Setting up MRTG for CommuniGate Pro

The CommuniGate Pro SNMP can be used to monitor different CommuniGate Pro parameters via SNMP-based tools. One of such tools is MRTG (Multi Router Traffic Grapher).

The following document should help you to configure MRTG to be used with CommuniGate Pro.

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Installation

• Download and install MRTG (and graphics libraries if you do not have them installed) following the guidelines from its home URL for UNIX or Windows system.
  You may skip the Configuration part since you will work with the supplied config file.
• Choose the work directory for MRTG where it to store its .html and .gif/.png files.
  If you do not have a separate HTTP server, you can utilize CommuniGate Pro WebSite capability and store the files in someone's account web directory. For the main domain postmaster account the work directory is /var/CommuniGate/Accounts/postmaster.macnt/account.web (for Unix) or C:\CommuniGatePro\Accounts\postmaster.macnt\account.web (for Windows).
• Download the mrtg.cfg config file. Open it in a text editor and
  • Change the WorkDir parameter if necessary
  • Replace the <community>@<ip> with your CommuniGate Pro community name (the string entered as Password in the SETTINGS->Obscure->SNMP Agent) and your CommuniGate Pro IP address or domain name (without angle brackets). You may need to add colon ":" followed by the port number if you are using port number other than standard one (161).
• Login as root and launch MRTG with the config file
    ./mrtg mrtg.cfg (under Unix) or
    start /B perl mrtg mrtg.cfg (under Windows).
  Do not mind about messages about missing log files, this is normal for first start.
• Launch
    ./indexmaker --output=default.html --columns=1 mrtg.cfg (under Unix)
    perl indexmaker --output=default.html --columns=1 mrtg.cfg (under Windows).
  Copy the created default.html file into the work directory.
• Connect with your Web browser to <http://your.server.domain:8100/~postmaster/default.html> and see the statistics graphs. However, you will need to wait at least 10 minutes to allow MRTG to collect data and display meaningful results.

Note:The minimum interval MRTG looks at CommuniGate Pro is 5 minutes, so it will not detect short-timed peaks. It is good only for monitoring parameters with smooth or flat rate. For example, the average length of SMTP session is 10 seconds, but MRTG checks the CommuniGate Pro status every 5 minutes, so the most number of sessions will be undetected and you will have ZERO as the number of currently active SMTP sessions most of the time.

Note:The .GIF support was dropped in the new graphics libraries used by MRTG because this is a patented technology; make sure your browser can display files in .PNG format that will be used instead of .GIF.