newbie - i'm missing the 'global view' on how cacti works

[tvanover]

Hi,

On my search for a performance monitoring tool (to replace our hard to mange mrtg scripts) for our server farm, i stumbled upon cacti.

I must say, it looks absolutely brilliant. the stuff you can do with it, it's great, just what i need.

But i've been toying with it for a few days now, and allthough i've managed to create some (working) graphs with it, i still don't really understand how it works.

What i mean is: how the different cacti parts are related to each other:
data queries, input methods, graph templates, host templates, data sources, data templates; What depends on what, and in what order should you use them.

I've been reading some tutorials i've found on the website, but i still don't get it.

What I think I need is a tutorial that starts from one specific example (e.g. using one specific snmp oid you want to monitor) and then detailing all the steps how to get there.


How do you guys learn to master cacti ?



thanks,

Tom.