1MRTG-UNIX-GUIDE(1) mrtg MRTG-UNIX-GUIDE(1)
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6 mrtg-unix-guide - Instructions for running MRTG 2.15.1 on a Unix Box
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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 Unicies
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. You can get the latest perl from
32 http://www.perl.com/
34 MRTG generates traffic graphs in the PNG format. To be able to do this
36 it needs several 3rd party libraries. When compiling these libraries I
37 urge you to make sure you compile them as static libraries. There is
38 just much less trouble ahead if you are doing it like this. See the
39 Instructions in the next section for inspiration. Note that many free
40 unices have all the required libraries already in place so there is no
41 need to install another copy. To check it is best to skip all the
42 library instructions below and go straight into the mrtg compile.
43 If the first attempt fails and you do not get a working version of
45 mrtg, try compiling new copies of all libraries as explained below. Do
46 this BEFORE you send email to me about problems compiling mrtg.
47 gd This is a basic graph drawing library created by Thomas Boutell.
49 Note that all releases after Version 1.3 only create PNG images.
50 This is because a) Thomas got into trouble because the GIF format
51 which it used to produce uses a compression technology patented by
52 Unisys. b) PNG is more efficient and patent free. MRTG can work
53 with old and new version of the GD library. You can get a recent
54 copy of GD from:
55 http://www.boutell.com/gd/
57 libpng
59 Is required by gd in order to produce PNG graphics files. Get it
60 from:
61 http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/libpng.html
63 zlib
65 Is needed by libpng to compress the graphics files you create. Get
66 a copy from
67 http://www.gzip.org/zlib
69 And last but not least you also need mrtg itself. In case you have not
71 yet downloaded it, you can find a copy on my website:
72 http://oss.oetiker.ch/mrtg/pub
74
76 In this section I will give you step by step instructions on how to
77 compile the various libraries required for the compilation of mrtg.
78 Note that these libaries may already be installed if you have a *BSD or
79 Linux system so you can skip recompiling them. The wget program used
80 below is a simple web downloader. You can also enter the address into
81 your netscape if you don't have wget available.
82 First let's create a directory for the compilation. Note that this may
84 already exist on your system. No problem, just use it.
85 mkdir -p /usr/local/src
87 cd /usr/local/src
88 If you do not have zlib installed:
90 wget http://www.gzip.org/zlib/zlib-1.1.4.tar.gz
92 gunzip -c zlib-*.tar.gz ⎪ tar xf -
93 rm zlib-*.tar.gz
94 mv zlib-* zlib
95 cd zlib
96 ./configure
97 make
98 cd ..
99 If you don't have libpng installed
101 wget http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/sourceforge/l/li/libpng/libpng-1.0.15.tar.gz
103 gunzip -c libpng-*.tar.gz ⎪tar xf -
104 rm libpng-*.tar.gz
105 mv libpng-* libpng
106 cd libpng
107 make -f scripts/makefile.std CC=gcc ZLIBLIB=../zlib ZLIBINC=../zlib
108 rm *.so.* *.so
109 cd ..
110 And now you can compile gd
112 For versions up to 1.8.4, try:
114 wget http://www.boutell.com/gd/http/gd-1.8.4.tar.gz
116 gunzip -c gd-*.tar.gz ⎪tar xf -
117 rm gd-*.tar.gz
118 mv gd-* gd
119 cd gd
120 The \ characters at the end of the following lines mean that all the
122 following material should actually be written on a single line.
123 perl -i~ -p -e s/gd_jpeg.o//g Makefile
125 make INCLUDEDIRS="-I. -I../zlib -I../libpng" \
126 LIBDIRS="-L../zlib -L. -L../libpng" \
127 LIBS="-lgd -lpng -lz -lm" \
128 CFLAGS="-O -DHAVE_LIBPNG"
129 cd ..
130 For version starting around 2.0.11, try:
132 wget http://www.boutell.com/gd/http/gd-2.0.11.tar.gz
134 gunzip -c gd-2.0.11.tar.gz ⎪tar xf -
135 mv gd-2.0.11 gd
136 cd gd
137 env CPPFLAGS="-I../zlib -I../libpng" LDFLAGS="-L../zlib -L../libpng" ./configure --disable-shared \
138 --without-freetype --without-jpeg
139 make
140 cp .libs/* .
141
143 Ok, now everything is ready for the mrtg compilation.
144 cd /usr/local/src
146 gunzip -c mrtg-2.15.1.tar.gz ⎪ tar xvf -
147 cd mrtg-2.15.1
148 If all the libraries have been preinstalled on your system you can con‐
150 figure mrtg by doing a simple:
151 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mrtg-2
153 Otherwise you may have to give some hints on where to find the various
155 libraries required to compile mrtg:
156 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mrtg-2 \
158 --with-gd=/usr/local/src/gd \
159 --with-z=/usr/local/src/zlib \
160 --with-png=/usr/local/src/libpng
161 If you have RRDtool available you might want to tell mrtg about it so
163 that you can opt to use rrdtool with mrtg. Check mrtg-rrd.
164 Configure will make sure your environment is fit for building mrtg. If
166 it finds a problem, it will tell you so and it will also tell you what
167 to do about it. If everything is OK, you will end up with a custom
168 Makefile for your system. Now type:
169 make
171 This builds the rateup binary and edits all the perl pathnames in the
173 scripts. You can now install mrtg by typing
174 make install (requires gnu install)
176 All the software required by MRTG is now installed under the
178 /usr/local/mrtg-2 subdirectory.
179 You can now safely delete the libraries we compiled above. Then again,
181 you might want to keep them around so that you have them available when
182 compiling the next version of mrtg.
183
185 The next step is to configure mrtg for monitoring a network device.
186 This is done by creating an mrtg.cfg file which defines what you want
187 to monitor. Luckily, you don't have to dive straight in and start writ‐
188 ing your own configuration file all by yourself. Together with mrtg you
189 also got a copy of cfgmaker. This is a script you can point at a router
190 of your choice; it will create a mrtg configuration file for you. You
191 can find the script in the bin subdirectory.
192 cfgmaker --global 'WorkDir: /home/httpd/mrtg' \
194 --global 'Options[_]: bits,growright' \
195 --output /home/mrtg/cfg/mrtg.cfg \
196 community@router.abc.xyz
197 This example above will create an mrtg config file in /home/mrtg/cfg
199 assuming this is a directory visible on your webserver. You can read
200 all about cfgmaker in cfgmaker. One area you might want to look at is
201 the possibility of using --ifref=ip to prevent interface renumbering
202 troubles from catching you.
203 If you want to start rolling your own mrtg configuration files, make
205 sure you read mrtg-reference to learn all about the possible configura‐
206 tion options.
207
209 Once you have created a configuration file, try the following:
210 /usr/local/mrtg-2/bin/mrtg /home/mrtg/cfg/mrtg.cfg
212 This will query your router and also create your first mrtg trafic
214 graphs and webpages. When you run mrtg for the first time there will be
215 a lot of complaints about missing log files. Don't worry, this is nor‐
216 mal for the first 2 times you start mrtg. If it keeps complaining after
217 this time you might want to look into the problem.
218 Starting mrtg by hand is not ideal in the long run. So when you are
220 satisfied with the results you can automate the process of running mrtg
221 in regular intervals (this means every 5 minutes by default).
222 You can either add mrtg to your crontab with a line like this:
224 0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * * \
226 <mrtg-bin>/mrtg <path to mrtg-cfg>/mrtg.cfg \
227 --logging /var/log/mrtg.log
228 or if you live in Linux Land the line may look like this if you are
230 using "crontab -e"
231 */5 * * * * <mrtg-bin>/mrtg <path to mrtg-cfg>/mrtg.cfg \
233 --logging /var/log/mrtg.log
234 or like this if you use /etc/crontab
236 */5 * * * * mrtg-user <mrtg-bin>/mrtg <path to mrtg-cfg>/mrtg.cfg \
238 --logging /var/log/mrtg.log
239 You can also run mrtg as a daemon process by adding the line
241 RunAsDaemon: Yes
243 to your mrtg configuration file and then creating a startup script in
245 your system startup sequence. Unfortunately, adding startup scripts
246 differs widely amongst different unix systems. The modern ones normally
247 have a directory called /etc/init.d or /etc/rc.d/init.d where you put
248 scripts which starts the process you want to run when the system boots.
249 Further you must create a symbolic link in /etc/rc3.d or
250 /etc/rc.d/rc?.d called S65mrtg (this is just a sample name ... it is
251 just important that it starts with S followed by a two digit number).
252 If you are not sure about this, make sure you consult the documentation
253 of your system to make sure you get this right.
254 A minimal script to put into init.d might look like this:
256 #! /bin/sh
258 cd /usr/local/mrtg-2.15.1/bin && ./mrtg --user=mrtg-user \
259 /home/httpd/mrtg/mrtg.cfg --logging /var/log/mrtg.log
260 Note that this will only work with RunAsDaemon: Yes in your mrtg.cfg
262 file.
263
265 Tobias Oetiker <tobi@oetiker.ch>
2662.15.1 2007-02-01 MRTG-UNIX-GUIDE(1)