Using cacti for collecting and graphing non-traditional data

[Steven]

If you are interested in this capability I can send you more information. I have developed an approach for graphing non-traditional (e.g. non-SNMP) performance data using cacti. Examples include:

-- Sendmail inbound and outbound message volumes.
-- Sendmail mail queue size.
-- FTP performance benchmarks measured from different sites.
-- Counts of desktop operating systems as tabulated by Active Directory.

Each contributing host runs a script to collect its data, then drops a file on the cacti host using FTP. The cacti process harvests this data using its command/script capability. The approach works for Linux, UNIX, and Windows, all of which can run FTP inside a script. Data collection is asynchronous from cacti; when cacti runs, it simply picks up the most recent data.

Your imagination is the only limit to kinds of data that can be collected and graphed. If you want more info, post a reply.

BTW, I have found cacti to be a most useful way of visualizing performance data. It's a bit quirky to configure, but once done it runs forever without further effort. I like that!

[Bisonlux]

Hi,

For the moment I use Perfmon on Windows boxes to get statistics like CPU utilization, disk space, network utilization... (CSV format), so I am interested to see you solution (scripts) to get some statistics...

Bye,

[scuda20]

I would be interested, most of my data I am collecting is non-snmp. I have some working but others are not, like trying to collect on 1 datapoint per day ie.. graphing daily total TCP drops or Port 443 drops and then creating a weekly graph for those daily points.

[fletch]

I felt the same rush of SNMP invincibility when I discovered the SNMP
exec directive - it allows you do the same thing - eg I used:
exec 1.3.6.1.4.1.2021.8.1.100 disktemp /usr/local/bin/disktemp.csh
in my snmpd.conf on my linux host to poll the disk temperature via smartctl - disktemp.csh looks like:

#!/bin/csh

/usr/sbin/smartctl -a /dev/hda | grep -i temperature | awk '{print $10}'

I like this approach because it allows for arbitrary data collection via the existing SNMP polling model.

Good for info junkies like me

[bbchawk]

I would be interested, too. Please send me more infos.

[Sikarius]

Hi Fletch !!

How do you do the SNMP exec?.... I was read the SNMP documentation but when i used the command exec with snmp oid it said me that iy unknow the command .1.2..... etc.


Tx !!!

One question... I use ssh to exec a remote script i think is more secure than ftp and i have not open a ftp port. . You can make a public-private pair of keys in the remote machine and use ssh without password !!!!