FreeBSD port dropping plugin support

Discussions on developing plugins for the Cacti Plugin Architecture

Moderators: Developers, Moderators

Post Reply
firewalz
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Dec 31, 2007 9:21 am
Location: Ann Arbor MI.

FreeBSD port dropping plugin support

Post by firewalz »

The FreeBSD port has been updated to version 8.7a, however they have dropped support for the plugin architecture. This will seriously hose my prod systems, plugins are one of the resons I use Cacti. I guess Ill have to 1) not upgrade, 2) recompile and restore everything by hand, or 3) switch to something else like Cricket or Nagios

from /usr/ports/UPDATING...

"Plugin support is dropped again and will not revive anymore in the port.
A reason for that is the patch is unofficial and there are long time lags
between a new cacti version released and time when the patch is
adapted."
User avatar
N3NCY
Cacti User
Posts: 260
Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2005 7:50 pm
Location: Landenberg, PA
Contact:

Post by N3NCY »

I have been using FreeBSD for Cacti for 2+ years now.
The funny thing is that I only realized that there was a port about a month ago.
I have no intentions of ever using the port or package since the source code of Cacti + Plugin Architecture + Spine (Cactid Poller) work on FreeBSD easily.
Thank you,

Ernie
http://www.NMSWorld.com
[b]Dual Zeon Dual Core 2.6Ghz / 8GB RAM / 4x15k RPM SATA RAID5[/b]
[b]Cacti Version[/b] - 0.8.7b
[b]Poller Type[/b] - cactid 0.8.7 with Boost v1.7
[b]Server Info[/b] - FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE
[b]Web Server[/b] - Apache/2.2.6 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.6 OpenSSL/0.9.8g DAV/2 PHP/5.2.5 mod_perl/2.0.3 Perl/v5.8.8
[b]PHP[/b] - 5.2.6
[b]MySQL[/b] - 5.0.51b Mod: poller_output ENGINE = MEMORY
[b]RRDTool[/b] - 1.3.0
[b]SNMP[/b] - 5.4.1
[b]Plugins[/b] - Host Info (hostinfo - v0.2), Update Checker (update - v0.3), Network Tools (tools - v0.2), FlowView (flowview - v0.3), Read-only Devices Tab (devices - v0.4), Network Discovery (discovery - v0.8.3), Syslog Monitoring (syslog - v0.5.2), Thresholds (thold - v0.3.9), Device Monitoring (monitor - v0.8.2), PHP Network Weathermap (weathermap - v0.941), SuperLinks (superlinks - v0.72), Report Creator (reports - v0.1b)
User avatar
Howie
Cacti Guru User
Posts: 5508
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2004 5:53 am
Location: United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: FreeBSD port dropping plugin support

Post by Howie »

firewalz wrote:The FreeBSD port has been updated to version 8.7a, however they have dropped support for the plugin architecture. This will seriously hose my prod systems, plugins are one of the resons I use Cacti. I guess Ill have to 1) not upgrade, 2) recompile and restore everything by hand, or 3) switch to something else like Cricket or Nagios
There *is* no recompiling!

You can install apache, mysqld, rrdtool and net-snmp from ports, which are the painful parts. Installing Cacti itself is 5 minutes: download, unzip, edit config.php, alter permissions for rra/ log/

For PIA, copy the appropriate files-0.8.x folder from the pia download over the top of it all.
Weathermap 0.98a is out! & QuickTree 1.0. Superlinks is over there now (and built-in to Cacti 1.x).
Some Other Cacti tweaks, including strip-graphs, icons and snmp/netflow stuff.
(Let me know if you have UK DevOps or Network Ops opportunities, too!)
firewalz
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Dec 31, 2007 9:21 am
Location: Ann Arbor MI.

Post by firewalz »

I’m not sure were the default install lives, but the ports tend to sometimes place things in different directories than if you manually install. Keeping the dependencies up to date is not a big deal, I just not sure if Ill need to tar the current dir up, install the latest version, than copy the appropriate files back to the new location, or if it will use the existing dir and keep the historic info, etc.

As far as using ports vs. manually. I know there are pluses and minuses for both, but Ill save that debate for another forum:)...I just wanted folks who do rely on ports and use cacti to know, I think it’s a big deal and PIA is what makes Cacti really convenient and useful.
User avatar
Howie
Cacti Guru User
Posts: 5508
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2004 5:53 am
Location: United Kingdom
Contact:

Post by Howie »

What I did in the same situation (I wanted to track 0.8.7 before it was released), was tar up /usr/local/share/cacti (which is where the port installs), then pkg_deinstall cacti, then untar it back into the same place. From memory, all the apache config stays there, because you put it in by hand, as does the mysql database. It never hurts to do a backup and mysqldump first though of course :-)

At that stage, you have the current cacti untethered from ports, and you can upgrade according to the source-based instructions in the cacti docs. It's possible to do in between poller cycles if you have 5 minute polling and you have read the instructions carefully.
Weathermap 0.98a is out! & QuickTree 1.0. Superlinks is over there now (and built-in to Cacti 1.x).
Some Other Cacti tweaks, including strip-graphs, icons and snmp/netflow stuff.
(Let me know if you have UK DevOps or Network Ops opportunities, too!)
User avatar
N3NCY
Cacti User
Posts: 260
Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2005 7:50 pm
Location: Landenberg, PA
Contact:

Post by N3NCY »

It's possible to do in between poller cycles
Howie: You are truly a maniac!
:D

Your title in the forum is:
"Cacti Guru User"

It should say:
"Cacti Maniac!"

I like your style!
Thank you,

Ernie
http://www.NMSWorld.com
[b]Dual Zeon Dual Core 2.6Ghz / 8GB RAM / 4x15k RPM SATA RAID5[/b]
[b]Cacti Version[/b] - 0.8.7b
[b]Poller Type[/b] - cactid 0.8.7 with Boost v1.7
[b]Server Info[/b] - FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE
[b]Web Server[/b] - Apache/2.2.6 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.6 OpenSSL/0.9.8g DAV/2 PHP/5.2.5 mod_perl/2.0.3 Perl/v5.8.8
[b]PHP[/b] - 5.2.6
[b]MySQL[/b] - 5.0.51b Mod: poller_output ENGINE = MEMORY
[b]RRDTool[/b] - 1.3.0
[b]SNMP[/b] - 5.4.1
[b]Plugins[/b] - Host Info (hostinfo - v0.2), Update Checker (update - v0.3), Network Tools (tools - v0.2), FlowView (flowview - v0.3), Read-only Devices Tab (devices - v0.4), Network Discovery (discovery - v0.8.3), Syslog Monitoring (syslog - v0.5.2), Thresholds (thold - v0.3.9), Device Monitoring (monitor - v0.8.2), PHP Network Weathermap (weathermap - v0.941), SuperLinks (superlinks - v0.72), Report Creator (reports - v0.1b)
User avatar
Howie
Cacti Guru User
Posts: 5508
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2004 5:53 am
Location: United Kingdom
Contact:

Post by Howie »

N3NCY wrote:
It's possible to do in between poller cycles
Howie: You are truly a maniac!
:D

Your title in the forum is:
"Cacti Guru User"

It should say:
"Cacti Maniac!"

I like your style!
LOL! I didn't mean without stopping the poller cron job - bad things could happen then. Just that you can usually do it losing only one, or even no polls. As long as you trust your backups (just in case), it can be a single command-line: move old cacti out of the way, unpack new one, copy old config.php, move old rra, chown, done. Using mv rather than cp makes it near-enough instant.
Weathermap 0.98a is out! & QuickTree 1.0. Superlinks is over there now (and built-in to Cacti 1.x).
Some Other Cacti tweaks, including strip-graphs, icons and snmp/netflow stuff.
(Let me know if you have UK DevOps or Network Ops opportunities, too!)
User avatar
zgamer
Cacti User
Posts: 86
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:50 pm
Location: WI, USA

Post by zgamer »

Been using FreeBSD in a vmware install and have been downloading the source to compile when needing a newer version. I'm still sticking with the 0.8.6 tree for the production system though.
User avatar
eecue
Posts: 27
Joined: Thu Nov 07, 2002 7:11 pm
Location: Los Angeles, CA USA
Contact:

Post by eecue »

At some point it would be nice if cacti would add the plugin architecture to the codebase. For many years I have used a combination of ports and manual installs for various apps. Recently I've been trying to install everything via ports. The main benefit for this is that I run portaudit nightly and I instantly know if any of my installed software is vulnerable to exploit.

So yeah, if the plugin architecture could be introduced into the tree that would be awesome.
User avatar
TheWitness
Developer
Posts: 17059
Joined: Tue May 14, 2002 5:08 pm
Location: MI, USA
Contact:

Post by TheWitness »

We have this planned. We simply have to get it out. We are coordinating better now. We all have full time jobs...

TheWitness
True understanding begins only when we realize how little we truly understand...

Life is an adventure, let yours begin with Cacti!

Author of dozens of Cacti plugins and customization's. Advocate of LAMP, MariaDB, IBM Spectrum LSF and the world of batch. Creator of IBM Spectrum RTM, author of quite a bit of unpublished work and most of Cacti's bugs.
_________________
Official Cacti Documentation
GitHub Repository with Supported Plugins
Percona Device Packages (no support)
Interesting Device Packages


For those wondering, I'm still here, but lost in the shadows. Yearning for less bugs. Who want's a Cacti 1.3/2.0? Streams anyone?
User avatar
Sirup
Cacti Moderator
Posts: 348
Joined: Tue Mar 02, 2010 9:03 am

Post by Sirup »

TheWitness wrote:We have this planned. We simply have to get it out. We are coordinating better now. We all have full time jobs...

TheWitness
Still would be great, if the PIA would be part of cacti.

Ran into the same problem today, upgraded cacti from ports (0.8.7e4 to 0.8.7.e5) and plugin configuration was gone...
[size=67]Cacti version: 0.8.7e5
OS: FreeBSD 7.2
Plugin Architecture: 2.6
Plugins: aggregate 0.74, autom8 0.33, loginmod 1.0

[url=http://docs.cacti.net/manual:087]Official Cacti Documentation[/url]
[url=http://docs.cacti.net/manual:087:4_help.2_debugging#debugging]Gandalfs Official Debugging Help[/url]
[/size]
User avatar
TheWitness
Developer
Posts: 17059
Joined: Tue May 14, 2002 5:08 pm
Location: MI, USA
Contact:

Post by TheWitness »

We discussed this in the developers meeting this weekend and there was one pivotal holdout.

TheWitness
True understanding begins only when we realize how little we truly understand...

Life is an adventure, let yours begin with Cacti!

Author of dozens of Cacti plugins and customization's. Advocate of LAMP, MariaDB, IBM Spectrum LSF and the world of batch. Creator of IBM Spectrum RTM, author of quite a bit of unpublished work and most of Cacti's bugs.
_________________
Official Cacti Documentation
GitHub Repository with Supported Plugins
Percona Device Packages (no support)
Interesting Device Packages


For those wondering, I'm still here, but lost in the shadows. Yearning for less bugs. Who want's a Cacti 1.3/2.0? Streams anyone?
User avatar
Sirup
Cacti Moderator
Posts: 348
Joined: Tue Mar 02, 2010 9:03 am

Post by Sirup »

Sounds nice, thanks!
[size=67]Cacti version: 0.8.7e5
OS: FreeBSD 7.2
Plugin Architecture: 2.6
Plugins: aggregate 0.74, autom8 0.33, loginmod 1.0

[url=http://docs.cacti.net/manual:087]Official Cacti Documentation[/url]
[url=http://docs.cacti.net/manual:087:4_help.2_debugging#debugging]Gandalfs Official Debugging Help[/url]
[/size]
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest