iControl web app to generate data for Cacti graphing

Hi.

 

 

SNMP used to get some data that iControl couldn't get. Some of the multi-cpu stuff for example you certainly couldn't in the past, that's changed but you may need the v10 iControl docs not the v9 ones).

 

 

(I'm talking about statistics here BTW and , not necessarily things like iRules although I've never tried to get iRules via SNMP a quick look at the MIB and there's nothing in the LOCAL mib for them - Sorry, thought I'd better qualify that now).

 

 

I'm not sure that I've explained myself very well about the complex data structures in Cacti. It will get data structures no problem (In SNMP they're really just tables). It's just not automatic. But then neither is iControl. The difference is that you're writing the software for iControl so you have complete control, whereas cacti is a framework that will pull stats for you. Of course you could write an app to pull the stats via SNMP instead of iControl too (And in theory it SHOULD be a lot more resource friendly. iControl isn't exactly light weight).

 

 

If you want to get poolmembership, etc... That is in SNMP too... But it's found on a table basis, rather than query and get a response. For example, to get poolmembers for a pool you simply query a table... The OID is built from poolName, addrType, poolMemberAddr and poolMemberPort (It's using the 4 entries as an index in the table).

 

 

That's the price of using SNMP of course... The S stands for Simple... And it is, but looks complex because you have to change the way you think to use it and understand it.

 

 

The data avilable for poolmembers for example is

 

 

    
    LtmPoolMemberEntry ::=     
    SEQUENCE {    
            ltmPoolMemberPoolName                                  LongDisplayString,    
            ltmPoolMemberAddrType                                  InetAddressType,    
            ltmPoolMemberAddr                                      InetAddress,    
            ltmPoolMemberPort                                      INTEGER,    
            ltmPoolMemberConnLimit                                 Integer32,    
            ltmPoolMemberRatio                                     Integer32,    
            ltmPoolMemberWeight                                    INTEGER,    
            ltmPoolMemberPriority                                  INTEGER,    
            ltmPoolMemberDynamicRatio                              INTEGER,    
            ltmPoolMemberMonitorState                              INTEGER,    
            ltmPoolMemberMonitorStatus                             INTEGER,    
            ltmPoolMemberNewSessionEnable                          INTEGER,    
            ltmPoolMemberSessionStatus                             INTEGER,    
            ltmPoolMemberMonitorRule                               LongDisplayString,    
            ltmPoolMemberAvailabilityState                         INTEGER,    
            ltmPoolMemberEnabledState                              INTEGER,    
            ltmPoolMemberDisabledParentType                        Integer32,    
            ltmPoolMemberStatusReason                              LongDisplayString    
    }    
    

 

 

Plus the stats in a different table...

 

 

Having said all that... when I built my stats system I used mainly iControl. Because it 'feels' better for getting the configs. However some stats (e.g. multi-cpu) weren't available in iControl. So they were gathered via SNMP... Maybe I should brush some of that code off and publish it... Now I have vLTM that might be a bit easier

 

 

It should also be possible to write an app that pulls information from an F5 and populates the cacti DB for gathering stats automatically too... It's something I've thought about in the past but never had the time

 

 

Also, if we're considering scalability, SNMP would be the best method of gathering data in Cacti... Being simple, it's also lightweight. Which is an important consideration when you're thinking about thousands of statistics. Not so much when yo've only got 1 F5 and 2 VS's... But IMO important nevertheless. When things grow it can mean the difference between working or not, especially since cacti degrades rather badly when the load gets too high.

 

 

H