Boost Plugin v1.6 Released

[dononeil]

Finally, it seems as though I've solved the problem.

Evidently I didn't have some php,graphics, apache, whatever library loaded that boost needed. What I did was match versions/libs/modules from the server that worked, to the server that didn't and that solved the problem.

Can someone provide a list of required modules/libs that boost uses so we can all avoid this issue in the future?

[TheWitness]

posix, sockets, mysql

I think that's it.

TheWitness

[khufure]

Permissions have been mentioned a few times for boost. Let me add, even though it seems like it should work, boost updating RRD seems to write the group as root and this could be a problem. I wonder if a new field could be added to control the group it writes as?

This fix worked for me. Add sticky bit permissions to the folder, then fix the files already there. Modify the variables to fit your system..

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sudo (or as root) chown $user:$group $cacti_home/rra
sudo (or as root) chmod g+s $cacti_home/rra
sudo (or as root) find $cacti_home/rra -type f ! -group $group -exec chgrp $group {} \;

[TheWitness]

I will look into this. This would only be the the boost_server though. Boost on demand updating without the server uses the apache group by default.

You can always change the ID that Apache run's as though... It it and the Cacti poller are running as the same user == no permissions problems.

TheWitness

[khufure]

I will look into this. This would only be the the boost_server though. Boost on demand updating without the server uses the apache group by default.

You can always change the ID that Apache run's as though... It it and the Cacti poller are running as the same user == no permissions problems.

TheWitness

Apache and Cacti are already running as the same user. It was a strange problem that did not make sense. It was boost_process running as root, saving as $same_user, the group of root. It had rw for $same_user, read for group (root). Somehow this didn't get read in. Most RRDs were $same_user, $same_group and these seemed to load.

The error reported was

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11/12/2008 02:56:22 PM - BOOST: Poller[0] WARNING: RRD Update Warning 'FAILED' for Local Data ID '22716'
11/12/2008 02:56:20 PM - BOOST: Poller[0] WARNING: RRD Update Warning 'FAILED' for Local Data ID '22716'
11/12/2008 02:56:20 PM - BOOST: Poller[0] WARNING: RRD Update Warning 'FAILED' for Local Data ID '22716'

As soon as I changed the group permission on all files owned by group root boost worked flawlessly again. I could not get a statistical measurement of how much faster the graphs loaded, but e.g. on a page with many aggregates it seemed to load multiple times quicker following the change.

[khufure]

11/13/2008 01:46:47 PM - SYSTEM BOOST STATS: Time:1106.8252 RRDUpdates:803258
11/13/2008 01:48:22 PM - SYSTEM STATS: Time:198.6993 Method:spine Processes:4 Threads:40 Hosts:2071 HostsPerProcess:518 DataSources:60348 RRDsProcessed:0

On our largest instance -- boost is taking names. Disks are slow on this server.

[deu439356]

I am having a problem with the boost server not writing the data from the boost table fast enough. The boost server is constantly running and the number of boost records continues to grow. Does anyone know how to correct that issue? Will the Apache server update faster and if so, how do I set up Apache?

Thanks!

[khufure]

I am having a problem with the boost server not writing the data from the boost table fast enough. The boost server is constantly running and the number of boost records continues to grow. Does anyone know how to correct that issue? Will the Apache server update faster and if so, how do I set up Apache?

Thanks!

Cacti UI -> Settings -> Boost

Increase:

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Maximum Records Per Pass
To optimize performance, the boost RRD updater needs to know how many records should be retrieved from the boost cache database per SQL select statement. This setting will control that number. The default value is 50000.

Note : may also want to increase:

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Maximum RRD Update Script Run Time
The maximum boot poller run time allowed prior to boost issuing warning messages relative to possible hardware/software issues preventing proper updates.

[deu439356]

Maximum Records Per Pass
To optimize performance, the boost RRD updater needs to know how many records should be retrieved from the boost cache database per SQL select statement. This setting will control that number. The default value is 50000.

I have that value set to 100,000 (The max possible).

Maximum RRD Update Script Run Time
The maximum boot poller run time allowed prior to boost issuing warning messages relative to possible hardware/software issues preventing proper updates.

I had that set to 1 hour.

Any other thoughts?

[khufure]

Can you post a screenshot of your boost settings and the SYSTEM lines from cacti.log

[deu439356]

I have been making changes so I don't have the most recent Boost stats posted...

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11/24/2008 12:46:05 PM - SYSTEM STATS: Time:63.3879 Method:spine Processes:15 Threads:15 Hosts:1897 HostsPerProcess:127 DataSources:192278 RRDsProcessed:0
11/24/2008 12:42:43 PM - SYSTEM BOOST STATS: Time:2561.7892 RRDUpdates:1886160
11/24/2008 12:42:43 PM - CMDPHP: Poller[0] FATAL: RRD On Demand Updater Exceeded Runtime Limits!!! 

[khufure]

Side comment - What version rrdtool? Try going to 1.2.27/1.2.28 (with fix). Later versions in the 1.2.20's of rrdtool have really nice disk improvements.
)

That's a gigantic cacti server. I run this in cacti user crontab:

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# boost - force update to disk every day
15 0 * * * /usr/bin/php -q /$cacti_path/plugins/boost/poller_boost.php -f -d > /dev/null 2>&1

This will force an update to disk. You may try playing around with it. Not sure if it will help though. I fear the only answer will be to update your disk speed or wait for someone more knowledgeable to answer.

[timi]

hi, I'm trying to get boost-1.6 to work but with no success

copied poller.php from modified/ to to cacti directory added $plugins[] = 'boost'; in include/config.php, imported boost_sql_memory.sql to mysql
and tried to run poller.php but i get some errors:

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#php /var/www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php

PHP Notice:  Undefined variable:  config in /var/www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php on line 35
PHP Warning:  main(/lib/poller.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /var/www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php on line 35
PHP Warning:  main(): Failed opening '/lib/poller.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php') in /var/www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php on line 35
PHP Notice:  Undefined variable:  config in /var/www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php on line 36
PHP Warning:  main(/lib/data_query.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /var/www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php on line 36
PHP Warning:  main(): Failed opening '/lib/data_query.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php') in /var/www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php on line 36
PHP Notice:  Undefined variable:  config in /var/www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php on line 37
PHP Warning:  main(/lib/graph_export.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /var/www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php on line 37
PHP Warning:  main(): Failed opening '/lib/graph_export.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php') in /var/www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php on line 37
PHP Notice:  Undefined variable:  config in /var/www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php on line 38
PHP Warning:  main(/lib/rrd.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /var/www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php on line 38
PHP Warning:  main(): Failed opening '/lib/rrd.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php') in /var/www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php on line 38
PHP Fatal error:  Call to undefined function:  do_hook() in /var/www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php on line 40

do I need anything else to modifie ?

cacti version is 0.8.7a with PA 1.4

[timi]

nevermind me

[timi]

can I use spine with boost ? or just cmd.php ?