Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)

FreeBSD Manual Pages

  
 
  

home | help
MRTG-NW-GUIDE(1)		      mrtg			MRTG-NW-GUIDE(1)

NAME
     mrtg-nw-guide - MRTG for NetWare

SYNOPSIS
     This guide is intended to aid in the installation and configuration of MRTG
     on a NetWare server.

OVERVIEW
     MRTG  is  a  relative newcomer to the NetWare platform. Earlier versions of
     NetWare could not run MRTG natively for several reasons:

     *	 Absence of NetWare OS support in the MRTG package.

     *	 A NetWare server commandline length limitation.

     *	 Absence of the Rateup executable (Rateup.nlm).

     *	 A standard installation method.

     *	 Problems with NetWare's implementation of Perl.

     Support for the NetWare OS has now been fully added  into	MRTG,  beginning
     with MRTG release 2.12.2.

     Liberally minded operating systems support a commandline length approaching
     1000  characters.	In  such  environments it was an easy matter to pass the
     sometimes high number of parameters used by MRTG's  Rateup  executable  di-
     rectly  on  the  commandline.  Until NetWare 6.5, NetWare had a commandline
     limit of 512 characters. This limitation was also removed for  NetWare  6.0
     by  Service  Pack	5. For other NetWare versions and earlier Service Packs,
     this limitation remains. To permit a 'standard' interface for NetWare,  the
     Rateup  executable  has  been  modified  to also read its parameters from a
     file, and the MRTG script has been modified to support  this  method  on  a
     NetWare platform.	(See New Rateup Switch)

     A Rateup NLM is now available, along with the necessary scripts to build it
     if  required. See the  NetWare Support section of this document for further
     details. Additionally, mrtg.pl has been revised because of the  unique  (to
     NetWare) name of executables (NLM).

     The absence of a specific installation procedure has caused MRTG to fail in
     the  past	because  the  Perl script could not find or load the Rateup exe-
     cutable. The installation method supplied here will solve this problem  for
     now.

     The  MRTG.pl  script in the 2.12.2 (or later) version of MRTG has been con-
     figured to suit all likely versions of NetWare able to use Perl5,	and  by-
     passes all of the known problems with NetWare Perl running MRTG.

PREREQUISITES
     You will need the following:

     *	 Perl  5.8.0  for  NetWare  with  latest Perl Updates (February, 2005 or
	 later; previous versions MAY work)

     *	 NetWare 5.1 w/ SP8, NetWare 6.0 w/ SP5 or NetWare 6.5 w/ SP2.

     *	 A copy of the MRTG Package (v2.12.2 at time of writing)

     *	 Three .ncf files to execute the Perl scripts at the NetWare server con-
	 sole.

     *	 A copy of the Rateup NLM (Pre-built or compiled)

     *	 Optionally, any NetWare supported Web Server (Netscape, Apache  1.3  or
	 2.0)

     For  copies  of  the .ncf files and Rateup NLM, see NetWare Support in this
     document.

INSTALLING MRTG
     1.  Install the latest Perl 5.8.x release on your server. See the Perl doc-
	 umentation for details.

     2.  Create the following directories:

		  SYS:/Mrtg
		  SYS:/Mrtg/bin
		  SYS:/Mrtg/contrib    (Optional for this document)
		  SYS:/Mrtg/doc        (Optional for this document)
		  SYS:/Mrtg/html
		  SYS:/Mrtg/html/images
		  SYS:/Mrtg/html/work
		  SYS:/Mrtg/lib
		  SYS:/Mrtg/logs
		  SYS:/Mrtg/translate

     3.  Copy from the MRTG package the following files:

	  \bin\*	to  SYS:/Mrtg/bin	       All files. See Note 1.

	 Note 1: Add a .pl extension to the mrtg, cfgmaker and indexmaker files.
	 The rateup.exe will NOT be needed on the NetWare server.

	  \contrib\*	to  SYS:/Mrtg/contrib/	       Include sub-directories
	  \doc\*	to  SYS:/Mrtg/doc/	       All files
	  \images\*	to  SYS:/Mrtg/html/images/     All files
	  \translate\*	to  SYS:/Mrtg/translate/       All files. See Note 2.

	 Note 2: For English-only language support, all \translate files  EXCEPT
	 Locales_mrtg may be deleted.

	  \lib\*	to  SYS:/Mrtg/lib	       Include sub-directories. See Note 3.

	 Note 3: This will create the SYS:/Mrtg/lib/mrtg2 and ./pod directories.

     4.  Create copies of the three .ncf files and install them:

	  *.ncf 	to  SYS:/Mrtg/bin

	 See  NetWare  Support	in  this  document  for details on how to create
	 copies of these files.

     5.  See Compiling Rateup.nlm"> in this document for  details  on  compiling
	 the  Rateup  NLM yourself if desired.	A prebuit verion is available in
	 the .\mrtg\bin directory where it must remain.

CONFIGURING MRTG
     *	 Refer to Novell documentation on configuring and loading  SNMP  support
	 on your server if this is the device to be monitored.

     *	 Edit sys:/mrtg/bin/MakeMrtgCfg.ncf:

	 replace  ccccc  with  the GET community name for the SNMP device (typi-
	 cally 'public'),

	 replace ddddd with the DNS name or IP address of the device to be moni-
	 tored.  e.g	public@www.myserver.com, public@10.202.65.180

	 Note 1: These are NOT mail addresses, they just look like one!

	 Note 2: If multiple devices are to be monitored, add their  entries  to
	 the same line:

	 e.g   perl  cfgmaker.pl  public@www.myserver.com public@10.202.65.180 >
	 sys:/mrtg/bin/mrtg.cfg

	 In this "Getting Started", it is 'suggested' to only monitor  a  single
	 device.

     *	 At the server console, run:

	  sys:/mrtg/bin/MakeMrtgCfg.ncf

	 This will create Mrtg.cfg in sys:/mrtg/bin.

     *	 Edit the Mrtg.cfg configuration file created in the previous step. Note
	 the following:

	 It was found, when testing MRTG on a NetWare 6.5 server using a NIC In-
	 terface, that mrtg.cfg contained the following message:

	  ### Interface 1 >> Descr: 'Intel(R)-8255x-based-Network-Connection'...
	  ### The following interface is commented out because:
	  ### * has a speed of 0 which makes no sense
	  #
	  ...

	 If this occurs, edit MakeMrtgCfg.ncf and add the following parameter as
	 shown:

	  perl sys:\mrtg\bin\cfgmaker.pl --zero-speed=nnn public@10.202.65.180 > sys:\mrtg\bin\Mrtg.cfg

	 where	nnn is the interface speed in bits per second. For a 100 Megabit
	 LAN NIC, nnn = 10000000. It will be necessary to re-execute the  MakeM-
	 rtgCfg.ncf script before continuing with this section.

	 Below line 16 (*** Global Defaults), add:

	  HtmlDir:  <a path>  e.g  HtmlDir:  sys:/mrtg/html
	  ImageDir: <a path>  e.g  ImageDir: sys:/mrtg/html/work
	  LogDir:   <a path>  e.g  LogDir:   sys:/mrtg/logs
	  IconDir:  <a path>  e.g  IconDir:  ./images

	 Note  1.  The	HtmlDir  entry specifies where MRTG will create its HTML
	 pages.

	 Note 2. The ImageDir entry specifies where the  created  graphic  icons
	 are placed.

	 Note  3.  The IconDir entry specifies where the supplied MRTG icons are
	 located.  It MUST be a relative path from HtmlDir or absolute URL.  The
	 value shown is recommended.

     *	 At the server console run:

	  sys:/mrtg/bin/RunMrtg.ncf

	 several  times.  By  the third time it should run without showing error
	 messages on the console screen.

	 This should create.

	 - A HTML page in the (HtmlDir) directory for each monitored device,

	 - A .dat file in the (ImageDir) directory for each monitored device,

	 - Several .png icons in the (ImageDir) directory,

	 - Some log file entries in the (LogDir) directory.

	 Note: If you experience a "Use of uninitialised value in split"  error,
	 it  will  be  necessary  to create a 'Path' environment variable at the
	 server console; use the following example

	  env path="SYS:\"  (The actual value is immaterial, as long as the var itself exists.)

     *	 Edit sys:/mrtg/bin/MakeMrtgIndex.ncf. Change the indicated <path> shown
	 in the following example to match the value entered for (HtmlDir).

	  perl --noscreen sys:/mrtg/bin/indexmaker.pl sys:/mrtg/bin/Mrtg.cfg > <path>/index.html

     *	 Create an index.html page linking the separate device HTML page(s).  At
	 the server console, run:

	  sys:/mrtg/bin/MakeMrtgIndex.ncf

	 This will create index.html in the (HtmlDir) directory.

     *	 Optionally,  configure  a  Web Server to permit access to the directory
	 specified in (HtmlDir) to view the MRTG graphs remotely, at, for  exam-
	 ple:

	  http://ip_or_dns/mrtg/index.html

	 A sample configuration for an Apache Webserver is shown:

	  Alias /mrtg/ "SYS:/mrtg/html/"
	  <Directory "SYS:/mrtg/html">
		      AllowOverride None
		      Order allow,deny
		      Allow from all
	  </Directory>

     *	 Set  the  property of the directory pointed to by (ImageDir), to 'Purge
	 Immediate'.

     *	 Finally, read the MRTG documentation for much more detailed  configura-
	 tion/usage information.

     Welcome to MRTG!!

MAKE MRTG RUN ALL THE TIME
     MRTG can be made to run periodically by at least two means:

     *	 Using CRON Scheduling

     *	 Running MRTG in Daemon Mode

   CRON Scheduling
     To  use CRON scheduling, create a CRON Scheduler entry to execute the RunM-
     rtg.ncf file on a frequency appropriate for the server environment and  in-
     formation	desired.  The  following entry in the sys:\etc\crontab file will
     execute MRTG every five minutes:

      0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * * sys:\mrtg\bin\runmrtg.ncf

     The CRON Scheduler (cron.nlm) can be started automatically by adding it  in
     AUTOEXEC.ncf or, manually loading it at the server console.

   MRTG in Daemon Mode
     Refer  to	the MRTG-Reference document for information about the 'RunAsDae-
     mon' option. Its use is outside the scope of this document.

TROUBLESHOOTING
     Read the MRTG documents, Perl documents or, finally,  submit  questions  to
     the MRTG User forums.

     For  NetWare  specific  issues,  submit  questions  to  the  Perl	forum at
     news://developer-forums.novell.com/novell.devsup.perl (Novell Developer Fo-
     rums).

COMPILING RATEUP.NLM
     In addition to the rateup.c and Makefile.Netware supplied with the MRTG re-
     lease, you will also need:

     *	 Metrowerks CodeWarrior with NetWare Support OR GCC Compiler (v3.0.3  or
	 later) with NlmConv Utility

     *	 Novell LibC NDK (February 2004 or later)

     *	 GD Graphics Library (v2.0.33 or later)

     *	 LibPNG Graphics Library (v1.2.8 or later)

     *	 ZLib Library (v1.2.3 or later)

     *	 The get_ver.awk script

     *	 A    copy    of   the	 GNU   build   tools.	   (See   http://source-
	 forge.net/projects/gnuwin32/)

     The auxiliary libraries can be obtained from:

     GD Graphics Library.   (See http://www.boutell.com/gd/ )

     PNG Graphics Library.   (See http://libpng.sourceforge.net/ )

     zLib Compression Library.	 (See http://www.gzip.org/zlib/ )

     Edit the Makefile.Netware file  as  required  to  match  your  installation
     paths; search the file for the key word 'Edit'.

NETWARE SUPPORT
     For copies of the NCF and get_ver.awk scripts, see Appendix.

     For  NetWare  specific  issues,  submit  questions  to  the  Perl	forum at
     news://developer-forums.novell.com/novell.devsup.perl (Novell Developer Fo-
     rums).

     To move the MRTG application to a volume other than SYS: you will	need  to
     edit  the	NCF  scripts  provided	plus  the MRTG[.pl] script itself in two
     places.

NEW RATEUP SWITCH
     The MRTG[.pl] script, when used on a NetWare  platform,  uses  Rateup[.nlm]
     with the new commandline switch:

	  RATEUP -f filename

     where the filename parameter can include a leading path element.

     The  file	format	is  exactly  the same as that used on the commandline by
     other operating systems, including the leading path and name of the  Rateup
     NLM.

APPENDIX
     The Appendix includes 'copies' of the following files:

     *	 The NCF files used during MRTG configuration,

     To create copies of these files, simply 'cut and paste' into your favourite
     'text  editor' and save under their respective names. You should remove the
     leading space from each line.

     MakeMrtgCfg.NCF

      # MakeMrtgCfg.NCF
      # Purpose : Create the MRTG Configuration File
      # Changed :  5/05/2005  New
      # Located : SYS:MRTG\BIN
      # Set For :
      # Params	:

      # Edit this file and:

      # Replace ccccc with your device GET SNMP Community Name - If unsure try 'public'.
      # Replace ddddd with your device IP (n.n.n.n) or domain name.

      perl --noscreen sys:\mrtg\bin\cfgmaker.pl ccccc@ddddd > sys:\mrtg\bin\Mrtg.cfg

      #
      # End of MakeMrtgCfg.NCF

     RunMrtg.NCF

      # RunMrtg.NCF
      # Purpose : Run the MRTG Application
      # Changed :  5/05/2005  New
      # Located : SYS:MRTG\BIN
      # Set For :
      # Params	:

      # The paths are as per the examples recommended in "Getting Started".

      perl --noscreen sys:\mrtg\bin\mrtg.pl sys:\mrtg\bin\mrtg.cfg

      #
      # End of RunMrtg.NCF

     MakeMrtgIndex.NCF

      # MakeMrtgIndex.NCF
      # Purpose : Create the HTML Index File for MRTG HTML data pages
      # Changed :  5/05/2005  New
      # Located : SYS:MRTG\BIN
      # Set For :
      # Params	:

      # Note: Edit this file and change the redirected output to the location
      #       specified for HtmlDir or WorkDir. The sys:\apache2\htdocs\mrtg\index.html
      #       is based on the examples in "Getting Started".

      perl --noscreen sys:\mrtg\bin\indexmaker.pl sys:\mrtg\bin\Mrtg.cfg > sys:\mrtg\html\index.html

      #
      # End of MakeMrtgIndex.NCF

LICENSE
     GNU General Public License

CREDITS
     The MRTG for NetWare exists largely through the efforts  of  Guenter  Knauf
     and feedback from beta testers.

AUTHOR
     Norm W..

2.17.10 			   2022-01-19			MRTG-NW-GUIDE(1)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mrtg-nw-guide&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.1.quarterly>

home | help