Thomas Vincent
57b8088e13
* docs: comprehensive audit, Spine poller overhaul, and technical refactor - Overhaul Spine documentation (Spine.md) with complete end-to-end guide: architecture, prerequisites for modern distros (EL8/9 CRB, Ubuntu 22/24, Debian 11/12, FreeBSD), SUID root permissions, secure spine.conf setup (0640), Web UI configuration (Paths, Poller type, Data Collectors tuning), MySQL max_connections sizing, and troubleshooting. - Fix broken links and anchors (Hardening, SNMP data queries, Hook API references). - Fix broken image reference in Sites.md (add-site.JPG -> add-site.png). - Fix syntax errors in documentation PHP code blocks, including invalid parenthesization, missing SQL execute quotes, and malformed comments in FAQ. - Fix DevOps installation commands: use config.php.dist, correct systemctl service names for MySQL/MariaDB/PHP-FPM, remove nonexistent php-json, add missing composer install, and correct Debian/Ubuntu systemd environment path. - Correct grammatical errors, repeated words, and typos across all markdown documents. - Remove obsolete unreferenced duplicate installation guides. Signed-off-by: Thomas Vincent <thomasvincent@gmail.com> * docs: correct reviewed examples and guidance Signed-off-by: Thomas Vincent <thomasvincent@gmail.com> * docs: correct guidance that disagrees with the Cacti source Verified each claim against include/global_arrays.php, lib/auth.php, lib/functions.php, host_templates.php and the Spine config parser. The notable ones: api_plugin_safe_exec() does not exist on either branch, Spine reads DB_Pass rather than DB_Password, and the CDEF special data source table was missing five entries and renamed four others. Signed-off-by: Thomas Vincent <thomasvincent@gmail.com> * docs: wrap Spine prose and fence the connection sizing formula The formula's bare asterisks rendered as emphasis, dropping the multiplication signs. Signed-off-by: Thomas Vincent <thomasvincent@gmail.com> * chore: refresh copyright year in scripts and issue templates Signed-off-by: Thomas Vincent <thomasvincent@gmail.com> --------- Signed-off-by: Thomas Vincent <thomasvincent@gmail.com>
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Path Settings
Cacti's Path Settings include mainly the locations of core binaries that Cacti must call in order to operate correctly. Generally, these binaries are included in the Web Servers path, but being able to override these settings is important, especially for debugging issues. Cacti's Paths sub-tab is broken into the following sub-sections:
- Required Tool Paths - Paths that are essential for Cacti's operation
- Logging - Settings associated with Cacti's logging facilities including log rotation
- Alternate Poller Path - Locations for Cacti's spine binary and spine config file if not in the established default locations
- RRD Cleaner - Setting for Cacti's RRDfile disposal of removed RRDfile when Data Sources are removed.
When using Cacti's Remote Data Collectors or Remote Pollers the
settings that refer for a File Path, or Directory Path will be local
to the Data Collector. Therefore, you can have one set of paths for
your Main Cacti site, and another set of paths for your Remote Poller,
say in the case that they are on Windows.
Required Tools Paths
The image below shows Cacti's Required Tool Paths settings.
Those settings include:
snmpwalk Binary Path - This is the path to the snmpwalk binary.
snmpget Binary Path - This is the path to the snmpget binary.
snmpbulkwalk Binary Path - This is the path to the snmpwalk binary. This binary
path is essential if you use SNMPv2 of SNMPv3 versions where Data Queries perform
bulkwalks by default to increase performance.
snmpgetnext Binary Path - This is the path to the snmpgetnext binary.
snmptrap Binary Path - This is the path to the snmptrap binary. This binary
is important for SNMP Notification and Trap generation.
RRDtool Binary Path - The location of the RRDtool binary that matches your RRDtool version.
PHP Binary Path - The location of the PHP Binary, generally, this setting is
always /usr/php, but can change for some users.
Logging
The next set of settings define where Cacti's Standard Output and Standard Error files are to be placed, and how they should be rotated, and for how long they should be retained. You can see those settings from the image below.
Those settings include:
Cacti Log Path - The location of Cacti's Standard Output (stdout) log file.
Poller Standard Error Log Path - For Cacti's Data Collector functions only, the location of the Standard Error (stderr) log file.
Rotate the Cacti Log - Determines if Cacti or the package maintainer rotates the Cacti log.
Rotation Frequency - Should the Log files be rotated Daily or Weekly
or Monthly
Log Retention - How many generations of Log files should be maintained. Older files will be removed automatically.
Note
: Some package maintainers control log rotation and therefore the log rotation settings may be missing from certain version of Cacti if you install through a packaging tool such as
apt-get,yumordnf
Alternate Poller Path
This subsection holds information on how to configure Cacti's spine binary path.
Since spine is written in C, it is compiled by the Cacti Administrator to match
the system's environment. The primary benefit of spine is that it is
multi-threaded and highly scalable, capable of polling tens of thousands of data
sources per minute. The image below shows this subsection.
Those settings include:
-
Spine Binary File Location - The path to the spine binary.
-
Spine Config File Path - This setting is optional. If blank, Cacti will search the following locations for a
spine.conffile.- pwd - The same directory as spine
- ../etc/ - One sibling
etcdirectory of thespinebinary directory. - /etc/ - The systems /etc/ directory.
RRD Cleaner
This setting defines how Cacti manages RRDfiles from Data Sources that have
been removed. By default, Cacti does not manage these files, and leaves it to
the Cacti Administrator to pro-actively manage them. The RRD Cleaner settings
can be seen in the image below. Note that unless you enable
RRDfile Auto Clean, you will not see the other settings by default.
Those settings include:
-
RRDfile Auto Clean - Denotes that you wish Cacti to manage RRDfiles from removed Data Sources potentially automatically.
-
RRDfile Auto Clean Method - This is the method to perform cleanup. Options include:
- Delete - Simply remote the files once the Data Source is removed
- Archive - Archive the RRDfile to an Archive directory once it's removed.
-
Archive directory - The Archive directory to move old RRDfile to.
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