How to install Cacti on Ubuntu

Installation prerequisite
The following packages are required to run Cacti properly

Apache2

# apt-get install apache2
# apt-get install php5 php5-cli php5-mysql php5-snmp

MYSQL

# apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client

SNMP

# apt-get install snmp snmpd

RRDTool

# apt-get install rrdtool

Cacti User

# useradd -d /home/cactiuser -m cactiuser

Installation
Download and decompress Cacti Package

# cd /usr/share
# wget http://www.cacti.net/downloads/cacti-0.8.7i.tar.gz
# gzip -d cacti-0.8.7i.tar.gz
# tar -xvf cacti-0.8.7i.tar
# mv cacti-0.8.7i cacti

Create cacti DB

#mysql -p
mysql> create database cacti

Import the default DB

mysql --user=root --password cacti < /usr/share/cacti/cacti.sql

Create Cacti user and set the right privileges to the database

# mysql --user=root --password
 
mysql> GRANT ALL ON cacti.* TO cactiuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'cactipwd';
mysql> flush privileges;
mysql> exit

Configure Cacti with DB user and pwd

# vim /usr/share/cacti/include/config.php
 
$database_type = "mysql";
$database_default = "cacti";
$database_hostname = "localhost";
$database_username = "cactiuser";
$database_password = "cactipwd";
$database_port = "3306";
$database_ssl = false;

Create Cacti Apache configuration file

# vim /etc/apache2/conf.d/cacti.conf
 
Alias /cacti /usr/share/cacti
<Directory /usr/share/cacti >
Options None
Allow from 127.0.0.1
Allow from All
</Directory>

Restart the apache webserver

#/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Finally We can log into cacti website:
http://IP/cacti
(use "admin" as the default username and password)

Add a line to your /etc/crontab file similar to

# vim /etc/cron.d/cacti
*/5 * * * * cactiuser php /usr/share/cacti/poller.php > /dev/null 2>&1

Configure SNMP

For easy to let cacti to access and monitor other hosts we use below simple way to configure snmp file.

# vim /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf
rocommunity public
syslocation "Your Location"
syscontact [email protected]

Try to add host into Cacti and see the result.  Good luck!