How to Install Cacti on OpenBSD

Cacti is a powerful open-source network monitoring tool that allows you to graph network data such as CPU and memory utilization, bandwidth, and more. In this tutorial, we will walk you through the steps to install Cacti on OpenBSD.

Prerequisites

Before installing Cacti on OpenBSD, make sure you have the following prerequisites:

Install Required Packages

The first step is to install the required packages for Cacti to run. Open a terminal on your OpenBSD system and run the following command to install the required packages:

$ sudo pkg_add apache php php-gd php-ldap php-mysql php-snmp net-snmp mysql-server

Once the packages are installed, you can start the MySQL server by running the following command:

$ sudo /etc/rc.d/mysql start

Configure MySQL

Cacti uses MySQL to store its data, so you need to create a database and a user for Cacti to use. Follow these steps to configure MySQL on OpenBSD:

  1. Start by logging in to the MySQL server using the following command:

    $ mysql -u root
    
  2. Once you are logged in, create a new database for Cacti using the following command:

    mysql> CREATE DATABASE Cacti;
    
  3. Next, create a new MySQL user and grant it access to the Cacti database:

    mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON Cacti.* TO 'cactiuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
    

    Note: Replace 'password' with a strong password of your choice.

  4. Finally, flush the MySQL privileges with the following command:

    mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
    

Download and Install Cacti

Now that you have the required packages and MySQL configured, you can download and install Cacti. Follow these steps to download and install Cacti on your OpenBSD system:

  1. Download the latest version of Cacti from the official website (http://www.cacti.net/).

  2. Extract the downloaded file to the /var/www/htdocs/ directory by running the following command:

    $ sudo tar -xzvf cacti-x.x.x.tar.gz -C /var/www/htdocs/
    

    Note: Replace 'x.x.x' with the version number of the downloaded file.

  3. Rename the extracted directory to 'cacti' to make it easier to access:

    $ sudo mv /var/www/htdocs/cacti-x.x.x /var/www/htdocs/cacti
    
  4. Change the ownership and permissions of the Cacti directory using the following commands:

    $ sudo chown -R www:www /var/www/htdocs/cacti
    $ sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/htdocs/cacti
    
  5. Import the Cacti database schema into MySQL using the following command:

    $ mysql -u cactiuser -p Cacti < /var/www/htdocs/cacti/cacti.sql
    
  6. Edit the Cacti configuration file to add the MySQL database credentials. Open the configuration file using the following command:

    $ sudo vi /var/www/htdocs/cacti/include/config.php
    
  7. Find the following section in the file:

    $database_type = "mysqli";
    $database_default = "cacti";
    $database_hostname = "localhost";
    $database_username = "cactiuser";
    $database_password = "password";
    $database_port = "3306";
    $database_ssl = false;
    
  8. Replace 'password' with the password you set earlier in MySQL.

  9. Save and close the configuration file.

  10. Restart the Apache web server and SNMP service to apply the changes:

    $ sudo /etc/rc.d/apache2 restart
    $ sudo /etc/rc.d/snmpd restart
    

Access Cacti

Now that Cacti is installed and configured, you can access it by opening a web browser and navigating to http://localhost/cacti/. You should see the Cacti login page.

Log in using the username 'admin' and the password 'admin'. Once logged in, you can start configuring Cacti to monitor your network.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Cacti on OpenBSD.

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