Table of Contents

Monitor FreeBSD performance with Cacti

Prerequisite

Install snmp deamon

I use bsnmpd as snmp daemon. There's also snmpd but it doesn't have support for pf.

To install bsnmp and bsnmp-ucd, use the following command

pkg_add -r bsnmpd
pkg_add -r bsnmp-ucd

Configure snmp daemon

rc.conf

In file /etc/rc.conf add the following line

bsnmpd_enable="YES"

snmpd.config

File /etc/snmpd.config is the default configuration file for bsnmpd. First edit generic snmp information (location and contact).

location := "Server room"
contact := "contact@example.com"

I also added a variable host :

host := 192.168.10.1

This variable is used later to set which IP address the daemon should be listening on. This is done by finding and editing lines starting with begemotSnmpdPortStatus :

begemotSnmpdPortStatus.[$(host)].161 = 1
begemotSnmpdPortStatus.127.0.0.1.161 = 1

Those two lines will make your daemon listening on localhost and specified IP address in host variable.

Normally MIB-2 module is loaded by default. Just check that the line begemotSnmpdModulePath.”mibII” = ”/usr/lib/snmp_mibII.so” is written and not commented (not starting with #).

You also want to add Packet Filter stats by adding (or uncommenting) line begemotSnmpdModulePath.”pf” = ”/usr/lib/snmp_pf.so”

And you also want to add usage statistics (process, memory and load) by adding (or uncommenting) line begemotSnmpdModulePath.”ucd” = ”/usr/local/lib/snmp_ucd.so”. The module is provided by bsnmp-ucd.

You can start snmp daemon with /etc/rc.d/bsnmpd start

Configure Cacti

Templates files

You should have downloaded four files from Cacti forum. The first is pf_flow_167.xml. This one has to be copied in ./resources/snmp_queries/pf_flow.xml in your Cacti installation directory.

Others files can be imported in Cacti via Import Templates on Cacti admin interface.

Create host in Cacti

Now you can just create a new device in Cacti and add graphs you need. For Packet Filter graphs use “Packet Filter statistic” as “Associated Data Queries” and then add graphs with graph template “Packet Filter Statistic”.