a different host can also be specified:
982 RouterName[kacisco.comp.edu]: 1.3.6.1.4.1.4779.1.1.3.0:public@194.64.66.251
984 MaxBytes1
986 Same as MaxBytes, for variable 1.
987 MaxBytes2
989 Same as MaxBytes, for variable 2.
990 IPv4Only
992 Many IPv6 routers do not currently support SNMP over IPv6 and must be
993 monitored using IPv4. The IPv4Only option forces mrtg to use IPv4 when
994 communicating with the target, even if IPv6 is enabled. This is useful
995 if the target is a hostname with both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses; without
996 the IPv4Only keyword, monitoring such a router will not work if IPv6 is
997 enabled.
998 If set to no (the default), mrtg will use IPv6 unless the target has no
1000 IPv6 addresses, in which case it will use IPv4. If set to yes, mrtg
1001 will only use IPv4.
1002 Note that if this option is set to yes and the target does not have an
1004 IPv4 address, communication with the target will fail.
1005 This option has no effect if IPv6 is not enabled.
1007 Example:
1009 Target[v4onlyrouter_1]: 1:public@v4onlyrouter
1011 IPv4Only[v4onlyrouter_1]: Yes
1012 SnmpOptions (V3)
1014 SNMPv3 requires a fairly rich set of options. This per-target keyword
1015 allows access to the User Security Model of SNMPv3. Options are listed
1016 in the same syntax as a perl hash.
1017 Security Modes
1019 SNMPv3 has three security modes, defined on the device being polled.
1021 For example, on Cisco routers the security mode is defined by the snmp-
1022 server group global configuration command.
1023 NoAuthNoPriv
1025 Neither Authentication nor Privacy is defined. Only the Username
1026 option is specified for this mode.
1027 Example:
1029 SnmpOptions[myrouter]: username=>'user1'
1031 AuthNoPriv
1033 Uses a Username and a password. The password can be hashed using
1034 the snmpkey application, or passed in plain text along with the
1035 ContextEngineID
1036 Example:
1038 SnmpOptions[myrouter]: username=>'user1',authpassword=>'example',
1040 contextengineid=>'80000001110000004000000'
1041 Priv
1043 Both Authentication and Privacy is defined. The default privacy
1044 protocol is des.
1045 Example:
1047 SnmpOptions[myrouter]:
1048 authkey=>'0x1e93ab5a396e2af234c8920e61cfe2028072c0e2',
1049 authprotocol=>'sha',privprotocol=>'des',username=>'user1',
1050 privkey=>'0x498d74940c5872ed387201d74b9b25e2'
1051 snmp options
1053 The following option keywords are recognized:
1055 username
1057 The user associated with the User Security Model
1058 contextname
1060 An SNMP agent can define multiple contexts. This keyword allows
1061 them to be polled.
1062 contextengineid
1064 A unique 24-byte string identifying the snmp-agent.
1065 authpassword
1067 The plaintext password for a user in either AuthNoPriv or Priv
1068 mode.
1069 authkey
1071 A md5 or sha hash of the plain-text password, along with the
1072 engineid. Use the snmpkey commandline program to generate this
1073 hash, or use Net::SNMP::Security::USM in a script.
1074 authprotocol {sha|md5}
1076 The hashing algorithm defined on the SNMP client. Defaults to md5.
1077 privpassword
1079 A plaintext pre-shared key for encrypting snmp packets in Priv
1080 mode.
1081 privkey
1083 A hash of the plain-text pre-shared key, along with the engineid.
1084 Use the snmpkey commandline program to generate this hash, or use
1085 Net::SNMP::Security::USM in a script.
1086 privprotocol {des|3desede|aescfb128|aescfb192|aescfb256}
1088 Specifies the encryption method defined on the snmp agent. The
1089 default is des.
1090 PageFoot
1092 Things to add to the bottom of the generated HTML page. Note that you
1093 can have several lines of text as long as the first column is empty.
1094 Note that the continuation lines will all end up on the same line in
1096 the html page. If you want linebreaks in the generated html use the
1097 '\n' sequence.
1098 The material will be added just before the </BODY> tag:
1100 Example:
1102 PageFoot[myrouter]: Contact <A HREF="mailto:peter@x.yz">Peter</A>
1104 if you have questions regarding this page
1105 AddHead
1107 Use this tag like the PageTop header, but its contents will be added
1108 between </TITLE> and </HEAD>.
1109 Example:
1111 AddHead[myrouter]: <link rev="made" href="mailto:mrtg@blabla.edu">
1113 BodyTag
1115 BodyTag lets you supply your very own <body ...> tag for the generated
1116 webpages.
1117 Example:
1119 BodyTag[myrouter]: <BODY LEFTMARGIN="1" TOPMARGIN="1"
1121 BACKGROUND="/stats/images/bg.neo2.gif">
1122 AbsMax
1124 If you are monitoring a link which can handle more traffic than the
1125 MaxBytes value. Eg, a line which uses compression or some frame relay
1126 link, you can use the AbsMax keyword to give the absolute maximum value
1127 ever to be reached. We need to know this in order to sort out
1128 unrealistic values returned by the routers. If you do not set AbsMax,
1129 rateup will ignore values higher than MaxBytes.
1130 Example:
1132 AbsMax[myrouter]: 2500000
1134 Unscaled
1136 By default each graph is scaled vertically to make the actual data
1137 visible even when it is much lower than MaxBytes. With the Unscaled
1138 variable you can suppress this. It's argument is a string, containing
1139 one letter for each graph you don't want to be scaled: d=day w=week
1140 m=month y=year. There is also a special case to unset the variable
1141 completely: n=none. This could be useful in the event you need to
1142 override a global configuration. In the example scaling for the yearly
1143 and the monthly graph are suppressed.
1144 Example:
1146 Unscaled[myrouter]: ym
1148 WithPeak
1150 By default the graphs only contain the average values of the monitored
1151 variables - normally the transfer rates for incoming and outgoing
1152 traffic. The following option instructs mrtg to display the peak 5
1153 minute values in the [w]eekly, [m]onthly and [y]early graph. In the
1154 example we define the monthly and the yearly graph to contain peak as
1155 well as average values.
1156 Examples:
1158 WithPeak[myrouter]: ym
1160 Suppress
1162 By default mrtg produces 4 graphs. With this option you can suppress
1163 the generation of selected graphs. The option value syntax is
1164 analogous to the above two options. In this example we suppress the
1165 yearly graph as it is quite empty in the beginning.
1166 Example:
1168 Suppress[myrouter]: y
1170 Extension
1172 By default, mrtg creates .html files. Use this option to tell mrtg to
1173 use a different extension. For example you could set the extension to
1174 php3, then you will be able to enclose PHP tags into the output (useful
1175 for getting a router name out of a database).
1176 Example:
1178 Extension[myrouter]: phtml
1180 Directory
1182 By default, mrtg puts all the files that it generates for each target
1183 (the GIFs, the HTML page, the log file, etc.) in WorkDir.
1184 If the Directory option is specified, the files are instead put into a
1186 directory under WorkDir or Log-, Image- and HtmlDir). (For example the
1187 Directory option below would cause all the files for a target myrouter
1188 to be put into directory /usr/tardis/pub/www/stats/mrtg/myrouter/ .)
1189 The directory must already exist; mrtg will not create it.
1191 Example:
1193 WorkDir: /usr/tardis/pub/www/stats/mrtg
1195 Directory[myrouter]: myrouter
1196 NOTE: the Directory option must always be 'relative' or bad things will
1198 happen.
1199 Clonedirectory
1201 If the Directory option is specified, the Clonedirectory option will
1202 copy all the contents of Directory to the Clonedirectory.
1203 Example:
1205 WorkDir: /usr/tardis/pub/www/stats/mrtg
1207 Directory[myrouter]: myrouter
1208 Clonedirectory[myrouter]: myclonedirectory
1209 Optionally the target name can be changed in the cloning process.
1211 Example:
1213 WorkDir: /usr/tardis/pub/www/stats/mrtg
1215 Directory[myrouter]: myrouter
1216 Clonedirectory[myrouter]: myclonedirectory mynewtarget
1217 NOTE1: The clone directory must already exist; mrtg will not create it.
1219 NOTE2: The Clonedirectory option must also always be 'relative' or bad
1221 things will happen.
1222 NOTE3: This requires the File::Copy module
1224 XSize and YSize
1226 By default mrtgs graphs are 100 by 400 pixels wide (plus some more for
1227 the labels. In the example we get almost square graphs ...
1228 Note: XSize must be between 20 and 600; YSize must be larger than 20
1230 Example:
1232 XSize[myrouter]: 300
1234 YSize[myrouter]: 300
1235 XZoom and YZoom
1237 If you want your graphs to have larger pixels, you can "Zoom" them.
1238 Example:
1240 XZoom[myrouter]: 2.0
1242 YZoom[myrouter]: 2.0
1243 XScale and YScale
1245 If you want your graphs to be actually scaled use XScale and YScale.
1246 (Beware: while this works, the results look ugly (to be frank) so if
1247 someone wants to fix this: patches are welcome.
1248 Example:
1250 XScale[myrouter]: 1.5
1252 YScale[myrouter]: 1.5
1253 YTics and YTicsFactor
1255 If you want to show more than 4 lines per graph, use YTics. If you
1256 want to scale the value used for the YLegend of these tics, use
1257 YTicsFactor. The default value for YTics is 4 and the default value
1258 for YTicsFactor is 1.0 .
1259 Example:
1261 Suppose you get values ranging from 0 to 700. You want to plot 7 lines
1263 and want to show 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 instead of 0, 100, 200, 300,
1264 400, 500, 600, 700. You should write then:
1265 YTics[myrouter]: 7
1267 YTicsFactor[myrouter]: 0.01
1268 Factor
1270 If you want to multiply all numbers shown below the graph with a
1271 constant factor, use this directive to define it ..
1272 Example:
1274 Factor[as400]: 4096
1276 Step
1278 Change the default step from 5 * 60 seconds to something else (I have
1279 not tested this much ...)
1280 Example:
1282 Step[myrouter]: 60
1284 PNGTitle
1286 When using rateup for graph generation, this will print the given title
1287 in the graph it generates.
1288 Example:
1290 PNGTitle[myrouter]: WAN Link UK-US
1292 Options
1294 The Options Keyword allows you to set some boolean switches:
1295 growright
1297 The graph grows to the left by default. This option flips the
1298 direction of growth causing the current time to be at the right
1299 edge of the graph and the history values to the left of it.
1300 bits
1302 All the monitored variable values are multiplied by 8 (i.e. shown
1303 in bits instead of bytes) ... looks much more impressive :-) It
1304 also affects the 'factory default' labeling and units for the given
1305 target.
1306 perminute
1308 All the monitored variable values are multiplied by 60 (i.e. shown
1309 in units per minute instead of units per second) in case of small
1310 values more accurate graphs are displayed. It also affects the
1311 'factory default' labeling and units for the given target.
1312 perhour
1314 All the monitored variable values are multiplied by 3600 (i.e.
1315 shown in units per hour instead of units per second) in case of
1316 small values more accurate graphs are displayed. It also affects
1317 the 'factory default' labeling and units for the given target.
1318 noinfo
1320 Suppress the information about uptime and device name in the
1321 generated webpage.
1322 nopercent
1324 Don't print usage percentages.
1325 transparent
1327 Make the background of the generated gifs transparent.
1328 integer
1330 Print summary lines below graph as integers without commas.
1331 dorelpercent
1333 The relative percentage of IN-traffic to OUT-traffic is calculated
1334 and displayed in the graph as an additional line. Note: Only a
1335 fixed scale is available (from 0 to 100%). Therefore if IN-traffic
1336 is greater than OUT-traffic then 100% is displayed. If you suspect
1337 that your IN-traffic is not always less than or equal to your OUT-
1338 traffic you are urged to not use this options. Note: If you use
1339 this option in combination with the Colours options, a fifth
1340 colour-name colour-value pair is required there.
1341 avgpeak
1343 There are some ISPs who use the average Peak values to bill their
1344 customers. Using this option MRTG displays these values for each
1345 graph. The value is built by averaging the max 5 minute traffic
1346 average for each 'step' shown in the graph. For the Weekly graph
1347 this means that it builds the average of all 2 hour intervals 5
1348 minute peak values. (Confused? Thought so!)
1349 gauge
1351 Treat the values gathered from target as 'current status'
1352 measurements and not as ever incrementing counters. This would be
1353 useful to monitor things like disk space, processor load,
1354 temperature, and the like ...
1355 In the absence of 'gauge' or 'absolute' options, MRTG treats
1357 variables as a counters and calculates the difference between the
1358 current and the previous value and divides that by the elapsed time
1359 between the last two readings to get the value to be plotted.
1360 absolute
1362 This is for counter type data sources which reset their value when
1363 they are read. This means that rateup does not have to build the
1364 difference between the current and the last value read from the
1365 data source. The value obtained is still divided by the elapsed
1366 time between the current and the last reading, which makes it
1367 different from the 'gauge' option. Useful for external data
1368 gatherers.
1369 derive
1371 If you are using rrdtool as logger/grapher you can use a third type
1372 of data source. Derive is like counter, except that it is not
1373 required to go UP all the time. It is useful for situations where
1374 the change of some value should be graphed.
1375 unknaszero
1377 Log unknown data as zero instead of the default behaviour of
1378 repeating the last value seen. Be careful with this, often a flat
1379 line in the graph is much more obvious than a line at 0.
1380 withzeroes
1382 Normally we ignore all values which are zero when calculating the
1383 average transfer rate on a line. If this is not desirable use this
1384 option.
1385 noborder
1387 If you are using rateup to log data, MRTG will create the graph
1388 images. Normally these images have a shaded border around them. If
1389 you do not want the border to be drawn, enable this option. This
1390 option has no effect if you are not using rateup.
1391 noarrow
1393 As with the option above, this effects rateup graph generation
1394 only. Normally rateup will generate graphs with a small arrow
1395 showing the direction of the data. If you do not want this arrow to
1396 be drawn, enable this option. This option has no effect if you are
1397 not using rateup.
1398 noi When using rateup for graph generation, you can use this option to
1400 stop rateup drawing a graph for the 'I' or first variable. This
1401 also removes entries for this variable in the HTML page MRTG
1402 generates, and will remove the peaks for this variable if they are
1403 enabled. This allows you to hide this data, or can be very useful
1404 if you are only graphing one line of data rather than two. This
1405 option is not destructive - any data received for the the variable
1406 continued to be logged, it just isn't shown.
1407 noo Same as above, except relating to the 'O' or second variable.
1409 nobanner
1411 When using rateup for graph generation, this option disables MRTG
1412 adding the MRTG banner to the HTML pages it generates.
1413 nolegend
1415 When using rateup for graph generation, this option will stop MRTG
1416 from creating a legend at the bottom of the HTML pages it
1417 generates.
1418 printrouter
1420 When using rateup for graph generation, this option will print the
1421 router name in the graph it generates. This option is overridden
1422 by the value of PNGTitle if one is given
1423 pngdate
1425 When using rateup for graph generation, this option will print a
1426 timestamp in the graph it generates, including a timezone if one is
1427 specified by the 'Timezone' parameter. This is aequivalent to
1428 setting TimeStrPost[x]: RU
1429 logscale
1431 The logscale option causes rateup to display the data with the Y
1432 axis scaled logarithmically. Doing so allows the normal traffic to
1433 occupy the majority of the vertical range, while still showing any
1434 spikes at their full height.
1435 logscale displays all the available data and will always produce
1437 well-behaved graphs. People often consider a logarithmically
1438 scaled graph counterintuitive, however, and thus hard to interpret.
1439 expscale
1441 The expscale option causes rateup to display the data with the Y
1442 axis scaled exponentially. Doing so emphasizes small changes at
1443 the top of the scale; this can be useful when graphing values that
1444 fluctuate by a small amount near the top of the scale, such as line
1445 voltage.
1446 expscale is essentially the inverse of logscale.
1448 secondmean
1450 The secondmean option sets the maximum value on the graph to the
1451 mean of the data greater than the mean of all data. This produces
1452 a graph that focuses more on the typical data, while clipping large
1453 peaks.
1454 Using secondmean will give a more intutive linearly scaled graph,
1456 but can result in a uselessly high or low scale in some rare
1457 situations (specifically, when the data includes a large portion of
1458 values far from the actual mean)
1459 If a target includes both logscale and secondmean in the options,
1461 the secondmean takes precedence.
1462 Example:
1464 Options[myrouter]: growright, bits
1466 kilo
1468 Use this option to change the multiplier value for building prefixes.
1469 Defaultvalue is 1000. This tag is for the special case that 1kB =
1470 1024B, 1MB = 1024kB and so far.
1471 Example:
1473 kilo[myrouter]: 1024
1475 kMG
1477 Change the default multiplier prefixes (,k,M,G,T,P). In the tag
1478 ShortLegend define only the basic units. Format: Comma separated list
1479 of prefixed. Two consecutive commas or a comma at start or end of the
1480 line gives no prefix on this item. If you do not want prefixes, just
1481 put two consecutive commas. If you want to skip a magnitude select '-'
1482 as value.
1483 Example: velocity in nm/s (nanometers per second) displayed in nm/h.
1485 ShortLegend[myrouter]: m/h
1487 kMG[myrouter]: n,u,m,,k,M,G,T,P
1488 options[myrouter]: perhour
1489 Colours
1491 The Colours tag allows you to override the default colour scheme.
1492 Note: All 4 of the required colours must be specified here. The colour
1493 name ('Colourx' below) is the legend name displayed, while the RGB
1494 value is the real colour used for the display, both on the graph and in
1495 the html doc.
1496 Format is: Col1#RRGGBB,Col2#RRGGBB,Col3#RRGGBB,Col4#RRGGBB
1498 Important: If you use the dorelpercent options tag a fifth colour name
1500 colour value pair is required:
1501 Col1#RRGGBB,Col2#RRGGBB,Col3#RRGGBB,Col4#RRGGBB,Col5#RRGGBB
1502 Colour1
1504 First variable (normally Input) on default graph.
1505 Colour2
1507 Second variable (normally Output) on default graph.
1508 Colour3
1510 Max first variable (input).
1511 Colour4
1513 Max second variable (output).
1514 RRGGBB
1516 2 digit hex values for Red, Green and Blue.
1517 Example:
1519 Colours[myrouter]: GREEN#00eb0c,BLUE#1000ff,DARK GREEN#006600,VIOLET#ff00ff
1521 Background
1523 With the Background tag you can configure the background colour of the
1524 generated HTML page.
1525 Example:
1527 Background[myrouter]: #a0a0a0a
1529 YLegend, ShortLegend, Legend[1234]
1531 The following keywords allow you to override the text displayed for the
1532 various legends of the graph and in the HTML document:
1533 YLegend
1535 The Y-axis label of the graph. Note that a text which is too long
1536 to fit in the graph will be silently ignored.
1537 ShortLegend
1539 The units string (default 'b/s') used for Max, Average and Current
1540 Legend[1234IO]
1542 The strings for the colour legend.
1543 Example:
1545 YLegend[myrouter]: Bits per Second
1547 ShortLegend[myrouter]: b/s
1548 Legend1[myrouter]: Incoming Traffic in Bits per Second
1549 Legend2[myrouter]: Outgoing Traffic in Bits per Second
1550 Legend3[myrouter]: Maximal 5 Minute Incoming Traffic
1551 Legend4[myrouter]: Maximal 5 Minute Outgoing Traffic
1552 LegendI[myrouter]: In:
1553 LegendO[myrouter]: Out:
1554 Note, if LegendI or LegendO are set to an empty string with
1556 LegendO[myrouter]:
1558 The corresponding line below the graph will not be printed at all.
1560 Timezone
1562 If you live in an international world, you might want to generate the
1563 graphs in different timezones. This is set in the TZ variable. Under
1564 certain operating systems like Solaris, this will provoke the localtime
1565 call to give the time in the selected timezone.
1566 Example:
1568 Timezone[myrouter]: Japan
1570 The Timezone is the standard timezone of your system, ie Japan,
1572 Hongkong, GMT, GMT+1 etc etc.
1573 Weekformat
1575 By default, mrtg (actually rateup) uses the strftime(3) '%V' option to
1576 format week numbers in the monthly graphs. The exact semantics of this
1577 format option vary between systems. If you find that the week numbers
1578 are wrong, and your system's strftime(3) routine supports it, you can
1579 try another format option. The POSIX '%V' option correspond to the
1580 widely used ISO 8601 week numbering standard. The week format
1581 character should be specified as a single letter; either W, V, or U.
1582 The UNIX version of rateup uses the libc implementation of strftime.
1584 On Windows, the native strftime implementation does not know about %V.
1585 So there we use a different implementation of strftime that does
1586 support %V.
1587 Example:
1589 Weekformat[myrouter]: W
1591 RRDRowCount
1593 This affects the creation of new rrd files. By default rrds are created
1594 to hold about 1 day's worth of high resolution data. (plus 1 week of 30
1595 minute data, 2 months of 2 hour data and 2 years of 1 day data). With
1596 this Keyword you can change the number of base interval entries
1597 configured for new rrds as they get created. Note that you must take
1598 the interval time into account.
1599 Example:
1601 RRDRowCount[myrouter]: 1600
1603 RRDRowCount30m
1605 As per RRDRowCount, but for the RRA's -typically- used for 30 minute
1606 data. Even so, you must still take the base interval into account.
1607 Leaving out this keyword will force the old default of 800 rows.
1608 Example:
1610 RRDRowCount30m[myrouter]: 800
1612 RRDRowCount2h
1614 As per RRDRowCount, but for the RRA's -typically- used for 2 hour data.
1615 Even so, you must still take the base interval into account. Leaving
1616 out this keyword will force the old default of 800 rows.
1617 Example:
1619 RRDRowCount2h[myrouter]: 400
1621 RRDRowCount1d
1623 As per RRDRowCount, but for the RRA's -typically- used for 1 day data.
1624 Even so, you must still take the base interval into account. Leaving
1625 out this keyword will force the old default of 800 rows.
1626 Example:
1628 RRDRowCount1d[myrouter]: 200
1630 RRDHWRRAs
1632 Normally the RRDs created by MRTG will just contain the information
1633 gathered directly from the respective target. With this option you can
1634 tap into rrdtools advanced aberrant behaviour detection module based on
1635 Holt-Winters forecasting. The RRDHWRRAs property specifies the Holt-
1636 Winters RRAs as described in the rrdcreate manual page.
1637 Note, this setting will only affect newly created RRDs (targets).
1639 Example:
1641 RRDHWRRAs[myrouter]: RRA:HWPREDICT:1440:0.1:0.0035:288
1643 TimeStrPos
1645 This defines placement of the timestamp string on the image. Possible
1646 values are RU, LU, RL, LL (which stand, respectively, for RightUpper,
1647 LeftUpper, RightLower and LeftLower corner) and NO (for no timestamp).
1648 By default, no timestamp is placed on the image.
1649 Example:
1651 TimeStrPos[myrouter]: RU
1653 TimeStrFmt
1655 Using this keyword you may specify format of the timestamp to be placed
1656 on the image (if enabled by the TimeStrPos keyword). Specified string
1657 will be used by the strftime() function - see strftime(3) documentation
1658 for conversion specifiers available on your system. Default format:
1659 %Y-%m-%d %H:%M
1660 Example:
1662 TimeStrFmt[myrouter]: %H:%M:%S
1664
1666 Through its threshold checking functionality mrtg is able to detect
1667 threshold problems for the various targets and can call external
1668 scripts to handle those problems (e.g. send email or a page to an
1669 administrator).
1670 Threshold checking is configured through the following parameters:
1672 ThreshDir (GLOBAL)
1674 By defining ThreshDir to point to a writable directory, MRTG will only
1675 alert you when a threshold boundary has been crossed.
1676 Example:
1678 ThreshDir: /var/mrtg/thresh
1680 ThreshHyst (GLOBAL)
1682 If a threshold is broken, and you have a threshdir defined, then mrtg
1683 will send mail once the threshold becomes 'unborken' to avoid
1684 situations where broken and unbroken messages get sent in close
1685 succession, we only send an unbroken message once the curent value is
1686 0.1 (10%) away from the threshold. using the ThreshHyst config
1687 variable you can customize this value.
1688 Example for 5%:
1690 ThreshHyst: 0.05
1692 ThreshMailServer (GLOBAL)
1694 Adderss of an SMTP server which is going to accept mail about
1695 Thresholds being broken and unbroken.
1696 ThreshMailSender (GLOBAL)
1698 What is the sender address of the threshold mail.
1699 Example:
1701 ThreshMailSender: mrtg@example.com
1703 ThreshMailAddress (PER TARGET)
1705 Email address for Threshold related Mails. This will only work if a
1706 mailserver has been configured.
1707 Example:
1709 ThreshMailAddress[_]: admin@example.com
1711 ThreshMailAddress[router]:
1712 This would bring threshold releaed mail to all but the target called
1714 'router'.
1715 ThreshMinI (PER TARGET)
1717 This is the minimum acceptable value for the Input (first) parameter.
1718 If the parameter falls below this value, the program specified in
1719 ThreshProgI will be run and a mail will be sent to the
1720 ThreshMailAddress if specified. If the value ends in '%' then the
1721 threshold is defined relative to MaxBytes.
1722 ThreshMaxI (PER TARGET)
1724 Works the same as TheshMinI but it acts when the value is higher than
1725 ThreshMaxI.
1726 ThreshDesc (PER TARGET)
1728 Its value will be assigned to the environment variable THRESH_DESC
1729 before any of the programs mentioned below are called. The programs can
1730 use the value of this variable to produce more user-friendly output.
1731 ThreshProgI (PER TARGET)
1733 This defines a program to be run if ThreshMinI or ThreshMaxI is broken.
1734 MRTG passes 3 arguments: the $router variable, the threshold value
1735 broken, and the current parameter value.
1736 ThreshProgOKI (PER TARGET)
1738 This defines a program to be run if the parameter is currently OK
1739 (based on ThreshMinI and ThreshMaxI), but wasn't OK on the previous
1740 running -- based on the files found in ThreshDir. MRTG passes 3
1741 arguments: the $router variable the unbroken threshold value, and the
1742 current parameter value.
1743 ThreshMinO, ThreshMaxO, ThreshProgO, and ThreshProgOKO
1745 These work the same as their *I counterparts, except on the Output
1746 (second) parameter.
1747 SetEnv
1749 When calling threshold scripts from within your cfg file you might want
1750 to pass some data on to the script. This can be done with the SetEnv
1751 configuration option which takes a series of environment variable
1752 assignments. Note that the quotes are mandatory. This does not work for
1753 external scripts. It is not possible to set environment variables per
1754 target.
1755 Example:
1757 SetEnv[myrouter]: EMAIL="contact_email@someplace.net"
1759 HOST="www.some_server.net"
1760 HW Failure Bassed Threshold Checking
1762 When using rrd based logging with HW RRAs defined. You can use the
1763 confidence bounds violations stored in the FAILURES RRA for threshold
1764 based alerts.
1765 There the all target specific threshold variables have a Hold-Winters
1767 counterpart:
1768 ThreshMailAddress -> HWThreshMailAddress
1770 ThreshMinI -> HWThreshMinI
1771 ...
1772 The global variables for threshold checking are shared except for the
1774 ThreshHyst -> HWThreshHyst
1776 And HWThreshDesc sets the HWTHRESH_DESC variable.
1778
1780 Pre- and Postfix
1781 To save yourself some typing you can define a target called '^'. The
1782 text of every Keyword you define for this target will be PREPENDED to
1783 the corresponding Keyword of all the targets defined below this line.
1784 The same goes for a Target called '$' but its text will be APPENDED.
1785 Note that a space is inserted between the prepended text and the
1787 Keyword value, as well as between the Keyword value and the appended
1788 text. This works well for text-valued Keywords, but is not very useful
1789 for other Keywords. See the "default" target description below.
1790 The example will make mrtg use a common header and a common contact
1792 person in all the pages generated from targets defined later in this
1793 file.
1794 Example:
1796 PageTop[^]: <H1>NoWhere Unis Traffic Stats</H1><HR>
1798 PageTop[$]: Contact Peter Norton if you have any questions<HR>
1799 To remove the prepend/append value, specify an empty value, e.g.:
1801 PageTop[^]:
1803 PageTop[$]:
1804 NoSpaceChar
1806 With PREPEND and APPEND (see below) there is normally a space inserted
1807 between the local value and the PRE- or APPEND value. Sometimes this is
1808 not desirable. You can use the global option NoSpaceChar to define a
1809 character which can be mentioned at the end of a $ or ^ definition in
1810 order to supress the space.
1811 Example:
1813 NoSpaceChar: ~
1815 Target[^]: 1.3.6.1.4.1.482.50.2.4.20.0&1.3.6.1.4.1.482.50.2.4.21.0:get@~
1816 Target[a]: a.tolna.net
1817 Target[b]: b.tolna.net
1818 Target[c]: c.tolna.net
1819 Target[d]: d.tolna.net
1820 Default Values
1822 The target name '_' specifies a default value for that Keyword. In the
1823 absence of explicit Keyword value, the prepended and the appended
1824 keyword value, the default value will be used.
1825 Example:
1827 YSize[_]: 150
1829 Options[_]: growright,bits,nopercent
1830 WithPeak[_]: ymw
1831 Suppress[_]: y
1832 MaxBytes[_]: 1250000
1833 To remove the default value and return to the 'factory default',
1835 specify an empty value, e.g.:
1836 YLegend[_]:
1838 There can be several instances of setting the default/prepend/append
1840 values in the configuration file. The later setting replaces the
1841 previous one for the rest of the configuration file. The
1842 default/prepend/append values used for a given keyword/target pair are
1843 the ones that were in effect at the point in the configuration file
1844 where the target was mentioned for the first time.
1845 Example:
1847 MaxBytes[_]: 1250000
1849 Target[myrouter.somplace.edu.2]: 2:public@myrouter.somplace.edu
1850 MaxBytes[_]: 8000
1851 Title[myrouter.somplace.edu.2]: Traffic Analysis for myrouter.somplace.edu IF 2
1852 The default MaxBytes for the target myrouter.someplace.edu.2 in the
1854 above example will be 1250000, which was in effect where the target
1855 name myrouter.someplace.edu.2 first appeared in the config file.
1856
1858 --user username and --group groupname
1859 Run as the given user and/or group. (Unix Only)
1860 --lock-file filename
1862 Use an alternate lock-file (the default is to use the
1863 configuration-file appended with "_l").
1864 --confcache-file filename
1866 Use an alternate confcache-file (the default is to use the
1867 configuration-file appended with ".ok")
1868 --logging filename|eventlog
1870 If this is set to writable filename, all output from mrtg
1871 (warnings, debug messages, errors) will go to filename. If you are
1872 running on Win32 you can specify eventlog instead of a filename
1873 which will send all error to the windows event log.
1874 NOTE: Note, there is no Message DLL for mrtg included with mrtg.
1876 This has the side effect that the windows event logger will display
1877 a nice message with every entry in the event log, complaing about
1878 the fact that mrtg has no message dll. If you go to the mrtg
1879 contrib download area (on the website) you will find the
1880 mrtg-message-dll.zip which does contain such a thing.
1881 --daemon
1883 Put MRTG into the background, running as a daemon. This works the
1884 same way as the config file option, but the switch is required for
1885 proper FHS operation (because /var/run is writable only by root)
1886 --fhs
1888 Configure all mrtg paths to conform to the FHS specification;
1889 http://www.pathname.com/fhs/
1890 --check
1892 Only check the cfg file for errors. Do not do anything.
1893 --pid-file=s
1895 Define the name and path of the pid file for mrtg running as a
1896 daemon
1897 --debug=s
1899 Enable debug options. The argument of the debug option is a comma
1900 separated list of debug values:
1901 cfg - watch the config file reading
1903 dir - directory mangeling
1904 base - basic program flow
1905 tarp - target parser
1906 snpo - snmp polling
1907 coca - confcache operations
1908 fork - forking view
1909 time - some timing info
1910 log - logging of data via rateup or rrdtool
1911 eval - print eval strings before evaluting them
1912 prof - add hires timing info the rrd calls
1913 Example:
1915 --debug="cfg,snpo"
1917
1919 An exit code of 0 indicates that all targets were successful.
1920 Generally speaking, most codes greater than 0 indicate that there was
1921 an unrecoverable problem. One exception to this is code 91, which
1922 indicates that at least one of the targets was successful. A partial
1923 listing of the codes follows:
1924 0: All targets sucessful
1926 2: Config error (can't read, fatal error in config, etc)
1928 17: Another MRTG process is processing config
1929 91: At least one target sucessful
1931 92: No targets were sucessful
1932
1934 Minimal mrtg.cfg
1935 WorkDir: /usr/tardis/pub/www/stats/mrtg
1936 Target[r1]: 2:public@myrouter.somplace.edu
1937 MaxBytes[r1]: 8000
1938 Title[r1]: Traffic Analysis ISDN
1939 PageTop[r1]: <H1>Stats for our ISDN Line</H1>
1940 Cfg for several Routers.
1942 WorkDir: /usr/tardis/pub/www/stats/mrtg
1943 Title[^]: Traffic Analysis for
1944 PageTop[^]: <H1>Stats for
1945 PageTop[$]: Contact The Chief if you notice anybody<HR>
1946 MaxBytes[_]: 8000
1947 Options[_]: growright
1948 Title[isdn]: our ISDN Line
1950 PageTop[isdn]: our ISDN Line</H1>
1951 Target[isdn]: 2:public@router.somplace.edu
1952 Title[backb]: our Campus Backbone
1954 PageTop[backb]: our Campus Backbone</H1>
1955 Target[backb]: 1:public@router.somplace.edu
1956 MaxBytes[backb]: 1250000
1957 # the following line removes the default prepend value
1959 # defined above
1960 Title[^]:
1962 Title[isdn2]: Traffic for the Backup ISDN Line
1964 PageTop[isdn2]: our ISDN Line</H1>
1965 Target[isdn2]: 3:public@router.somplace.edu
1966
1968 Tobias Oetiker <tobi@oetiker.ch> and many contributors
19692.17.4 2012-01-12 MRTG-REFERENCE(1)