I just uploaded the 1.0.0 release of my MySQL templates for Cacti. Now there’s an actual download under the Downloads tab. I solved a number of issues in this release. The changelog:

2008-06-01: version 1.0.0

        * Fixed when SHOW MASTER LOGS has no File_size column.
        * Fixed Cacti-version-specific problems with include files.
        * Fixed when binary log is not enabled.
        * Fixed some caching issues.
        * Fixed make-template.pl issues when downloaded from SVN.
        * Replication graph shows only slave_lag instead of Seconds_behind_master
        * Generate a version for Cacti 0.8.6i.
        * Support generating custom versions with make-template.pl.

Cacti, monitoring, …

I finally have some images to show you what my improved Cacti templates look like.

These aren’t a perfect demo, since for example this server doesn’t have the query cache enabled, but it should show you what I’ve done. Note, for example, that each graph is labeled with the actual values of the images drawn on it. You don’t have to guess what the values are by squinting at the graphs.

You can click on any image to go to a larger version. Enjoy:

…

Download MySQL Cacti templates

As promised, I’ve created some improved software for monitoring MySQL via Cacti. I began using the de facto MySQL Cacti templates a while ago, but found some things I needed to improve about them. As time passed, I rewrote everything from scratch. The resulting templates are much improved.

You can grab the templates by browsing the source repository on the project’s homepage.

In no particular order, here are some things I improved:

• Standard polling interval and graph size by default.
• Full captions on every graph; you don’t have to guess at how big the values are. Each graph has current, max, and average values printed at the bottom for every value on …

• Tom Hanlon of MySQL presents
• monitoring tool basics
  • SHOW FULL PROCESSLIST
  • SHOW GLOBAL STATUS
  • SHOW GLOBAL VARIABLES
• basic tools
  • mysqladmin is provided with the server
    • mysqladmin -i 10 extended status: will repeat the same command every 10 seconds. Pipe through grep "and smoke it" (bad pun, hah hah)
    • -r: show only changed values
  • MySQL Administrator
• cacti
  • rrdtool based network graphing tool
  • uses snmp
  • PHP apache and MySQL based solution
  • MySQL plugins, download and install
  • "poller" gathers data and populates the graphs
  • someone offers …

I have an issue I hope someone can help me with. I am generating RRDtool graphs (for Cacti monitoring templates for MySQL, which I’ll release soon) that have up to 11 different metrics on them. With that many lines or areas on a graph, it becomes very hard to pick colors that are easy to see and easy to distinguish from each other. What’s a good way to choose such colors? Is there a way to do it automatically — is there a formal method that will produce good results?

I know some color theory and I have read about how you can distinguish colors from each other (hue, value etc). But I am unsure the best way to choose this many colors. Trying by hand produces garish results or graphs that are just hard to read.

My first attempt to solve this with a program was to simply create …

Recently I had one customer for consulting and aside from mysql optimization, etc they asked me for cacti installation/setup to monitor their pretty generic LAMP application. I’ve started setting up all this stuff and I’ve never thought it could be so painful… lots of different templates for the same tasks, all of them are incompatible with recent cacti releases, etc, etc… So, this post is generally a list of used templates with a fixes I’ve made to make them work on recent cacti release.

(more…)