# Device Templates

**Device Templates** are Cacti objects that allow you to define classes of
**Devices** that include one or more **Graph Templates**, **Data Queries** and
other **Plugin** related object types.

The purpose of **Device Templates** is to simplify the **Automation** process by
pre-defining the **Graphs** that should be created for every **Device** that is
added to Cacti.  They work in conjunction with **Automation Templates** so that
when Cacti discovers a **Network** it knows what **Graphs** to create for each
**Device**.

The **Device Templates** main screen looks like the image below:

![Device Templates Page](images/device-templates.png)

From this page, you can see the title of each **Device Template**, and its ID,
which is important for the Cacti CLI scripts.  You can see if the **Device
Template** can be removed, and the number of **Devices** using the **Device
Template**.
Templates that are used by **Devices** can not be removed and therefore if you
attempt to remove one of these Templates, you will receive an error message.

From the drop down there are the following options:

Option | Description
--- | ---
Delete | Remove the **Device Template** if it's *Deletable*
Duplicate | Make an exact copy of the **Device Template**.
Sync Devices | Update all **Devices** using this **Device Template** with the latest definition, adding, but not removing **Graph Templates**, and **Data Queries**.
Archive | Store a copy of the current **Device Template** definition with an optional *Archive Note*.  Archives are listed on the *Archives* tab of the same page.
Download | Download the **Device Template** as a Cacti **Package**.

*Archive* and *Download* were added in Cacti 1.3; Cacti 1.2.x offers only the
first three options. They appear only once the package signing keys exist,
which `cli/genkey.php` creates.

When editing a **Device Template**, you will see the page as displayed below.
From this page, you can add and remove **Graph Templates**, **Data Queries**,
and other **Plugin** objects.  In the image below, you can see that the *Cisco
Router* has one **Graph Template**, *Cisco - CPU Usage*, and one **Data Query**,
*SNMP - Interface Statistics*.  There are no **Threshold
Templates** defined on the system, so there is no way to select one.

![Device Template Edit Page](images/device-templates-edit.png)

To add a **Graph Template** or **Data Query** to the **Device Template**, simply
select it from the drop down, and press the *Add* button.  There is no need to
*Save* afterwards.  To remove one of these items, simply press the x glyph to
the right of the desired **Graph Template** or **Data Query**.

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