Answered by the Webhosting Experts

MRTG installation and configuration.

Standardized Procedure for MRTG Installation on Windows Servers:

1. Download the MRTG Bundle file on the server from the following URL: https://www.openinnovations.com/mrtgbundle.html

2. Check if the Perl Installation on the server. Basically the Bundle install above comes with its own Perl install and it doesn’t interfere with the ActiveState Perl of Ensim Perl on the server. But you may need perl installed on the server anyway (especially if this is a plain server.). If you are planning to install a control panel on the server, recommended policy is to first do the CP install and then take MRTG as the last install in your group of installations on the server.

3. Install SNMP services on the server. SNMP can be installed by opening add-remove programs, add-remove windows components, Highlight Monitoring and management Tools, Detail, Enable SNMP and click ok. Remember to have the windows server cd or I386 folder handy.

4. Open services and go to properties of SNMP service. Click on security, enable send authentication trap. Accepted Community Names– click ADD–public–read only mode–add Click on Accept SNMP packets from these hosts.. click add- localhost as well as the main IP of the server and any internal Ip that the server has (in case of two nic) such as 192.168.1.8. click ok and close the property sheet of the service and restart the service.

6. Unpack the downloaded file MRTG_Bundle_v1.0.exe. While unpacking, it will prompt for the path. Remember to always specify path as c:\ as the MRTG config files and binaries built into the package look for the path c:\mrtg. So if you unpacked to D:. the folder would be d:\mrtg and the binaries and config would throw errors.

7. Decide on how you want to access the MRTG web part. The bundled install above comes with its own Apache module. So if the default install is selected, the Apache will run as a separate web service on 8080 and mrtg can be accessed as https://IP:8080/mrtg. However, for ensim and plesk servers, another Apache service can be damaging as they have their own Apache for accessing Control Panel and there may be conflicts.

Recommendation: Choose the modified install method below so that we completely remove Apache installation and execution with MRTG. So we access MRTG through IIS itself. Safer, easier and hassle free.

a) go into c:\mrtg and edit install.bat
b) edit the line that says c:\mrtg\bin\instsrv Apache c:\mrtg\bin\srvany.exe
c) remove the lines which mention Apache, leave the rest as it is.
d) Copy the crontab file from c:\mrtg\bin to c:\windows\system32\ folder (this is win2k3. for win2k use c:\winnt\system32\).
e) Decide where you want to place the MRTG graphs and archives (accessible thru web). Since this may come to be a very large sized folder after a few months of operation, you should place it or create it on a drive with a sufficient amount of free space. If you decide that its needed to run from d:\mrtg\wwwroot, then there are some more editing to be carried out in the install.bat file.
f) Find the line that says workdir: c:\mrtg\wwwroot in the install.bat and change the path to D:\mrtg\wwwroot (create the folder before hand though). Change all the entries in the file that says the old wwwroot on c: to point to d: otherwise the graphs aren’t going to show. You should see 4 entries of the old path there. And take care to maintain the forward or backward slashes as the case may be.

8. Now, run c:\mrtg\install.bat from command prompt so that you can view all the error messages if any.

9. Open IIS, create a Virtual Directory under the default website pointing to D:\mrtg\wwwroot. (Assuming that Step 7.e.11 has been implemented, otherwise its c:\mrtg\wwwroot).

10. Open Windows services, and stop SNMP, MRTG, CRON services. Then start SNMP, MRTG and CRON again.

That is it you have a working MRTG available. You should now be able to view it at https://IP_of_Server/MRTG and in a couple of hours, you can find it populated properly.

Need More Personalized Help?

If you have any further issues, questions, or would like some assistance checking on this or anything else, please reach out to us from your my.hivelocity.net account and provide your server credentials within the encrypted field for the best possible security and support.

If you are unable to reach your my.hivelocity.net account or if you are on the go, please reach out from your valid my.hivelocity.net account email to us here at: support@hivelocity.net. We are also available to you through our phone and live chat system 24/7/365.