[mrtg] System Requirements for MRTG

[Steve Shipway]

> Someday I'll try adding network weathermap
> (http://www.network-weathermap.com)
> It looks pretty cool.

It is indeed rather cool.  We have it running here and the networks guys
love it.  To make it work correctly with MRTG/RRD and routers2, you need
to use settings like this:
  INFOURL /cgi-bin/routers2.cgi?xgtype=d&rtr=device.cfg&if=targetname
  OVERLIBGRAPH
/cgi-bin/routers2.cgi?page=image&xgtype=ds&xgstyle=x&rtr=device.cfg&if=t
argetname
  TARGET /usr/local/rrd/targetname.rrd:ds0:ds1

Since we also run Nagios here, we have a (homegrown and submitted to the
project) plugin for getting Nagios status into the weathermap.

We've experimented with using it to graph not just network throughput,
but to provide dashboards for staus of our VMWare farm, and to show
email throughput over our infrastructure.

I also have a homegrown client-server editor for the weathermap
configuration files that's rather nifty.  Runs using activeperl on
yourdesktop and uses https and a helper CGI to update the configs on the
server. Obtain support and download from here:
http://www.steveshipway.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=29

We've also created a little script that archives the weathermap graphics
every 10 mins, and at the end of the day merges them into an .avi video
file so that people can play back the usage pattern for a particular day
as a video.  This is very rough and not really suited for publication -
it uses the 'mencoder' utility to change a list of PNGs into an AVI.

Steve