Cacti produces no graphs - apache/syslog errors

[Brad Johnson]

Binary package hint: cacti

[Dapper] Clean install of cacti 0.8.6h-1ubuntu3. Install completes successfully but no graph data is created.

* Syslog reports (on polling intervals):
/USR/SBIN/CRON[13411]: (www-data) CMD (/usr/share/cacti/site/poller.php >/dev/null 2>/var/log/cacti/poller-error.log)

* Apache2 error.log reports (when attempting to view graphs):
ERROR: opening '/usr/share/cacti/site/rra/localhost_users_6.rrd': No such file or directory
ERROR: opening '/usr/share/cacti/site/rra/localhost_proc_7.rrd': No such file or directory
ERROR: opening '/usr/share/cacti/site/rra/localhost_mem_buffers_3.rrd': No such file or directory
ERROR: opening '/usr/share/cacti/site/rra/localhost_load_1min_5.rrd': No such file or directory

* Running poller from the command line produces no rrd files.
* Recreated this issue on two separate dapper installations.

[Brad Johnson (brad-bkjohnson)]

Cacti is very important to Administrators. Can this bug at least get addressed? Additionally, I'm specifically requesting a patch & backport to dapper as I, like others I've spoken to, plan to keep their servers on LTS builds.

Thanks,

Brad

[Lionel Porcheron (lionel.porcheron)]

Hi Brad,

I tried to reproduce this this morning on a fresh Dapper install. All the graphs are created successfully and I have no error in apache error.log. I had the messages just after install before graphs are created (but graphs are created within 5 min).

I am using apache2, which version of apache are you using (it may came from there).

I agree that cacti is very important for administrators :-)

Lionel

[Brad Johnson (brad-bkjohnson)]

On Tue, 2007-01-16 at 10:42 +0000, Lionel Porcheron wrote:
> Hi Brad,
>
> I tried to reproduce this this morning on a fresh Dapper install. All
> the graphs are created successfully and I have no error in apache
> error.log. I had the messages just after install before graphs are
> created (but graphs are created within 5 min).
>
> I am using apache2, which version of apache are you using (it may came
> from there).
>
> I agree that cacti is very important for administrators :-)
>
> Lionel

Lionel,

I'm running apache2 installed by the LAMP installation.

Brad

>
>
> ** Changed in: cacti (Ubuntu)
> Status: Unconfirmed => Needs Info
>

[Lionel Porcheron (lionel.porcheron)]

Could you check /var/log/cacti/poller-error.log and see if there are errors ?

[Brad Johnson (brad-bkjohnson)]

There is no date of any kind in any of the logs in /var/log/cacti.
Additionally, the cacti.log and rrd.log have different permissions when
compared to poller-error.log as seen below.

-rw-r----- 1 www-data www-data 0 2007-01-16 09:21 cacti.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2007-01-16 09:50 poller-error.log
-rw-r----- 1 www-data www-data 0 2007-01-16 09:21 rrd.log

This is the way the package creates this directory. I've gone so far as
to un-install cacti and remove this directory and reinstall to be sure.

Most recently I changed the poller to run under root and changed
ownership of the cacti log files to root:root. This made absolutely no
difference. No data in any log files after several poller attempts.

The only thing I have changed from the default LAMP install is the
default website which originally points to /var/www now points
to /var/www/default. I've looked and didn't find any information that
suggests that cacti cares where the default apache website is.

I hope this helps.

On Wed, 2007-01-17 at 10:57 +0000, Lionel Porcheron wrote:
> Could you check /var/log/cacti/poller-error.log and see if there are
> errors ?
>

[Brad Johnson (brad-bkjohnson)]

On Wed, 2007-01-17 at 10:57 +0000, Lionel Porcheron wrote:
> Could you check /var/log/cacti/poller-error.log and see if there are
> errors ?
>

More information: I had one of my co-workers install cacti on his
server. He also runs the Dapper LAMP Installation. His cacti
installation does not produce graphs either.

You had said that cacti worked for you on Dapper. May I ask if your
installation was the Dapper-Server LAMP Install? That is the only
constant I can seem to find between installations with the same
symptoms.

[Lionel Porcheron (lionel.porcheron)]

It was not. I installed the packages (apache, MySQL server) by hand. I will have a look with a standard LAMP installation.

[Brad Johnson (brad-bkjohnson)]

On Thu, 2007-01-18 at 17:35 +0000, Lionel Porcheron wrote:
> It was not. I installed the packages (apache, MySQL server) by hand. I
> will have a look with a standard LAMP installation.
>

One last piece of information. When cacti installs a dialog opens during
installation talking about 'path' changes regarding php. Your only
option is 'ok' to this dialog and php & apache seem to work fine. Could
this be related to that dialog? I assume you will get the same dialog
when installing cacti for the first time on a LAMP installation.

Brad

[Brad Johnson (brad-bkjohnson)]

This problem is resolved by running 'sudo dpkg-reconfigure php5-mysql' and selecting the 'Yes' (the default) to all install questions.

Considering this, would this not suggest a problem with the way php5-mysql is configured by the LAMP installation routine? Apparently this is not a problem when packages are installed manually.

[Brad Johnson (brad-bkjohnson)]

To add to the previous comment, the root cause of the problem was the following error, caused by mysql support not being sufficiently enabled within php.

"Call to undefined function: mysql_pconnect() in /usr/share/php/adodb/drivers/adodb-mysql.inc.php on line 373"

Someone less ignorant may want to comment on whether my solution is proper and secure.

[Lionel Porcheron (lionel.porcheron)]

Ok, I am rejecting this bug because it is not a cacti bug.

Nevertheless, we should determine why mysql extension was not activated in your LAMP installation.