1MRTG-UNIX-GUIDE(1) mrtg MRTG-UNIX-GUIDE(1)
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6 mrtg-unix-guide - The MRTG 2.17.10 Linux/Unix Installation Guide
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9 MRTG comes to you in Source Code. This means that you have to compile
10 parts of it before you can use it on a Unix machine. These instructions
11 help you to do so.
12
14 In order to compile and use mrtg you need a C compiler and a copy of
15 perl installed on your machine. In most cases this will already be
16 available. In case it is not, here are some starting points. Below
17 I'll give you a detailed run through the whole compilation process.
18 GCC The GNU C compiler comes preinstalled on most of the free Unices
20 out there. For commercial derivatives you may have to download and
21 compile it first. If you have no compiler at all there is a chicken
22 and egg problem, but there are also precompiled versions of gcc
23 available for most operating systems.
24 http://gcc.gnu.org/
26 Perl
28 Large parts of the MRTG system are written in the Perl scripting
29 language. Make sure there is a recent copy of perl on your machine
30 (try perl -v). At least version 5.005 is required for mrtg to work
31 well. If you use SNMPV3 and other new features you should use at
32 least 5.8.
33 You can get the latest perl from
35 http://www.perl.com/
37 MRTG generates traffic graphs in the PNG format. To be able to do this
39 it needs several 3rd party libraries. When compiling these libraries I
40 urge you to make sure you compile them as static libraries. There is
41 just much less trouble ahead if you are doing it like this. See the
42 Instructions in the next section for inspiration. Note that many free
43 unices have all the required libraries already in place so there is no
44 need to install another copy. To check it is best to skip all the
45 library instructions below and go straight into the mrtg compile.
46 If the first attempt fails and you do not get a working version of
48 mrtg, try compiling new copies of all libraries as explained below. Do
49 this BEFORE you send email to me about problems compiling mrtg.
50 gd This is a basic graph drawing library created by Thomas Boutell.
52 Note that all releases after Version 1.3 only create PNG images.
53 This is because a) Thomas got into trouble because the GIF format
54 which it used to produce uses a compression technology patented by
55 Unisys. b) PNG is more efficient and patent free. MRTG can work
56 with old and new version of the GD library. You can get a recent
57 copy of GD from:
58 http://www.boutell.com/gd/
60 libpng
62 Is required by gd in order to produce PNG graphics files. Get it
63 from:
64 http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/libpng.html
66 zlib
68 Is needed by libpng to compress the graphics files you create. Get
69 a copy from
70 http://www.gzip.org/zlib
72 And last but not least you also need mrtg itself. In case you have not
74 yet downloaded it, you can find a copy on my website:
75 http://oss.oetiker.ch/mrtg/pub
77
79 In this section I will give you step by step instructions on how to
80 compile the various libraries required for the compilation of mrtg.
81 Note that these libraries may already be installed if you have a *BSD
82 or Linux system so you can skip recompiling them. The wget program used
83 below is a simple web downloader. You can also enter the address into
84 your netscape if you don't have wget available.
85 First let's create a directory for the compilation. Note that this may
87 already exist on your system. No problem, just use it.
88 mkdir -p /usr/local/src
90 cd /usr/local/src
91 If you do not have zlib installed:
93 wget http://www.zlib.net/zlib-1.2.3.tar.gz
95 gunzip -c zlib-*.tar.gz | tar xf -
96 rm zlib-*.tar.gz
97 mv zlib-* zlib
98 cd zlib
99 ./configure
100 make
101 cd ..
102 If you don't have libpng installed
104 wget ftp://ftp.simplesystems.org/pub/libpng/png/src/libpng-1.2.40.tar.gz
106 gunzip -c libpng-1.2.34.tar.gz | tar xf -
107 mv libpng-* libpng
108 cd libpng
109 env CFLAGS="-O3 -fPIC" ./configure --prefix=$INSTALL_DIR
110 make
111 rm *.so.* *.so
112 cd ..
113 And now you can compile gd
115 For versions up to 1.8.4, try:
117 wget http://www.boutell.com/gd/http/gd-1.8.4.tar.gz
119 gunzip -c gd-*.tar.gz |tar xf -
120 rm gd-*.tar.gz
121 mv gd-* gd
122 cd gd
123 The \ characters at the end of the following lines mean that all the
125 following material should actually be written on a single line.
126 perl -i~ -p -e s/gd_jpeg.o//g Makefile
128 make INCLUDEDIRS="-I. -I../zlib -I../libpng" \
129 LIBDIRS="-L../zlib -L. -L../libpng" \
130 LIBS="-lgd -lpng -lz -lm" \
131 CFLAGS="-O -DHAVE_LIBPNG"
132 cd ..
133 For versions starting around 2.0.11, try:
135 wget http://www.boutell.com/gd/http/gd-2.0.33.tar.gz
137 gunzip -c gd-2.0.33.tar.gz |tar xf -
138 mv gd-2.0.33 gd
139 cd gd
140 env CPPFLAGS="-I../zlib -I../libpng" LDFLAGS="-L../zlib -L../libpng" \
141 ./configure --disable-shared --without-freetype --without-jpeg
142 make
143 cp .libs/* .
144
146 Ok, now everything is ready for the mrtg compilation.
147 cd /usr/local/src
149 gunzip -c mrtg-2.17.10.tar.gz | tar xvf -
150 cd mrtg-2.17.10
151 If all the libraries have been preinstalled on your system you can
153 configure mrtg by doing a simple:
154 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mrtg-2
156 Otherwise you may have to give some hints on where to find the various
158 libraries required to compile mrtg:
159 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mrtg-2 \
161 --with-gd=/usr/local/src/gd \
162 --with-z=/usr/local/src/zlib \
163 --with-png=/usr/local/src/libpng
164 If you have RRDtool available you might want to tell mrtg about it so
166 that you can opt to use rrdtool with mrtg. Check mrtg-rrd.
167 Configure will make sure your environment is fit for building mrtg. If
169 it finds a problem, it will tell you so and it will also tell you what
170 to do about it. If everything is OK, you will end up with a custom
171 Makefile for your system. Now type:
172 make
174 This builds the rateup binary and edits all the perl pathnames in the
176 scripts. You can now install mrtg by typing
177 make install (requires gnu install)
179 All the software required by MRTG is now installed under the
181 /usr/local/mrtg-2 subdirectory.
182 You can now safely delete the libraries we compiled above. Then again,
184 you might want to keep them around so that you have them available when
185 compiling the next version of mrtg.
186
188 The next step is to configure mrtg for monitoring a network device.
189 This is done by creating an mrtg.cfg file which defines what you want
190 to monitor. Luckily, you don't have to dive straight in and start
191 writing your own configuration file all by yourself. Together with mrtg
192 you also got a copy of cfgmaker. This is a script you can point at a
193 router of your choice; it will create a mrtg configuration file for
194 you. You can find the script in the bin subdirectory.
195 cfgmaker --global 'WorkDir: /home/httpd/mrtg' \
197 --global 'Options[_]: bits,growright' \
198 --output /home/mrtg/cfg/mrtg.cfg \
199 community@router.abc.xyz
200 This example above will create an mrtg config file in /home/mrtg/cfg
202 assuming this is a directory visible on your webserver. You can read
203 all about cfgmaker in cfgmaker. One area you might want to look at is
204 the possibility of using --ifref=ip to prevent interface renumbering
205 troubles from catching you.
206 If you want to start rolling your own mrtg configuration files, make
208 sure you read mrtg-reference to learn all about the possible
209 configuration options.
210
212 Once you have created a configuration file, try the following:
213 /usr/local/mrtg-2/bin/mrtg /home/mrtg/cfg/mrtg.cfg
215 This will query your router and also create your first mrtg traffic
217 graphs and webpages. When you run mrtg for the first time there will be
218 a lot of complaints about missing log files. Don't worry, this is
219 normal for the first 2 times you start mrtg. If it keeps complaining
220 after this time you might want to look into the problem.
221 Starting mrtg by hand is not ideal in the long run. So when you are
223 satisfied with the results you can automate the process of running mrtg
224 in regular intervals (this means every 5 minutes by default).
225 You can either add mrtg to your crontab with a line like this:
227 0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * * \
229 <mrtg-bin>/mrtg <path to mrtg-cfg>/mrtg.cfg \
230 --logging /var/log/mrtg.log
231 or if you live in Linux Land the line may look like this if you are
233 using "crontab -e"
234 */5 * * * * <mrtg-bin>/mrtg <path to mrtg-cfg>/mrtg.cfg \
236 --logging /var/log/mrtg.log
237 or like this if you use /etc/crontab
239 */5 * * * * mrtg-user <mrtg-bin>/mrtg <path to mrtg-cfg>/mrtg.cfg \
241 --logging /var/log/mrtg.log
242 You can also run mrtg as a daemon process by adding the line
244 RunAsDaemon: Yes
246 to your mrtg configuration file and then creating a startup script in
248 your system startup sequence. Unfortunately, adding startup scripts
249 differs widely amongst different unix systems. The modern ones normally
250 have a directory called /etc/init.d or /etc/rc.d/init.d where you put
251 scripts which starts the process you want to run when the system boots.
252 Further you must create a symbolic link in /etc/rc3.d or
253 /etc/rc.d/rc?.d called S65mrtg (this is just a sample name ... it is
254 just important that it starts with S followed by a two digit number).
255 If you are not sure about this, make sure you consult the documentation
256 of your system to make sure you get this right.
257 A minimal script to put into init.d might look like this:
259 #! /bin/sh
261 cd /usr/local/mrtg-2.17.10/bin && ./mrtg --user=mrtg-user \
262 /home/httpd/mrtg/mrtg.cfg --logging /var/log/mrtg.log
263 Note that this will only work with RunAsDaemon: Yes in your mrtg.cfg
265 file.
266
268 Tobias Oetiker <tobi@oetiker.ch>
2692.17.10 2022-01-19 MRTG-UNIX-GUIDE(1)