02. My First Graph

Now let's create the very first graph. I won't stick to the host cacti is running on, because this is a very special one. So I'm assuming you're running at least one other device. As cacti's roots are network monitoring with SNMP, I will use some SNMP capable device. In this case, I choose the router of my home network. But you may of course choose any device that is SNMP enabled.

But let's start from the very beginning. Assuming you've just logged in, you'll see a page like this:

 

Choose either of those marked links to access the Devices page. Add a new Device like:

 

Now you're presented with the next page:

 

Description

Give this host a meaningful description.

Hostname

Fill in the fully qualified hostname for this device. Personally, I love to use DNS Names instead of IP Adresses. But you may choose any of them

Host Template

Choose what type of host, host template this is. The host template will govern what kinds of data should be gathered from this type of host.
The magic of templates is explained later

SNMP Community

Fill in the SNMP read community for this device. If you don't know, use the string "public" as a start.

Now hit Create to see:

 

Please notice the information already retrieved from this device. Of course, this output pertains to my special device. The text may vary for your equipment. In case you see:

 

there is an error with the SNMP Community String that must be fixed prior to graph generation. When scrolling down, you should see some more information, that was provided by assigning this device to the given Host Template. I'm aiming at SNMP - Interface Statistics:

 

Now, back to the top of the page, select Create Graphs for this Host and find the following:

 

Check the box next to an interface you want to get data for. A good choice is a row, where a Hardware Address (aka: MAC Address) or the like is shown. From the dropdown, select a graph template of your liking. But remember, that 64 bit graphs are only supported with SNMP V2 (and some more conditions). Finally, Create to get:

 

You want to see your work immediately? So, here is the answer: You have to be patient. Assuming you did not forget to configure your cacti host's scheduler to run the poller every 5 minutes, you'll have to wait at least 10 minutes to see anything. Then, please move to Graph Management:

 

and select the newly generated graph. Please notice, that I've filtered for the device. This was for demonstrating purpose only and to suppress all devices from the list I've already created.

 

The last steps are not the recommended way to handle this. Later on, I'll show how to use the Graph tab and all the magic within.