Here are the conventions used to distinguish Unix terminal window input and output.

%% Commands to be typed into a terminal window.

Command output to a terminal window.

File text.

You may install the MacPorts package manager with these instructions, which include instructions for installing XWindows (X11). Follow the instructions carefully and perform all non-optional steps.

NeDi has a Cacti API that makes Cacti graph creation within NeDi far easier than within Cacti's own web interface, so I highly recommend interrupting the Cacti install at this point and installing NeDi. Then continue the Cacti install by skipping the rest of this section (NeDi prerequisites include MySQL5 and PHP5) and resume at Install and Configure Cacti.

before installing NeDi to use with Cacti. If you install NeDi to use with Cacti, skip the rest of the prerequisites section since the NeDi prerequisites also include MySQL5 and a MacPorts install of PHP5 to provide SNMP support.

MySQL is used to store the data necessary for Cacti configuration and operation.

You may install PHP from any source, but a good PHP 5 binary installer that works with Apple's built-in Apache is Marc Liyanage’s PHP 5 package. Just download it, run the installer, do an “easy install”, and afterwards edit the file /usr/local/php5/lib/php.ini for MacPorts' MySQL5 as shown.

mysql.default_socket = /opt/local/var/run/mysql5/mysqld.sock

To activate PHP after installation, restart Apache.

To test PHP, create a file named test.php in /Library/WebServer/Documents that contains the line shown below.

<?php phpinfo() ?>.

Now open url http://localhost/test.php in your web browser. If PHP is working properly you will see a PHP status table.

Use these steps to install Cacti via MacPorts. If you plan to use Cacti plugins, such as Network Weathermap, you must use the “plugins” MacPorts variant as shown below. Otherwise, you may omit this variant.

%% sudo port install cacti +plugins

After the Cacti install is complete, set a symlink for Cacti inside your Apache document root.

%% sudo ln -s /opt/local/share/cacti/  /<Apache-docroot>/cacti

The Cacti files should be flagged to the same owner as your Apache user. The default Apache user on OS X is "www", so you may just use that as your Apache user as shown in the example below.

%% sudo chown -R www:www /opt/local/share/cacti/

Login to MySQL as the root user.

%% mysql5 -u root -p

Once logged into MySQL as root, create a Cacti database and user, and set the database permissions.

mysql> grant CREATE,INSERT,SELECT,DELETE,UPDATE on cacti.* to cacti@localhost;
mysql> grant CREATE,INSERT,SELECT,DELETE,UPDATE on cacti.* to cacti;
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR cacti@localhost = OLD_PASSWORD('<cactidb-pwd>');
mysql> create database cacti;
mysql> exit

Now import the Cacti database schema.

%% cd /opt/local/share/cacti
%% sudo cat cacti.sql | mysql5 –u root –p cacti

Finally, login to MySQL as root and show the Cacti tables to verify the Cacti database schema was imported.

%% mysql5 –u root –p

mysql> use cacti;
mysql> show tables;

The Cacti database tables display as shown.

+--------------------------------+
| Tables_in_cacti                |
+--------------------------------+
| cdef                           | 
| cdef_items                     | 
| colors                         | 
| data_input                     | 
| data_input_data                | 
| data_input_fields              | 
| data_local                     | 
| data_template                  | 
| data_template_data             | 
| data_template_data_rra         | 
| data_template_rrd              | 
| graph_local                    | 
| graph_template_input           | 
| graph_template_input_defs      | 
| graph_templates                | 
| graph_templates_gprint         | 
| graph_templates_graph          | 
| graph_templates_item           | 
| graph_tree                     | 
| graph_tree_items               | 
| host                           | 
| host_graph                     | 
| host_snmp_cache                | 
| host_snmp_query                | 
| host_template                  | 
| host_template_graph            | 
| host_template_snmp_query       | 
| poller                         | 
| poller_command                 | 
| poller_item                    | 
| poller_output                  | 
| poller_reindex                 | 
| poller_time                    | 
| rra                            | 
| rra_cf                         | 
| settings                       | 
| settings_graphs                | 
| settings_tree                  | 
| snmp_query                     | 
| snmp_query_graph               | 
| snmp_query_graph_rrd           | 
| snmp_query_graph_rrd_sv        | 
| snmp_query_graph_sv            |
+--------------------------------+
70 rows in set (0.09 sec)

Edit Cacti's config.php file.

%% cd /opt/local/share/cacti/include
%% sudo pico config.php

Modify the MySQL variables.

$database_type = "mysql";
$database_default = "cacti";
$database_hostname = "localhost";
$database_username = "cacti";
$database_password = "<my-cacti-password>";

Plugin support is optional, and may only be used if you installed Cacti with the “plugins” MacPorts variant. However, if you installed Cacti with plugin support, then you must setup plugin support properly for your Cacti installation to work.to functionthere are some additonal steps to perform.

To collect graph data from devices, Cacti uses a poller. It is set to run via cron, typically every 5 minutes.