[hobbit] Trying to create graphs with Devmon

[Buchan Milne]

On Wednesday 01 April 2009 21:42:16 William Ottley wrote:
> >> Hi all,
> >> I¹ve been trying to create graphs with Devmon, and a few internet howtos
> >> out there,

Why do you consult out-of-date howtos, instead of the documentation supplied 
with the software (see docs/GRAPHING, or 
http://devmon.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/devmon/trunk/docs/GRAPHING)

(this documentation originated shortly after the mailing list entry you refer 
to below, and hasn't been updated that much since the devmon rrd collector was 
merged into Xymon, so I am updating it a bit to reflect that, and reduce the 
amount of detail on the implementation).

If you believe there are errors with that document, please feel free to supply 
a patch to improve it.

Please supply the URLs of the howtos, so I can try and have the author note 
that it is outdated and refer to the authoritative documentation.

> >> and for the likes of me, I can¹t seem to figure out how to
> >> get them to show up.
> >>
> >> Maybe someone can point out to me what I¹m doing wrong?

Since you haven't listed what you have done, or what the results are, no.

None of your mails to the mailing list have actually stated which versions of 
anything you are running, so maybe:
1)Are you using Hobbit 4.2.0, or Xymon 4.2.2 or later ?
2)What version of devmon are you running?

The advice may differ based on the answers (hint, it's much easier using the 
latest software).

> >>
> >> I followed the advice here:
> >>
> >>
> >> http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.monitoring.hobbit/10245

This advice is outdated (which is to be expected, considering it is over 18 
months old), and applies to software for which there have been two subsequent 
releases (each).

> >>
> >> I¹m not to sure what they mean about #4
> >>
> >> With putting an entry in the hobbitgraph.cfg: [if_load]
> >>
> >> is there only 1 entry, or 1 entry for every test?
> >> one entry for [if_load}, one entry for [if_error] etc etc...

I am not aware of any devmon templates currently enabling RRD graphs for 
if_error (although, it can be done quite easily, but maybe you should stick to 
what more or less works out-the-box, if_load). Current devmon (0.3.0 final or 
later) ships with the graph definitions in docs/devmon-graph.cfg.

> >> Also with regards to #6, what is this patch they are talking about?

An outdated one.

> >>
> >> and I got the extra-rrd.pl script from here:
> >>
> >> http://www.hswn.dk/hobbiton/2007/09/msg00148.html
> >>
> >> any one?

If you are running Xymon 4.2.2 or later, this is what you need to do to get 
graphs (let's concentrate on if_load first) working:

1)Ensure you have 'if_load=devmon' in the TEST2RRD variable in 
hobbitserver.cfg (should be there by default AFAIK)
2)Ensure you have "if_load::1" and "devmon" in the GRAPHS variable in 
hobbitserver.cfg (should be there by default AFAIK)

At this point, you should have RRD files for any hosts that have devmon if_load 
tests, e.g. $BBVAR/rrd/<hostname>/if_load.<interface_name>.rrd

3)Make sure Hobbit/Xymon knows how to draw the graph, by ensuring that there 
is a graph definition for if_load. The easiest way (IMHO), is to add "directory 
/etc/xymon/hobbitgraph.d" to hobbitgraph.cfg, and drop the devmon-graph.cfg 
from Devmon's extras directory in /etc/xymon/hobbitgraph.d.