[Solved] - Blank RRDTool Says Output and No RRD files

[samir7399]

First off I am new to Cacti and I have used the Windows exe installer provided here for 0.8.8a on a Windows 2003 server pre-installed with IIS

I have installed Cacti components in D:\Cacti. The IIS components are under the default path of C:\inetpub

I have gone through the Windows guide as well.

Point 1 - Guide mentions a step about verifying mapping for .PHP extension. I could not find any mappings for .PHP but I also learned that FastCGI has since replaced PHP ISAPI and therefore such mappings may not be required and therefore this step may not be relevant anymore. Updates / Comments?

I have ensured that cmd.exe and rrdtool.exe have Read/Execute permissions for the IIS Anonymous account and Service Account. I have also ensured that permissions for certain critical folders are what they should be as mentioned in the guide.

As of now I am unable to see any graphs. Just a blank space where the image should be. When I click this blank space it takes me to another page where the same problem is encountered. No images.

Please advise

[samir7399]

This seems to be solved now but again in a strange way:-

I could not get it to work on the original server no matter what. So I built a fresh virtual server instance loaded with Windows 2003 and then installed Cacti choosing IIS first. I got the same result - No RRA files so graphs were blank

Then I removed Cacti and re-installed again this time choosing Apache. So the installer shut down and disabled IIS Web service automatically.

Voila !! The graphs work now. I am seeing the RRA files getting created under apache2\htdocs\cacti\rra

[BSOD2600]

Sounds like there was a permissions issue with IIS. Would've been helpful to troubleshoot with sysinternals process monitor to find out specifically where the problem was so future installers could be improved.

[samir7399]

Sounds like there was a permissions issue with IIS. Would've been helpful to troubleshoot with sysinternals process monitor to find out specifically where the problem was so future installers could be improved.

Thank you.

I would prefer to have cacti working on the original server and therefore I shall start troubleshooting it again today and will post my findings here. Anything to make this excellent tool even better ...

[samir7399]

Wonder of wonders..

I managed to get Cacti working on the original machine as well.

Although I did run SysInternals Process Monitor I could not find any errors in it. Here is my observation and actual steps I followed:

1] Uninstalled the non-working instance of Cacti. This installation was done choosing IIS and the default path of C:
2] After uninstall it was observed that even though it shuts down the WWW service and disables it, the IIS Admin service is still active. FastCGI was also present.
3] Reinstalled Cacti to custom folder D:\Cacti (where I actually want it to) choosing Apache this time.
4] Make the Post Install changes.
5] Add a device to Cacti and a graph. I get the same result - No RRA files in \Apache2\htdocs\cacti\rra
6] On running PHP Poller.php I get the message that the path expected is C:\inetpub\wwwroot\cacti\rra\x\y.rrd !! This should not be because the installer should have updated the RRA path to Apache when it got reinstalled.
7] Shut down the IIS Admin service and also remove Fast CGI
8] Restart Apache service
9] Graphs are working like a charm

During all this activity Process Monitor did not catch any failures.

I know its limited information but hope this helps.

[BSOD2600]

the installer will not recreate the cacti database if it already exists. This is why the paths were wrong for the 2nd install. The installer does not handle upgrades.