How to Configure Devices with CACTI

 CACTI

The Complete RRDTool-based Graphing Solution

CACTI Monitor devices via SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol), so first we need to configure device's snmp and so that it can provide information to CACTI server

Different devices has different ways to configure but i will show you how to configure windows 10 snmp.

 

Install SNMP service on Windows 10

Open "Turn Windows Feature on or off" and look for "Simple Network Management Protocol (SMNP)" 

Select it and click OK to install it (if you didn't find it scroll down to optional step to install manually)

OPTIONAL STEP

Install SNMP With PowerShell

Open PowerShell by selecting run as administrator

enter Get-WindowsCapability -Online -Name “SNMP*” in PowerShell

OUTPUT

Name                                   : SNMP.Client~~~~0.0.1.0 State                                    : NotPresent DisplayName                       : Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Description                           : This feature includes Simple Network Management Protocol agents that monitor the activity in network devices and report to the network console workstation DownloadSize                     : 596276 InstallSize                            : 2306716

Now enter Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name “SNMP.Client~~~~0.0.1.0”

It will now install SNMP service and can verify it by opening the services console

SNMP Configuration

Once it install open windows services console and look for snmp service

Double click to open it and then click on security tab and configure it

Add community string which SNMP server look for e.g. public or local etc

Now set the security to accept packets from server, there are two options 

1. from any server

2. from specified server

after configuration click ok, snmp is now configured on windows 10

After Device is successfully configure open CACTI web management to configure this device and start creating graphs

Login as admin 

Click on Create on left side menu and then New Device

Enter description of device and IP or hostname (if DNS configured in your environment) 

Select the device template as windows device

Now set the SNMP option accordingly, snmp version, community string, port etc and click on Save

if you device successfully added you will see details at the top of these configurations

Now on top right corner you see a menu click on "Create Graphs for this device"

Now you will be presented different type of graphs according to configured device select as per your requirement

After selecting the graphs hit SAVE

Now Click on Management and then Graphs

All the Graphs you selected earlier are shown here, Select the device if you have more than one device to show only those Graphs which are only associated with selected device

Now select all those graphs which you want to view and click on drop down action menu below and  select "Place on Default Tree" and click GO and then continue 

Now click on Graphs on TOP left menu and the click on Default tree and you will see the graphs it will take some time to populate the data and graphs usually 5 to 10 min

That's how you configure devices to monitor from CACTI and generate graphs for analysis