MRTG-NW-GUIDE(1)               mrtg              MRTG-NW-GUIDE(1)



NAME
       mrtg-nw-guide - MRTG for NetWare

SYNOPSIS
       This guide is intended to aid in the installation and con-
       figuration of MRTG on a NetWare server.

OVERVIEW
       MRTG is a relative newcomer to the NetWare platform. Ear-
       lier versions of NetWare could not run MRTG natively for
       several reasons:

       o   Absence of NetWare OS support in the MRTG package.

       o   A NetWare server commandline length limitation.

       o   Absence of the Rateup executable (Rateup.nlm).

       o   A standard installation method.

       o   Problems with NetWare's implementation of Perl.

       Support for the NetWare OS has now been fully added into
       MRTG, beginning with MRTG release 2.11.2.

       Liberallly minded operating systems support a commandline
       length approaching 1000 characters. In such environments
       it was an easy matter to pass the sometimes high number of
       parameters used by MRTG's Rateup executable directly on
       the commandline. Until NetWare 6.5, NetWare had a command-
       line limit of 512 characters. This limitation was also
       removed for NetWare 6.0 by Service Pack 5. For other Net-
       Ware versions and earlier Service Packs, this limitation
       remains. To permit a 'standard' interface for NetWare, the
       Rateup executable has been modified to also read its
       parameters from a file, and the MRTG script has been modi-
       fied to support this method on a NetWare platform.  (See
       "New Rateup Switch")

       A Rateup NLM is now available, along with the necessary
       scripts to build it if required. See the  "NetWare Sup-
       port" section of this document for further details. Addi-
       tionally, mrtg.pl has been revised because of the unique
       (to NetWare) name of executables (NLM).

       The absence of a specific installation procedure has
       caused MRTG to fail in the past because the Perl script
       could not find or load the Rateup executable. The instal-
       lation method supplied here will solve this problem for
       now.

       The MRTG.pl script in the 2.11.2 (or later) version of
       MRTG has been configured to suit all likely versions of
       NetWare able to use Perl5, and bypasses all of the known
       problems with NetWare Perl running MRTG.

PREREQUISITES
       You will need the following:

       o   Perl 5.8.0 for NetWare with latest Perl Updates
           (February, 2005 or later; previous versions MAY work)

       o   NetWare 5.1 w/ SP8, NetWare 6.0 w/ SP5 or NetWare 6.5
           w/ SP2.

       o   A copy of the MRTG Package (v2.11.2 at time of writ-
           ting)

       o   Three .ncf files to execute the Perl scripts at the
           NetWare server console.

       o   A copy of the Rateup NLM (Pre-built or compiled)

       o   Optionally, any NetWare supported Web Server
           (Netscape, Apache 1.3 or 2.0)

       For copies of the .ncf files and Rateup NLM, see "NetWare
       Support" in this document.

INSTALLING MRTG
       1.  Install the latest Perl 5.8.x release on your server.
           See the Perl documentation for details.

       2.  Create the following directories:

                    SYS:/Mrtg
                    SYS:/Mrtg/bin
                    SYS:/Mrtg/contrib    (Optional for this document)
                    SYS:/Mrtg/doc        (Optional for this document)
                    SYS:/Mrtg/html
                    SYS:/Mrtg/html/images
                    SYS:/Mrtg/html/work
                    SYS:/Mrtg/logs
                    SYS:/Mrtg/translate

       3.  Copy from the MRTG package the following files:

                    \bin\*        to  SYS:/Mrtg/bin              All files. See Note 1.

               Note 1: Add a .pl extension to the mrtg, cfgmaker and indexmaker files.
                       The rateup.exe will NOT be needed on the NetWare server.

                    \contrib\*    to  SYS:/Mrtg/contrib/         Include sub-directories
                    \doc\*        to  SYS:/Mrtg/doc/             All files
                    \images\*     to  SYS:/Mrtg/html/images/     All files
                    \translate\*  to  SYS:/Mrtg/translate/       All files. See Note 2.

               Note 2: For English-only language support, all \translate files EXCEPT Locales_mrtg may be deleted.

                    \lib\*        to  SYS:/Perl/lib              Include sub-directories. See Note 3.

               Note 3: This will create the SYS:/Perl/lib/mrtg2 and ./pod directories.

       4.  Create copies of the three .ncf files and install
           them:

                    *.ncf         to  SYS:/Mrtg/bin

           See "NetWare Support" in this document for details on
           how to create copies of these files.

       5.  See "Compiling Rateup.nlm" in this document for
           details on compiling the Rateup NLM yourself if
           desired.  A prebuit verion is available in the
           .\mrtg\bin directory where it must remain.

CONFIGURING MRTG
       o   Refer to Novell documentation on configuring and
           loading SNMP support on your server if this is the
           device to be monitored.

       o   Edit sys:/mrtg/bin/MakeMrtgCfg.ncf:

                     - replace ccccc with the GET community name for the SNMP device (typically 'public'),
                     - replace ddddd with the DNS name or IP address of the device to be monitored.

                     e.g    public@www.myserver.com, public@10.202.65.180

                     Note 1: These are NOT mail addresses, they just look like one!
                     Note 2: If multiple devices are to be monitored, add their entries to the same line:

                     e.g  perl cfgmaker.pl public@www.myserver.com public@10.202.65.180 > sys:/mrtg/bin/mrtg.cfg

           In this "Getting Started", it is 'suggested' to only
           monitor a single device.

       o   At the server console, run:

                    sys:/mrtg/bin/MakeMrtgCfg.ncf

           This will create Mrtg.cfg in sys:/mrtg/bin.

       o   Edit the Mrtg.cfg configuration file created in the
           previous step. Note the following:

           It was found, when testing MRTG on a NetWare 6.5
           server using a NIC Interface, that mrtg.cfg contained
           the following message:

              ### Interface 1 >> Descr: 'Intel(R)-8255x-based-Network-Connection'...
              ### The following interface is commented out because:
              ### * has a speed of 0 which makes no sense
              #
              ...

           If this occurs, edit MakeMrtgCfg.ncf and add the fol-
           lowing parameter as shown:

             perl sys:\mrtg\bin\cfgmaker.pl B<--zero-speed=nnn> public@10.202.65.180 > sys:\mrtg\bin\Mrtg.cfg

           where nnn is the interface speed in bits per second.
           For a 100 Megabit LAN NIC, nnn = 10000000. It will be
           necessary to re-execute the MakeMrtgCfg.ncf script
           before continuing with this section.

           Below line 16 (*** Global Defaults), add:

                    HtmlDir:  <a path>  e.g  HtmlDir:  sys:/mrtg/html
                    ImageDir: <a path>  e.g  ImageDir: sys:/mrtg/html/work
                    LogDir:   <a path>  e.g  LogDir:   sys:/mrtg/logs
                    IconDir:  <a path>  e.g  IconDir:  ./images

                    Note 1: The HtmlDir entry specifies where MRTG will create its HTML pages.
                    Note 2: The ImageDir entry specifies where the created graphic icons are placed.
                    Note 3: The IconDir entry specifies where the supplied MRTG icons are located.
                            It MUST be a relative path from HtmlDir or absolute URL. The value shown
                            is recommended.

       o   At the server console run:

                    sys:/mrtg/bin/RunMrtg.ncf

           several times. By the third time it should run without
           showing error messages on the console screen.  This
           should create:

                   - A HTML page in the (HtmlDir) directory for each monitored device,
                   - A .dat file in the (ImageDir) directory for each monitored device,
                   - Several .png icons in the (ImageDir) directory,
                   - Some log file entries in the (LogDir) directory.

                    Note: If you experience a "Use of uninitialised value in split" error, it will be necessary to
                          create a 'Path' environment variable at the server console; use the following example:

                          env path="SYS:\"  (The actual value is immaterial, as long as the var itself exists.)

       o   Edit sys:/mrtg/bin/MakeMrtgIndex.ncf. Change the indi-
           cated <path> shown in the following example to match
           the value entered for (HtmlDir).

                    perl --noscreen sys:/mrtg/bin/indexmaker.pl sys:/mrtg/bin/Mrtg.cfg > <path>/index.html

       o   Create an index.html page linking the seperate device
           HTML page(s). At the server console, run:

                    sys:/mrtg/bin/MakeMrtgIndex.ncf

           This will create index.html in the (HtmlDir) direc-
           tory.

       o   Optionally, configure a Web Server to permit access to
           the directory specified in (HtmlDir) to view the MRTG
           graphs remotely, at, for example:

                    http://ip_or_dns/mrtg/index.html

           A sample configuration for an Apache Webserver is
           shown:

                    Alias /mrtg/ "SYS:/mrtg/html/"

                    <Directory "SYS:/mrtg/html">
                        AllowOverride None
                        Order allow,deny
                        Allow from all
                    </Directory>

       o   Set the property of the directory pointed to by
           (ImageDir), to 'Purge Immediate'.

       o   Finally, read the MRTG documentation for much more
           detailed configuration/usage information.

       Welcome to MRTG!!

MAKE MRTG RUN ALL THE TIME
       MRTG can be made to run periodically by at least two
       means:

       o   Using CRON Scheduling

       o   Running MRTG in Daemon Mode

       CRON Scheduling

       To use CRON scheduling, create a CRON Scheduler entry to
       execute the RunMrtg.ncf file on a frequency appropriate
       for the server environment and information desired. The
       following entry in the sys:\etc\crontab file will execute
       MRTG every five minutes:

                0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * * sys:\mrtg\bin\runmrtg.ncf

       The CRON Scheduler (cron.nlm) can be started automatically
       by adding it in AUTOEXEC.ncf or, manually loading it at
       the server console.

       MRTG in Daemon Mode

       Refer to the MRTG-Reference document for information about
       the 'RunAsDaemon' option. Its use is outside the scope of
       this document.

TROUBLESHOOTING
       Read the MRTG documents, Perl documents or, finally, sub-
       mit questions to the MRTG User forums.

       For NetWare specific issues, submit questions to the Perl
       forum at
            <news://developer-forums.novell.com/novell.dev-
       sup.perl> (Novell Developer Forums).

COMPILING RATEUP.NLM
       In addition to the rateup.c and Makefile.Netware supplied
       with the MRTG release, you will also need:

       o   Metrowerks CodeWarrior with NetWare Support OR GCC
           Compiler (v3.0.3 or later) with NlmConv Utility

       o   Novell LibC NDK (February 2004 or later)

       o   GD Graphics Library (v2.0.33 or later)

       o   LibPNG Graphics Library (v1.2.8 or later)

       o   ZLib Library (v1.2.2 or later)

       o   A copy of the get_ver.awk script. (See "Appendix")

       o   A copy of the GNU build tools.    (See <http://source-
           forge.net/projects/gnuwin32/>)

       The auxiliary libraries can be obtained from:

            GD Graphics Library.   (See L<http://www.boutell.com/gd/>)

            PNG Graphics Library.   (See L<http://libpng.sourceforge.net/>)

            zLib Compression Library.   (See L<http://www.gzip.org/zlib/>)

       Edit the Makefile.Netware file as required to match your
       installation paths; search the file for the key word
       'Edit'.

NETWARE SUPPORT
       For copies of the NCF and get_ver.awk scripts, see
       "Appendix".

       For NetWare specific issues, submit questions to the Perl
       forum at
            <news://developer-forums.novell.com/novell.dev-
       sup.perl> (Novell Developer Forums).

       To move the MRTG application to a volume other than SYS:
       you will need to edit the NCF scripts provided plus the
       MRTG[.pl] script itself in two places.

NEW RATEUP SWITCH
       The MRTG[.pl] script, when used on a NetWare platform,
       uses Rateup[.nlm] with the new commandline switch:

            RATEUP -f filename

       where the filename parameter can include a leading path
       element.

       The file format is exactly the same as that used on the
       commandline by other operating systems, including the
       leading path and name of the Rateup NLM.

APPENDIX
       The Appendix includes 'copies' of the following files:

       o   The NCF files used during MRTG configuration,

       o   The AWK script used when 'building' the Rateup NLM.

       To create copies of these files, simply 'cut and paste'
       into your favourite 'text editor' and save under their
       respective names. You should remove the leading space from
       each line.

       MakeMrtgCfg.NCF

        # MakeMrtgCfg.NCF
        # Purpose : Create the MRTG Configuration File
        # Changed :  5/05/2005  New
        # Located : SYS:MRTG\BIN
        # Set For :
        # Params  :

        # Edit this file and:

        # Replace ccccc with your device GET SNMP Community Name - If unsure try 'public'.
        # Replace ddddd with your device IP (n.n.n.n) or domain name.

        perl --noscreen sys:\mrtg\bin\cfgmaker.pl ccccc@ddddd > sys:\mrtg\bin\Mrtg.cfg

        #
        # End of MakeMrtgCfg.NCF

       RunMrtg.NCF

        # RunMrtg.NCF
        # Purpose : Run the MRTG Application
        # Changed :  5/05/2005  New
        # Located : SYS:MRTG\BIN
        # Set For :
        # Params  :

        # The paths are as per the examples recommended in "Getting Started".

        perl --noscreen sys:\mrtg\bin\mrtg.pl sys:\mrtg\bin\mrtg.cfg

        #
        # End of RunMrtg.NCF

       MakeMrtgIndex.NCF




        # MakeMrtgIndex.NCF
        # Purpose : Create the HTML Index File for MRTG HTML data pages
        # Changed :  5/05/2005  New
        # Located : SYS:MRTG\BIN
        # Set For :
        # Params  :

        # Note: Edit this file and change the redirected output to the location specified for HtmlDir or WorkDir.
        #       The sys:\apache2\htdocs\mrtg\index.html is based on the examples in "Getting Started".

        perl --noscreen sys:\mrtg\bin\indexmaker.pl sys:\mrtg\bin\Mrtg.cfg > sys:\mrtg\html\index.html

        #
        # End of MakeMrtgIndex.NCF

       get_ver.awk

        # get_ver.awk
        # fetch rateup version number from input file and write them to STDOUT
        BEGIN {
          while ((getline < ARGV[1]) > 0) {
            if (match ($0, /VERSION = "[^"]+"/)) {
              rateup_ver_str = substr($4, 2, length($4) - 3);
              split(rateup_ver_str, v, ".");
              rateup_ver = v[1] "," v[2] "," v[3];
            }
          }
          print "RATEUP_VERSION = " rateup_ver "";
          print "RATEUP_VERSION_STR = " rateup_ver_str "";
        )
        #
        # End of get_ver.awk

LICENSE
       GNU General Public License

CREDITS
       The MRTG for NetWare exists largely through the efforts of
       Guenter Knauf and feedback from beta testers.

AUTHOR
       Norm W..



2.12.2                      2005-06-19           MRTG-NW-GUIDE(1)
