Cacti: Qmail and Djbdns Graphing Templates

Recently I created two templates for Cacti, the open source server resource graphing application. I have been using Cacti for years, but there were a few things that I was not able to find graphing solutions for.

Qmail is an open source, light-weight and secure email server written by Dan Bernstein. I have also been using qmail for years, but until recently I had no way of graphing its traffic. I found this helpful bit of code on Howie's Stuff which helped me get the raw data I needed from qmailmrtg. After I got that working I started out with this template, which mostly worked. I then created a complex graph and exported the template for it which I posted here. The results can be seen in the graph below.

A Cacti/rrdtool graph showing various information about a qmail server that I run.

The next service that I was unable to find a Cacti graphing solution for was djbdns. Djbdns is a lightweight and secure DNS daemon, also written by Dan Bernstein. Jeremey Kister wrote a great script called djbdns-stats for parsing the djbdns logs and presenting data in the perfect format for Cacti to undertand. I took the djbdns-stats output and created an input and graph (below) template for Cacti, which I then shared on the Cacti site.

A Cacti/rrdtool graph showing dns usage on my djbdns server.

I have found Cacti to be an extremely useful application over the years. I am greatly looking forward to the next release which will incorporate the helpful Cactiusers plugin framework.

links for 2008-07-01

• Encounters At the End of the World
  This looks like it's going to be a great documentary. Set in Antarctica and directed by the fellow who made Grizzly Man.
  (tags: antarctica documentary movie)