mrtg-rrd - How to use RRDtool with MRTG


SYNOPSIS

       After using MRTG for some time you may find some limita­
       tions. Mostly in the areas of performance and graphing
       flexibility. These are exactly the areas addressed by rrd­
       tool. To learn more about RRDtool check out its website on

        http://ee-staff.ethz.ch/~oetiker/webtools/rrdtool


RRDTOOL INTEGRATION

       When using mrtg with RRDtool you are replacing rateup with
       the RRDtool perl modlue RRDs.pm. To enable RRDtool support
       in mrtg you have to add the line

        LogFormat: rrdtool

       MRTG needs access to both the RRDtool perl module RRDs.pm
       and to the rrdtool executable.

       If these two items are not installed in locations where
       perl can find them on its own, then you can use the fol­
       lowing two parameters to supply the appropriate directo­
       ries.

       For the location of the rrdtool executable you put

        PathAdd: /usr/local/rrdtool/bin/

       or

        PathAdd: c:\rrdtool\bin

       For the location of the perl module it would be:

        LibAdd: /usr/local/rrdtool/lib/perl/

       or

        LibAdd: c:\rrdtool\bin\lib\perl

       When you have made this modification to the configuration
       file, several things will happen when you run mrtg again
       with the new config file:

       1.  mrtg will take all your old `.log' files and convert
           them to `.rrd' format. (The `.log' files don't get
           touched in the process, so if things don't work out
           they are still there.)

       2.  mrtg will use rrdtool to update its databases. These
           will have a new format called rrd which is totally

           mrtg.

       3.  mrtg will not create any webpages of graphs anymore.
           It will only query the routers for traffic information
           and update its rrd databases.

       The advantage of whole thing is that the mrtg will become
       much faster. Expect the runtime to drop to 20% of the pre­
       vious value. (I would like to get some feedback on this
       from folks with large installations)

       Mind you though, while the logging process of RRDtool is
       very fast, you are also gaining some time by neither cre­
       ating graphs nor updating webpages.  The idea behind this
       is that it is more efficient to create graphs and webpages
       on demmand. Using a cgi script.

       At the moment there is no official script to do this, but
       two contributers have created such scripts:

       14all.cgi
           Was the first program to take over the webpage cre­
           ation and graphing task.  It has been developed by
           Rainer Bawidamann <Rainer.Bawidamann@informatik.uni-
           ulm.de>. You can find a copy on Rainers website:

            http://www.uni-ulm.de/~rbawidam/mrtg-rrd/

           The program comes with its own documentation

       routers.cgi
           Is another cgi frontend to mrtg running with rrdtool.
           Its main difference to 14all is that the web pages it
           creates are much more stylish than the ones from mrtg.
           routers.cgi has been written by
           Steve Shipway <steve.shipway@adsweu.com>. You can find
           a copy in

            mrtg-2.9.6/contrib/routers

           The script comes with its own installation instruc­
           tions.

           A sample website showing off routers.cgi can be found
           on

            http://ukpavu99.adsweu.com/cgi-bin/routers.cgi


FUTURE

       Just as a side note: MRTG-3 will be based entirely on rrd­
       tool technology.  But don't wait for it ... get going now!

       Tobias Oetiker <oetiker@ee.ethz.ch>


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