Interface Traffic - Total shows inconsistent values

[ChrisAT]

Hi All,

After my wonderful cacti installation 0.8.8h started to go nuts yesterday out of a sudden I tried to get my 1.2.2. running that I had prepared on a RPi-4 already some time ago by restoring things from 0.8.8h (not being so mature with Linux (Raspberry) this took me days).
(doing apt-get update / apt-get upgrade as well)

So far things aren't looking bad (although quite different like eg the Alternative Y Grid behaves differently - but ok), one thing I don't understand at all though and drives me nuts:

From a Switch I am fetching SNMP data, all the graphs are based on the same Graph Template and the data sources on the same data source template.
Also the graphs itself are looking nicely across the interfaces.

What I noticed though is, that the Total In/Out Traffic is inconsistent across the different graphs.

I noticed this when I did run a download, and afterwards took a look at both the Interface representing the router, and the other one representing the PC that ran the download.
(Screenshots attached)
The 15M load is clearly visible at both, but while the Router Graph shows a Total of ~700MB, the PC graph shows 0.

Trying to take a look at a full day the PC Graph actually shows data for the Total but only like 106 MB...

I would really be happy if we could somehow fix this - setting up the whole Cacti from scratch would be endless work for me.. posting.php?mode=post&f=21#

Thanks a lot for your help!

Chris

PS: I found out that I am running RRDtool 1.7.1 - just in case this matters....

[ChrisAT]

I need to give an update:

Now, at 20:20 I took a look again and now - after more than one hour has passed the Total Value shows a reasonable value.
I haven't done anything at all... no changes.. nothing...

How can this be? :/

[ChrisAT]

Sorry - one thing I did:

I reattached my 0.8.8h cacti back to the LAN and implemented the fix at https://github.com/Cacti/cacti/issues/3797

Not sure if there could be a connection somehow but just to be complete and not to omit anything...

[TheWitness]

Clone you system and work through the upgrade a few times on your own before committing the production system.

[ChrisAT]

Apologies for the misunderstanding - I assumed this were the right place to seek for help...

[TheWitness]

I misunderstood as well. So, you are trying to say that the total traffic on one of the graphs is not reporting correctly. Well, the way that this works is that Cacti pulls data from RRDtool using RRDtool's 'fetch' command. From that, it does the summations. This might be indicative that your RRDtool output is not formatted correctly.

So, the question is, is the value incorrect on all graphs, or just some?

[ChrisAT]

Thanks a lot for coming back to me...

I am really having a hard time to nail things down properly - it seems like the data is incorrect on some - but not always, and not always on the same.
That means, that - as mentioned above - after somewhat like 1,5 hrs the numbers started to look reasonable.
Also did a reboot yesterday and this morning things looked reasonable.

Today I had it shut down for a while (trying to set up 1.2.2 from scratch on a new SD Card) - and after I started it up this odd behavior showed up again...
It somehow looks like the data of the last 2 hrs or so isnt included in the Total traffic for some time - and not on all graphs.
(eg yesterday the Router Graph Total was correct and the respective Switchport Graph Total wasn't, now the Total for the Router is showing 0 and for the Switch Port it's reasonable)

Having waited now for close to 2 hrs values partially start to become reasonable again - still for the router zooming in the Total isnt updated / recalculated... (see below)

I fear this all has to sound very confusing and crazy - I really have a hard time to find any pattern behind this behavior..

BTW - is there any good starting point for dummies to understand how device templates, datasource and graph Templates link together in 1.2.2 - when starting from scratch? (the manual didnt help me much )
For my Netgear switch I was able to quickly get graphs - but I have no clue how that happened - and when trying to create my own chain of templates (to not mess up the native ones and have tailored graphs) I failed badly (just reformatting the SD card )
Also I really don't have a clue how to deal with my SNMP Thermometers and my Cisco RV345 (Cisco Router Template doesnt work) - as I understand the approach to manually create data sources (like having done in 0.8.8 ) should be avoided...

Thanks a lot for your help!

[TheWitness]

You are experiencing some common beginners issues. My suggestions is that your read the documentation on the github site. If you get frustrated, then figure things out, and find a few things in the existing documentation that helps you, then create a pull request with the modified files attached. I use Windows and on Windows, I'm using Markdown Pad to do any documentation editing. It's not too complicated.

We hope to make templating better and more efficient in 1.3, but everyone is so busy right now, that getting to that has been a challenge. Cacti is a big tool, so, there is more than enough to do and prioritizing is complicated.

[ChrisAT]

I have to admit I am not sure I do really understand what you tell me - except that I should read the documentation at github.

Well I definitely took a look there - but have to admit it didn't really help me. Figuring things out to compensate frustration is for sure smart - question is just how it's supposed to do.
The system is for sure very complex, so trial and error often leads to exactly this - frustration - and what I found on github - well maybe I am not able to work with this either as I am not familiar with Github at all as I am not a developer.

Some how-to's on how it's supposed to set things up - meaning really with templates and how linking those to each other so you can setup devices that aren't fully detected automatically (which works like a charm if the devices fit!) would be really cool... but I understand with little time this certainly affects this area as well.

I finally managed to set up version 1.2.2. from scratch (btw - is this indeed the version that should come from the raspbian buster repository? Is this version updated there regularly as well?) - probably very different to how it is supposed to be done - but graphs finally seem to work, despite a pretty bumpy and rough road.
Glad I did back up the SD card frequently - the system for me often behaves very unexpected, which quickly led and leads to situations that required a restore (eg copying graphs easily caused me messing up things). But yes, asking google for this after long trial and error often points out that such behavior showed up for others as well...

Anyway - I know I am a very newbie with this and am happy if I manage to get things running for the few devices here in my home network - so I fear I won't ever reach true maturity in this area.

But I also want to say thank you - for you guys are for sure maintaining a very powerful system with incredible capabilities - and you doubtlessly invest a huge amount of time - which deserves strong recognition as well.
(BTW - the donation link I stumbled across recently doesn't seem to work anymore)...

Thanks a lot!