Automatic naming in cacti 0.8

[rem]

I have been testing cacti 0.8 for a few days, and most of the new features are brilliant!

However, it would be nice to be able to reference hostname/description/user_defined_host_field when making templates.

That way yo wouldnt have to provide individual info for
- Graph Titles
- Data Source Name
when creating a new polling host based on templates.

They could be referenced like <hostname>, <description> <user_defined_field> same way as <path_rra> is used.

Also the automagic naming of the rrd files should have an option to include the hostname getting a format like <path_rra>/<user_defined_host_field >/<hostname>_<datasource>


Regards

Rene Moeller

[ericr]

I have been testing cacti 0.8 for a few days, and most of the new features are brilliant!

No doubt. Excellent work so far.

However, it would be nice to be able to reference hostname/description/user_defined_host_field when making templates.

That way yo wouldnt have to provide individual info for
- Graph Titles
- Data Source Name
when creating a new polling host based on templates.

They could be referenced like <hostname>, <description> <user_defined_field> same way as <path_rra> is used.

I agree. This would also make it easier to script the addition of new hosts to Cacti.

Also the automagic naming of the rrd files should have an option to include the hostname getting a format like <path_rra>/<user_defined_host_field >/<hostname>_<datasource>

Again, I agree. I plan on using Nagios to do threshold checking on the RRD files, and a consistant naming convention which includes the hostname would be extremely helpful.

Also, I noticed that 0.8 allows you to create the data source & graphs for a polling host twice, appending an incremented sequence number to the end of each RRD file name, so that they never get overwritten. If a standardized naming convention were used, it could check to see if the file already existed, instead of letting you create it over and over again.

Just my $.02.

[raX]

About the naming, this feature sort of already existed when creating graphs through the 'Polling Hosts' screen. However I have made it better when working on cacti today. So far, the following subsitutions can made in graph and data source names:

|host_description|
|host_hostname|
|host_management_ip|
|host_snmp_community|
|host_snmp_version|
|host_snmp_username|
|host_snmp_password|

I realize that my delimeter characters are inconsistant now... I will probably fix this in a day or two. Also it would be easy for me to add additional subsitutions at this point, so feel free to make suggestions.

I *do* plan on adding some kind of checking for already created graphs. Under 'Polling Hosts', I envision cacti 'graying out' the rows that already have graphs or something to that effect.

-Ian

[ericr]

I *do* plan on adding some kind of checking for already created graphs. Under 'Polling Hosts', I envision cacti 'graying out' the rows that already have graphs or something to that effect.

That sounds pretty good. . But instead of 'graying out' rows with existing graphs, what do you think about making them links, thus providing a convenient way to modify the graph parameters without having to go through "Graph Management"?

[raX]

I *do* plan on adding some kind of checking for already created graphs. Under 'Polling Hosts', I envision cacti 'graying out' the rows that already have graphs or something to that effect.

That sounds pretty good. . But instead of 'graying out' rows with existing graphs, what do you think about making them links, thus providing a convenient way to modify the graph parameters without having to go through "Graph Management"?

Graying them out was the first thing that came to my mind. But yes, providing links to change stuff would be much better

-Ian