How to graph ipac-ng traffic using mrtg.
ipac / ipac-ng authors:
Moritz Both <moritz@daniben.de>
Al Zaharov <kaiser13@mail2000.ru>
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipac-ng
ipac to mrtg:
original: Tim Yunaev <tim@lviv.gu.net> 2000
modified: Roger Buck <saas@users.sf.net> December 2002
NB - Before using these examples, make sure you edit any of the
pathnames / filenames shown below to suit your own particular setup!
- Introduction
You may already use mrtg to graph traffic 'trends' on your network, but mrtg does not provide a method to graph 'totals' like ipac-ng.
Although ipac-ng includes graphing capability you may use mrtg for display of other data on your network and, for consistency, you may prefer to graph everthing using mrtg.
It is not normally possible to run two traffic monitors on same host (see man fetchipac BUGS) but here is one way to do this using ipac-ng and mrtg.
How it Works:
First, download and install ipac-ng and configure as normal. Make sure that ipac-ng is working correctly, then install and configure mrtg.
Usually you will configure mrtg to run from crontab at regular intervals
You do not need to run snmp with mrtg - ipac-ng can supply all traffic data to mrtg using the ipcaacount script (included in ipac-ng contrib); Your mrtg configuration file is configured same as normal but use "ipaccount" script to collect traffic data instead of using snmp and you should run mrtg from cron instead of as daemon (unless you know how and why :).
Instead of using snmp, the mrtg config file specifies "ipaccount" as a "target" script to obtain mrtg traffic data.
The traffic data is stored in normal mrtg log file and in ipac-ng log file.
The "ipaccount" script calls "ipacsum" (part of ipac-ng) to collect traffic data from ipac-ng log files.... so that mrtg does not reset the iptables data back to zero when reading traffic statistics (read the ipac-ng "fetchipac" manual for further information).
You can use ipac-ng data and mrtg data at same time on the same host.
Getting Started:
- Install ipac-ng and mrtg packages and add "/usr/local/bin/fetchipac -S" to the end of your "rc.firewall" (or similar) script (ipac-ng will not affect any other firewall rules that you have created).
- Edit your /etc/ipac-ng/ipac.conf and /etc/ipac-ng/rules.conf files Depends on version of ipac-ng). Make sure you understand "chain" names. The "cahain" names will be used in the ipaccount "regular expressions" (regexps). Select your names carefully so that they are simple and unambiguous.
- Edit your mrtg.conf file. In the mrtg "target" field, enter the full path to "ipaccount", the time interval and the regexp to identify the name of the rule(s) that mrtg will use to create graph. For example, "/usr/lib/mrtg/ipaccount 15m all" - means "get data from any chain that contains the regexp 'all' for last 15 minutes '15m'" The 15m time can be whatever time you like, but should be the same period that MRTG is run - in this example, mrtg is called every 15 minutes from crontab. The mrtg log file is based on minimum time periods of 5 minutes duration, so 5 minutes would be the minimum sensible period for your cron job!
Here is an example of what you may enter in crontab (crontab -e):
# Update ipac and mrtg traffic logs every nn minutes...
*/15 * * * * /usr/local/bin/ipac-2-mrtg
4. Test your results by manually calling this MRTG string from command line. You should see two or more (up to 4) numbers (read about mrtg logfile format): The first line is total incoming traffic (in bytes), and second line is outgoing traffic (bytes). To understand what "total" really means, you must read the manuals for fetchipac and ipacsum included with ipac-ng!
5. After your cron job has been running for 20 - 30 minutes, look at your mrtg graphs and log files. If you have any problems, then use the following command line options to see if the results are "sensible", and read the ipac-ng and mrtg manuals and reference documents.
The following may help troubleshooting from command line:
- To make sure ipaccount + mrtg.conf are working correctly:
/usr/local/bin/ipaccount 15m all
2. To make sure that ipac-ng and mrtg agree about traffic data:
/usr/local/sbin/ipacsum -s 15m -f all
- HINTS
You probably want to use "growright and "absolute" in mrtg.cfg
The mrtg "absolute" and "gauge" options are mutually exclusive!!!
Suggestion: Until you make sure everything is working as expected, make sure that ipaccount is saving data in bytes (not bits, Kilobytes or Megabytes, unless you know how and why to change it :-)
Good Luck and enjoy :-)
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