[gentoo-user] Cacti vs JFFNMS

[gentoo-user] Cacti vs JFFNMS

[James]

Hello,

I'm searching for a new network management system (tired of MRTG) that will
 allow for the management of systems, routers, and various SNMP(1-3) devices.
JFFNMS and Cacti are the closest packages I have found. Cacti is implemented as
an ebuild, while JFFNMS lists an ebuild as a 'todo' item. JFFNMS can also be 
ran on top of postgresql, for aggressive and large backend database 
installations.

Installation aside, I'd like to know if anyone has any experience with either 
ofthese 2 packages, what you like/dislike and why. If you have q heterogeneous
device management software package, that you feel is better than either JFFNMS 
or Cacti, then I'd like to know 'why' it's better, and how difficult is it to 
set up.

Nagios gets pretty good reviews, and I like the HVAC (heating ventilation & air
conditioning) hack via Esensors even though it is SOLD and not Opensource.
However, Nagios is just now moving to php on top of rrdtools, so it's gui is
likely to be in flux for a year or two.

What do you use and why is it wonderful?



James


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Re: [gentoo-user] Cacti vs JFFNMS

[A. Khattri]

On Mon, 6 Dec 2004, James wrote:

> I'm searching for a new network management system (tired of MRTG) that will
>  allow for the management of systems, routers, and various SNMP(1-3) devices.
> JFFNMS and Cacti are the closest packages I have found. Cacti is implemented as
> an ebuild, while JFFNMS lists an ebuild as a 'todo' item. JFFNMS can also be
> ran on top of postgresql, for aggressive and large backend database
> installations.

Also check out Zabbix if you have time ;-)
http://www.zabbix.com/index.php

> Installation aside, I'd like to know if anyone has any experience with either
> ofthese 2 packages, what you like/dislike and why. If you have q heterogeneous
> device management software package, that you feel is better than either JFFNMS
> or Cacti, then I'd like to know 'why' it's better, and how difficult is it to
> set up.

I have used Cacti but not JFFNMS (which looks great BTW). The ebuild
installed without any problems - there was some MySQL setup required but
nothing complicated. All Cacti does is RRD graphs and NOTHING else. (So
if you want to actively manage stuff, fire alerts and that kind of stuff
look elsewhere). Cacti can use SNMP or scripts to pull data - so you can
write custom scripts if you need to. There is a small learning curve to
setting it up but once you get the hang of it, it becomes very easy to
setup a graph for almost any data source - even weather data (almost
becomes addictive ;-)

> Nagios gets pretty good reviews, and I like the HVAC (heating ventilation & air
> conditioning) hack via Esensors even though it is SOLD and not Opensource.
> However, Nagios is just now moving to php on top of rrdtools, so it's gui is
> likely to be in flux for a year or two.

We use Nagios but have been playing around with Zabbix (also PHP-based)
too. If Nagios moves to PHP and adds more graphing then it will probably
replace both Cacti and Zabbix.



-- 
Aj.

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[gentoo-user] Re: Cacti vs JFFNMS

[James]

A. Khattri <ajai <at> bway.net> writes:


You should check out JFFNMS. It took me quite a lot of pain to set it up,
on Debian sarge, but, that's because I'm weak at most thing web(php, mysql, 
etc). There's a robust support group. My debian system got cross_ways
sarge about 9 months ago, so that's when I switched to Gentoo.

JFFNMS up/downloads config files and it has many features including netflow....
If somebody knows what they are doing, it's probable not difficult to create
an ebuild for JFFNMS. Javier, the main developer, uses Gentoo, but only
lists an ebuild on the 'todo' list..............

I'm sure I'll get around to installing JFFNMS, via tarball, but, I'm hoping
somebody creates the ebuild (dame gentoo has spoiled me....) so I can avoid
another time_sink. Lot's of folks say installation is easy, but, it was
painful for me, because I'm not a web_master......


thanks for the feed back.

James




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