Network Weathermap, also called PHP Weathermap, is an open source network traffic visualization tool that displays a physical or logical map of strategic data collection points on your network showing traffic at these points at a given time. This can be extremely helpful to increase your understanding of traffic patterns on your network, though it may be used for visualizing any type of data that can be graphed. Network Weathermap is typically used as a Cacti plugin, though it may also be used without Cacti. It includes a web-based editor that allows you to define your maps, nodes, and links graphically using a mouse.
To use Network Weathermap Cacti plugin requires Cacti, oddly enough, and I also recommend installing NeDi because NeDi complements Cacti since NeDi makes creating Cacti graphs easy, easier than creating them using Cacti's native interface.
To prepare to install the Network Weathermap Cacti plugin, you must first install Cacti with optional plugin support using this Howto.
To install the Network Weathermap plugin using MacPorts, use the
command below. Network-Weathermap installs into directory
/opt/local/share/cacti/plugins/.
%%sudo port install network-weathermap
Network-Weathermap installs into directory
/opt/local/share/cacti/plugins/.
After the install completes, use these steps to configure the Network-Weathermap plugin.
Edit the file
/opt/local/share/cacti/include/global.php, and uncomment or add lines so the weathermap plugin is after the array statement as shown.$plugins = array(); $plugins[] = 'weathermap';
Rename the sample Network Weathermap editor config file to prepare it for use, and open it with an editor.
%%cd /opt/local/share/cacti%%cp editor-config.php-dist editor-config.php %% nano editor-config.phpEdit these editor-config.php variables so the editor can locate your Cacti information.
$cacti_base = '/opt/local/share/cacti'; $cacti_url = "http://example.com/cacti/";
Set plugin file ownership to the same user as the Cacti user, “www” in this example (the default for Apache on OS X).
sudo chown -R www:www /opt/local/share/cacti/plugins/weathermap
After installing the Cacti weathermap plugin, you will see a new top-level Cacti tab for the weathermap plugin as shown below.
Before creating weathermaps, you should have decided on some data collection points to be on your map and have created Cacti graphs of those points. I use NeDi to create Cacti graphs for my ethernet devices.
To state the typical weathermap creation process for networks very simply, you create nodes to represent your data collection points as you wish them to appear (they could be buildings, rooms, or anything else), and you create links between nodes to associate with your existing Cacti rrdtool interface graphs.
The main elements of a Weathermap are nodes and links, and the most important of the two are the links.
Weathermap nodes often merely serve as endpoints for your links. They are needed to terminate links on a weathermap, but they needn't represent real devices nor be associated with graphs, although it is possible to associate nodes with graphs. In a typical network scenario you would associate rrd graph files for switch or router interfaces to the links, though it is possible to associate rrd graphs with nodes too.
Weathermap links are the key elements of a weathermap. Each end of a link must be attached to a node, but since the input of one physical link's traffic will be the same as the output of the adjacent link, and vice-versa, a link can only have one Cacti graph associated with it. Therefore the input/output statistics for a link are generally the input/output statistics of one switch or router interface that is represented by a standard Cacti graph of the interface.
It is important to know that links have a direction, and interface input and output values are displayed on a map relative to the node that serves as the endpoint (the last point defined when making the link) to which the link attaches. For example, on a link from node A to node B, B is the endpoint and input and output are relative to B. But if you draw the link from B to A, A is the endpoint and input and output are relative to A. For another example, if you want a link to display the input/ouput statistics from an interface in the node “LA Office” that is linked to node “Sacramento Main”, you'd want the endpoint of the link to be to “LA Office” for the input/output stats to be correctly ordered (input/output directions taken from the perspective of an interface in “LA Office”.
The weathermap editor cannot create a weathermap file from scratch, so the easiest way to get started is by using the sample weathermap file. You might want to make a backup copy as shown below.
cd /opt/local/share/cacti/plugins/weathermap cp simple.conf campus-weathermap.conf
To enter the weathermap editor to create maps, click -> within Cacti, and select the sample map from the list of available maps to edit.
To get help with Network Weathermap, you should first consult the documentation. If that doesn’t help you may ask questions in the Cacti Weathermap plugin forum. Before asking a question, be sure to search the forum to see if your question has already been asked.