How to install Cacti on Centos 7

What is Cacti?
Cacti is a complete network graphing solution designed to harness the power of RRDTool's data storage and graphing functionality. Cacti provide a fast poller, advanced graph template, multiple data acquisition methods, and user management features out of the box. All of this is wrapped in an intuitive, easy to use interface that makes sense for LAN-sized installations up to complex networks with thousands of devices. 
Package Requirements

• RRDTool
• MySQL
• PHP
• Apache

This post will show how to install and configure Cacti on Centos 7.

Update System

yum update -y

Install Apache 

yum -y install httpd httpd-devel

Restart Apache service and Enable Apache auto startup when server startup.

systemctl restart httpd
systemctl enable httpd

Install Net-SNMP and RRDTools

yum -y install net-snmp net-snmp-utils net-snmp-libs rrdtool

Restart Apache service and Enable Apache auto startup when server startup.

systemctl restart snmpd
systemctl enable snmpd

Install PHP and PHP Extensions

The current Cacti version requires PHP 7.2+, so we need to install from Remi repository because by default the PHP version available in base OS repository is version 5.4.   Create Remi Repository with the below command.

yum install -y https://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm

Install PHP 7.3 from the Remi repository.

yum install -y --enablerepo=remi-php73 php php-xml php-session php-sockets php-ldap php-gd php-gmp php-intl php-mbstring php-mysqlnd php-pdo php-process php-snmp

PHP recommended changing the following settings in /etc/php.ini file. Before making a change please verify the timezone on our system.

ls -l /etc/localtime

vi /etc/php.ini

date.timezone = Asian/Phnom_Penh
memory_limit = 512M
max_execution_time = 60

Install MariaDB

By default, MariaDB v5.4 is available in the based Centos repository. The current Cacti version recommended MariaDB v5.6+. We will install MariaDB v10+, so we need to create a new repository for MariaDB. Create a new repository.

vi /etc/yum.repos.d/mariadb.repo

[mariadb]
name = MariaDB
baseurl = http://yum.mariadb.org/10.4/centos7-amd64
gpgkey=https://yum.mariadb.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-MariaDB
gpgcheck=1

Install MariaDB with the below commands.

yum install -y MariaDB-server MariaDB-client

Restart MariaDB and enable to auto-start when the server starts.

systemctl restart mariadb
systemctl enable mariadb

Create Database

The password is not set for MariaDB, so we need to so secure it with the command below.

mysqladmin -u root password your_strong_password

Login into our database with a password just set at the moment.

mysql -u root -p

Create a database and username for Cacti.

create database cacti;
GRANT ALL ON cacti.* TO cactiuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'p@$$w0rd';
flush privileges;
exit;

we need to grant access to the MySQL TimeZone database for user Cacti so that the database is populated with global TimeZone information. Import database to mysql_test_data_timezone.sql first.

mysql -u root -p mysql < /usr/share/mysql/mysql_test_data_timezone.sql

Login into our database again.

mysql -u root -p

Grant permission to cacti user.

GRANT SELECT ON mysql.time_zone_name TO cactiuser@localhost;
flush privileges;
exit;

Optimize Database

To improve performance Cacti recommended to optimize some setting in database. Edit /etc/my.cnf.d/server.cnf file.

vi /etc/my.cnf.d/server.cnf 

Add the below lines under the [mysqld] section.

# this is only for the mysqld standalone daemon
[mysqld]
collation-server = utf8mb4_unicode_ci
character-set-server=utf8mb4
max_heap_table_size = 64M
tmp_table_size = 64M
join_buffer_size = 64M
innodb_file_format = Barracuda
innodb_large_prefix = 1
innodb_flush_log_at_timeout = 3
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 1GB
innodb_buffer_pool_instances = 10
innodb_read_io_threads = 32
innodb_write_io_threads = 16
innodb_io_capacity = 5000
innodb_io_capacity_max = 10000

Install and Configure Cacti

Install Cacti with yum command, it will browse for the latest version of Cacti from the repository.

yum -y install cacti

Import the default database to the cacti database with the password we have set for our database.

mysql -u root -p cacti < /usr/share/doc/cacti-*/cacti.sql

Edit "include/config.php" and specify the database type, name, host user, and password for our Cacti configuration.

vi /usr/share/cacti/include/config.php

/* make sure these values reflect your actual database/host/user/password */
$database_type = "mysql";
$database_default = "cacti";
$database_hostname = "localhost";
$database_username = "cactiuser";
$database_password = "p@$$w0rd";
$database_port = "3306";
$database_ssl = false;

Create a Cron Job

Cacti need to run its query script to collect information from end devices that we monitor regularly. Mostly, we schedule Cacti to run the poller script every 5 minutes. If we install Cacti from yum command file in /etc/cron.d/cacti is already there by default.

vi /etc/cron.d/cacti

Uncomment the following line.

*/5 * * * * apache /usr/bin/php /usr/share/cacti/poller.php > /dev/null 2>&1

Allow remote access

When we install Cacti from yum command, it allows the only the localhost to access. To allow remote access we need to change Apache configuration.

vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/cacti.conf

Change  “Require host localhost” to “Require all granted” and “Allow from localhost” to “Allow from all.”

Alias /cacti /usr/share/cacti
<Directory /usr/share/cacti/>
            <IfModule mod_authz_core.c>
                         # httpd 2.4
                         Require all granted
            </IfModule>
            <IfModule !mod_authz_core.c>
                         # httpd 2.2
                         Order deny,allow
                         Deny from all
                         Allow from all
            </IfModule>
</Directory>

Allow Firewalld

firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=http
firewall-cmd --reload

Disable SELinux

sed -i 's/enforcing/disabled/g' /etc/selinux/config
setenforce 0

Setup Cacti

Open favorite web browser and type http://server_ip/cacti (our service IP, or domain name). The default username and password of Cacti are (user = admin, password = admin).

For the fresh installation, Cacti requires changing the password. The new password should contain special characters, uppercase, and lowercase letters and numbers.

Select the language and Check the Accept GPL License Agreement box and Begin.

In this section, Cacti performs Pre-Installation Checks if there is any recommended setting or missing setting will be shown here. Next.

Choose the Installation Type, in this case, we choose the New Primary Server because we have only the Cacti server and it is the primary server. Next.

Directory Permission check, this section Cacti validates the directory's permission, if there is any missing permission setting will be shown here. All these directories need to be owned by the Web Service user (apache). Next.

In this section, Cacti tells about the binary that will be used to perform its task like SNMP query, running PHP script. Please make sure all values are correct before continuing. Next.

This is the Default Profile of Cacti, we can change this option later after the installation is finished. Keep default setting and Next.

Here below are the default Template of Cacti, this option should be checked all and we will see it all of this options when we add a new host. Next.

Cacti recommend us to change the characters set in Database Collation, just copy the line below and then login into the database and paste.

Confirm Installation and Install.

The Cacti Installation is almost done. Click on Get Started to finish our installation.

Finally, we have done for installation cacti version 1.2.8.

Conclusion
I hope you all be able to understand this post well. If you don't understand any point or have any problem, recommendation, the suggestion doesn't hesitate to tell us, we will try our best to help. You may also like Related Posted:
READ: How to install Cacti specific version on Centos 7
READ: How to add Windows and Linux host to Cacti