System Requirements (suggestions)

Red · Post by **Red** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 12:17 pm

I am currently running cacti on a 650MHz P3 with 384MB RAM and a 13GB HD running Ubuntu 6.06 (upgraded from 5.10), which is a decommisioned/repurposed office workstation. But when that started behaving strangely, I set up my personal project machine: a 1.3GHz P4 with 256MB RAM (another 256MB on the way, and that's all it's getting, RDRAM is expensive) and a 20GB HD (I have a 40GB I can mirror to if needed).

Ideally, I'd like to run cacti as a full monitoring suite, with syslog, monitor, weathermap, etc - transition away from a propretary, single user, windows-based package from SolarWinds. We will be monitoring a Riverstone RS3000 router, a couple dozen World Wide Packets access concentrators/access portals (fiber-optic ethernet switches), and a couple dozen TrangoBroadband PtMP access points which relay snmp data from about 450 subscriber radios (and more every day), and a handful of Trango PtP bridges.

As I move towards purchasing a new dedicated cacti server, I want some advice on what hardware to get, and if it would be reasonable to multitask the new server (e.g. running bind as a secondary DNS, or internal web and email).

What bottlenecks should I be wary of? Any hardware I should avoid?

I'm currently looking at getting a barebones 2u server with an intel mainboard, adding 2GB RAM, Pentium-D 930 (3.0GHz, I think), and a pair of 250GB SATA-II drives (RAID-1), running Ubuntu Linux. Thoughts?

FYI: The organization is a non-profit broadband ISP (cooperative) providing fiber-optic and broadband wireless connections in a small town and rural environment. This would our first official linux server, and Ubuntu Linux is the distro I feel most comfortable using (my primary platform of choice is Apple Macintosh). I don't have too much of experience with Linux, but I'm not totally helpless either.

BSOD2600 · Post by **BSOD2600** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 1:48 pm

With large cacti installations, it is very I/O intensive. That being said you'll want a robust storage system set up. From what you've described, it doesn't sound like you'll be monitoring a ton of devices (yet

). Besides from that, a decent cpu and a chunk of ram is all you'll need. Once you get things set up, tweaking php/mysql, switching to cactid, etc will increase your performance.

Red · Post by **Red** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 4:24 pm

How much hard drive space would such a cacti server be expected to consume over time? I ask because my two server options are either a new 2U server as described above, or an off-lease/refurb type 1U server which are generally sold sans hard drives.

The 1U server we'd get is a dual Xeon 2.4GHz, and we have an extra pair of 36GB 10k RPM Ultra320 SCSI drives which we would use (purcasing higher capacity SCSI drives for a used machine would be prohibitively expensive next to a brand new SATA solution). I like the idea of having RAID1, yet a RAID0 would yeild a larger volume and faster I/O, but still a max of 72GB. OR, should I just start off with a SATA based machine?

Post by **rony** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 6:49 pm

They don't.... That is why we use RRDTool... Once the file is created, it does not change size, the wonders of consolidation.

http://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/doc/rrdtool.en.html

So, you will not use more space unless you add more devices.

Red · Post by **Red** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 8:11 pm

Hmm, magic. So, I might as well go for the 1U dual-Xeon (less expensive and smaller). But per BSOD's comment about I/O, should I still set it up on a RAID0 for speed? I can (and probably should) back up externally anyway.

BSOD2600 · Post by **BSOD2600** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 9:34 pm

Personally, I'd go with a fiber HBA connected to a SAN

.

Yea, RAID0 is risky but fast. Just make sure you've got that data backed up. Since you're getting new server anyways, why not just go for a onboard RAID5 solution and 3x36GBx15Krpm UltraSCSI 320 drives? Those HP DL385's are nice...

Red · Post by **Red** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 2:56 am

RAID5 you say? I'll look into it.

There are a few other things I'd like to get working in cacti before I press for a new server. I don't have any of our trango PtMP radios being graphed yet, I haven't worked on them since my first cacti server attempt when south. Maybe I should try to get that back up again...

zheka · Post by **zheka** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 1:19 pm

Hi,

I stumbled upon this post looking for answer to my concern about browser slow responce. It takes me up to 10 seconds to open the page for a device containing just three graphs. You click on the device name in the left pane and look at blank placeholders for a graph that is to appear.
At the same time I monitor the output of "top" command on the Linux server and see that the load is high indeed.

this is what I see in the first lines:

32684 apache 33 15 27976 12m 3068 R 61.3 1.6 0:17.06 httpd
32682 apache 31 15 27800 12m 3060 S 9.3 1.6 0:16.96 httpd
4932 apache 35 15 5360 3028 1820 R 15.3 0.4 0:00.46 rrdtool

CPU usage goes as high as 61.3. It's not too much I would say. Anyway
I blame my cpu that is 500MHz AMD as I use old cobalt RaQ device designed for webhosting services. Is it really the weak point for cacti?
I have almost 800MB or RAM and it is not even used to the end.

Sincerely Eugene

Post by **rony** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 2:07 pm

CPU and Memory are important.

But Disk I/O is the most important on large installations.

You might want to consider upgrading rrdtool and/or php on that box and see if things get better.

zheka · Post by **zheka** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 2:14 pm

Good advice, rony. Thanks !

I've already have on of the latest versions of rrdtool, that is rrdtool-1.2.15-3.fc4. As for php it is 5.0.4

I heard about the realese of cache plugin. Is it already available?

Post by **rony** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 2:31 pm

Cache plugin?

zheka · Post by **zheka** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 2:41 pm

rony wrote:Cache plugin?

Sorry, wrong wording. This is the thread:
http://forums.cacti.net/viewtopic.php?t=16173

Post by **TheWitness** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 5:02 pm

I might be able to get to this this weekend depending on other fun going on...

TheWitness

zheka · Post by **zheka** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 11:15 pm

TheWitness wrote:I might be able to get to this this weekend depending on other fun going on...

TheWitness

Everybody including me appreciate it if you and rony announce the availability of promised plugin.

Eugene

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System Requirements (suggestions)

System Requirements (suggestions)

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