=head1 NAME

mrtg-nt-guide - The MRTG 2.17.7 Windows Installation Guide

=head1 SYNOPSIS

Installing MRTG on a Windows box is not quite as "click and point" as some

might want it to be. But then again, it is not all that difficult if you

follow the instructions below.

=head1 PREREQUISITES

To get MRTG to work on Windows you need the following:

=over

=item *

A current copy of Perl.

For Example ActivePerl 5.8.8 from ActiveState

http://www.activestate.com/store/activeperl/download/

=item *

The latest version of MRTG from http://oss.oetiker.ch/mrtg/pub. Look for

mrtg-2.17.7.zip or better. The archive also contains a precompiled copy of

rateup.exe for Win32.

=back

=head1 INSTALLING

I suggest you do the following from the machine that will be running MRTG,

which, in this case, is also a web server. All examples are for doing things

to a LOCAL machine.

=over

=item First

Unzip MRTG to C:\mrtg-2.17.7 on the Windows machine of your choice.

=item Next

Install Perl on the same Windows machine. You might want to make sure

that the Perl binary directory is listed in your system path.

 C:\Perl\bin;%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;...

You can manually check this by going to [Control Panel]->[System]->[Environment]

=back

To see if everything is installed properly you can open a Command Shell

and go into F<c:\mrtg-2.17.7\bin>. Type:

 perl mrtg

This should give you a friendly error message complaining about the missing MRTG

configuration file. Now, you have successfully installed MRTG and Perl.

=head1 CONFIGURING MRTG

Now it is time to create a configuration for MRTG. But before we begin you need to know a few things. Take an

opportunity to gather the following information:

=over

=item *

The IP address or hostname and the SNMP port number, (if non standard), of the device you want to monitor.

=item *

If you want to monitor something other than bytes in and out, you must also know the SNMPOID of what you

want to monitor.

=item *

Finally you need to know the read-only SNMP community string

for your device. If you don't know it, try B<public>, that is the default.

=back

For the rest of this document we will be using device B<10.10.10.1> ( a CISCO

Catalyst 5000) with Community string B<public>. We are interested in monitoring

traffic, and the CPU load. Let's begin.

The first thing we do in setting up MRTG is making a default config file.

Get to a cmd prompt and change to the F<c:\mrtg-2.17.7\bin> directory. Type the

following command:

 perl cfgmaker public@10.10.10.1 --global "WorkDir: c:\www\mrtg" --output mrtg.cfg

This creates an initial MRTG config file for you. Note that in this file all interfaces

of your router will be stored by number. Unfortunately, these numbers are likely to change whenever you

reconfigure your router. In order to work around this you can get F<cfgmaker> to produce a configuration

which is based on Ip numbers, or even Interface Descriptions. Check L<cfgmaker>

If you get an error message complaining about B<no such name> or B

response>, your community name is probably wrong.

Now, let's take a look at the mrtg.cfg file that was created.

In Perl, a C<#> is a comment, synonymous with C<REM> in DOS.

Add the following to the top of the mrtg.cfg file:

 WorkDir: c:\www\mrtg

This is where the web pages are created, usually a web root.

 ######################################################################

 # Description: LCP SUWGB

 # Contact: Administrator

 # System Name: LC-Bridge

 # Location: Here

 #.....................................................................

TargetDevice's IP Address:Interface Number:Community:IP Address

 Target[10.10.10.1.1]: 1:public@10.10.10.1

This is the interface speed (Default is 10 megabits; for 100Mbit devices use 12500000 and so on...)

 MaxBytes[10.10.10.1.1]: 1250000

 Title[10.10.10.1.1]: LC-Bridge (sample.device): ether0

This section determines how the web page headers will look

 PageTop[10.10.10.1.1]: 
Traffic Analysis for ether0

  System:LC-Bridge inAndover

  Maintainer:Administrator

  Interface:ether0(1)

  IP:sample.device(10.10.10.1)

  Max Speed:

  1250.0 kBytes/s (ethernetCsmacd)

  Target[10.10.10.1.2]: 2:public@10.10.10.1

  MaxBytes[10.10.10.1.2]: 1250000

  Title[10.10.10.1.2]: LC-Bridge (): ulink0

  PageTop[10.10.10.1.2]: 
Traffic Analysis for ulink0

   System:LC-Bridge inAndover

   Maintainer:Administrator

   Interface:ulink0(2)

   IP:()

   Max Speed:

   1250.0 kBytes/s (ethernetCsmacd)

  #---------------------------------------------------------------

And that's a very basic MRTG config file. You can run this and see your

results by going into the F<c:\mrtg-2.17.7\bin> directory and typing:

 perl mrtg mrtg.cfg

It is normal to get errors for the first two times you run this command. The

errors will alert you about the fact that there have not been any log files

in existence before.

If you take a look at those web pages they are not very exciting (yet). You need

to have the MRTG files run every five minutes to produce the desired results.

Just run it again after a few minutes. You should now be able to see the first

lines in your graphs.

=head1 MAKE MRTG RUN ALL THE TIME

Starting MRTG by hand every time you want to run it is not going to make you

happy I guess.

There is a special option you can set in the MRTG configuration file so

so that MRTG will not terminate after it was started. Instead it

will wait for 5 minutes and then run again.

Add the option

 RunAsDaemon: yes

to your mrtg.cfg file and start it with:

 start /Dc:\mrtg-2.17.7\bin wperl mrtg --logging=eventlog mrtg.cfg

If you use B<wperl> instead of B<perl>, no console window will show. MRTG is now

running in the background. If it runs into problems it will tell you so

over the EventLog. To stop MRTG, open the Task Manager and terminate the

B<wperl.exe> process. If mrtg has anything to tell you these messages

can be found in the event log.

If you put a shortcut with

 Target:    wperl mrtg --logging=eventlog mrtg.cfg

 Start in:  c:\mrtg-2.17.7\bin

into your start-up folder, MRTG will now start whenever you login to your NT

box.

If you do not want to log into your box just to start MRTG. Have a look

at http://www.firedaemon.com/mrtg-howto.html which describes a free tool to

start any program as a Service. The pages gives specific instructions for

MRTG users.

=head1 HOW TO SETUP MRTG AS A WINDOWS SERVICE

=head2 Additional Prerequisites

=over

=item *

MRTG must be installed and fully configured on the target system.  In the

following exercise the assumption is that MRTG is installed under c:\mrtg\

and all the sample files use this location.

=item *

Microsoft Tools B<SRVANY.exe> (Applications as Services Utility) and

B<INSTSRV.exe> (Service Installer) - Those files can be downloaded from

Microsoft as a part of Windows 2000 Resource Kit at

L<http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/tools/default.asp>. 

They are also available from other locations such as

L<http://www.electrasoft.com/srvany/srvany.htm>,

L<http://www.iopus.com/guides/srvany.htm>, etc.  Detailed instructions on how

to use this package are available at

L<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q137890/>.  In order to follow the steps in

this HOW-TO you B<MUST> obtain both executables.

=item *

You must have administrative rights on the target system.

=back

=head2 Preparation

Please complete the following steps before starting the installation:

=over

=item *

Copy B<srvany.exe> and B<instsrv.exe> to c:\mrtg-2.17.7\bin\ (your MRTG bin directory).

=item *

Create a file called B<mrtg.reg> anywhere on your system and paste the

following content into it:

 Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MRTG\Parameters]

 "Application"="c:\\perl\\bin\\wperl.exe"

 "AppParameters"="c:\\mrtg-2.17.7\\bin\\mrtg --logging=eventlog c:\\mrtg-2.17.7\\bin\\mrtg.cfg"

 "AppDirectory"="c:\\mrtg-2.17.7\\bin\\"

=back

=head2 Service Installation

Once again, assuming that MRTG is already fully installed and configured on

the target system under c:\mrtg\ the following steps are necessary to setup

MRTG as a service.

Using the command prompt go into the temporary directory where you unzipped

the package.  When there type the following command to create a service

named "MRTG" in the Windows Services management console:

 instsrv MRTG c:\mrtg\bin\srvany.exe

Now you need to create the B<App*> entries required for the new service.  You

can do this by either right-clicking on the mrtg.reg file and selecting

'merge' or by running the following command:

 regedit /s mrtg.reg

After setting up the registry entry it is time to point it to your MRTG

installation.  If you have installed MRTG under F<c:\mrtg\>, you can skip this

step.  Open your registry editor (Start -E<gt> Run -E<gt> regedt32), and locate the

B<[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MRTG]> key.  Make

sure that the B<ImagePath> variable is correctly pointing to B<srvany.exe>

located in your MRTG bin directory (for example c:\mrtg\bin\srvany.exe). 

Next you have to expand the MRTG tree, and go to the

B<[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MRTG\Parameters]>

key.  Under Parameters make sure that all the  B<Application> variables are

setup properly.

At this point you are ready to run the service.  The only thing left to do

is to start the MRTG service in the Services management console.  After you

do this, you should see two new processes running on your system: srvany.exe

and wperl.exe.  Make sure to stop any previously running MRTG processes to

avoid conflict.

Note that it is imperative to set the B<RunAsDaemon: yes> option or the

service will stop after just one single run!

=head1 EXAMPLE

Now lets look at a config file to monitor what we wanted to on our mythical

Cisco Cat 5000 -- utilization on ports 3, 5, 10, and 24, and the CPU Load,

which will show us nonstandard mrtg configurations as well as more options..

 WorkDir: c:\www\mrtg

 RunAsDaemon: yes

 ######################################################################

 # Description: LCP SUWGB

 # Contact: Administrator

 # System Name: LC-Bridge

 # Location: Here

 #.....................................................................

 Target[10.10.10.1.1]: 3:public@10.10.10.1

 MaxBytes[10.10.10.1.1]: 1250000

 Title[10.10.10.1.1]: LC-Bridge (sample-device): ether0

 PageTop[10.10.10.1.1]: 
Traffic Analysis for ether0

 System:LC-Bridge inAndover

 Maintainer:Administrator

 Interface:ether0(3)

 IP:sample-device(10.10.10.1)

 Max Speed:

 1250.0 kBytes/s (ethernetCsmacd)

 #---------------------------------------------------------------

 Target[10.10.10.1.2]: 5:public@10.10.10.1

 MaxBytes[10.10.10.1.2]: 1250000

 Title[10.10.10.1.2]: LC-Bridge (): ulink0

 PageTop[10.10.10.1.2]: 
Traffic Analysis for ulink0

  System:LC-Bridge inAndover

  Maintainer:Administrator

  Interface:ulink0(5)

  IP:()

  Max Speed:

  1250.0 kBytes/s (ethernetCsmacd)

 #---------------------------------------------------------------

 Target[10.10.10.1.1]: 10:public@10.10.10.1

 MaxBytes[10.10.10.1.1]: 1250000

 Title[10.10.10.1.1]: LC-Bridge (sample-device): ether0

 PageTop[10.10.10.1.1]: 
Traffic Analysis for ether0

  System:LC-Bridge inAndover

  Maintainer:Administrator

  Interface:ether0(10)

  IP:sample-device(10.10.10.1)

  Max Speed:

  1250.0 kBytes/s (ethernetCsmacd)

 #---------------------------------------------------------------

 Target[10.10.10.1.2]: 24:public@10.10.10.1

 MaxBytes[10.10.10.1.2]: 1250000

 Title[10.10.10.1.2]: LC-Bridge (): ulink0

 PageTop[10.10.10.1.2]: 
Traffic Analysis for ulink0

  System:LC-Bridge inAndover

  Maintainer:Administrator

  Interface:ulink0(24)

  IP:()

  Max Speed:

  1250.0 kBytes/s (ethernetCsmacd)

 #---------------------------------------------------------------

 # Router CPU load %

 Target[cpu.1]:1.3.6.1.4.1.9.2.1.58.0&1.3.6.1.4.1.9.2.1.58.0:public@10.10.10.1

 RouterUptime[cpu.1]: public@10.10.10.1

 MaxBytes[cpu.1]: 100

 Title[cpu.1]: CPU LOAD

 PageTop[cpu.1]: 
CPU Load %

 Unscaled[cpu.1]: ymwd

 ShortLegend[cpu.1]: %

 XSize[cpu.1]: 380

 YSize[cpu.1]: 100

 YLegend[cpu.1]: CPU Utilization

 Legend1[cpu.1]: CPU Utilization in % (Load)

 Legend2[cpu.1]: CPU Utilization in % (Load)

 Legend3[cpu.1]:

 Legend4[cpu.1]:

 LegendI[cpu.1]:

 LegendO[cpu.1]:  Usage

 Options[cpu.1]: gauge

This is a nice example of how to monitor any SNMP device if you know what OID

you want to use. Once again, for an explanation of the more advance features of

mrtg, please see the rest of the documentation.

=head1 AUTHORS

Tobi Oetiker E<lt>tobi@oetiker.chE<gt>,

David S. Divins E<lt>ddivins@moon.jic.comE<gt>,

Steve Pierce E<lt>MRTG@HDL.comE<gt>,

Artyom Adjemov E<lt>one.bofh@gmail.comE<gt>,

Ilja Ivanov E<lt>ivanov@bseu.byE<gt>

Karel Fajkus E<lt>http://fajkus.cz/E<gt>