*

Absence of NetWare OS support in the MRTG package.

*

A NetWare server commandline length limitation.

*

Absence of the Rateup executable (Rateup.nlm).

*

A standard installation method.

*

Problems with NetWare's implementation of Perl.

Support for the NetWare OS has now been fully added into MRTG, beginning with MRTG release 2.12.2.

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 commandline limit of 512 characters. This limitation was also removed for NetWare 6.0 by Service Pack 5. For other NetWare 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 modified 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 Support section of this document for further details. Additionally, 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 installation method supplied here will solve this problem for now.

The MRTG.pl script in the 2.12.2 (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.

*

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

*

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

*

A copy of the MRTG Package (v2.12.2 at time of writting)

*

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

*

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

*

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.

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/lib
         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:/Mrtg/lib              Include sub-directories. See Note 3.

    Note 3: This will create the SYS:/Mrtg/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.

*

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

*

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@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 
In this ``Getting Started'', it is 'suggested' to only monitor a
single device.
*
At the server console, run:
         sys:/mrtg/bin/MakeMrtgCfg.ncf
This will create Mrtg.cfg in sys:/mrtg/bin.
*
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 following
parameter as shown:
 perl sys:\mrtg\bin\cfgmaker.pl --zero-speed=nnn 
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.

*
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.)
*
Edit sys:/mrtg/bin/MakeMrtgIndex.ncf. Change the indicated
<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
*
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) directory.
*
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>
*
Set the property of the directory pointed to by (ImageDir), to
'Purge Immediate'.
*
Finally, read the MRTG documentation for
much more detailed configuration/usage information.

Welcome to MRTG!!

*

Using CRON Scheduling

*

Running MRTG in Daemon Mode

CRON Scheduling

 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

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