Subject: Using cacti with other web servers than apache variants
Package: cacti
Version: 0.8.6h-3
Severity: wishlist
Tags: patch
Problem
-------
I wanted to use cacti with lighttpd, but installing cacti pulled apache2 along
which I did not want installed.
Solution
--------
Someone in the #debian irc channel on freenode.net (I wish I can remember who)
advised me to use the equivs package
to track down the problem, which I did. I used php5 instead of php4 all along.
I performed the following steps before attempting anything of my objectives:
1. I installed cacti and all of its dependencies. I used php5 instead of the
default php4 by explicitly installing the
php5 counterparts of the dependencies of cacti, then I installed cacti with its
other default dependencies
(apache2, mysql 5, ... etc.)
2. I needed to manually add "extension=mysql.so" to /etc/php5/apache/php.ini.
For some reason, the other extensions
were enables except mysql's.
3. At this point, cacti was working fine on apache.
To make sure that the concept of using lighttpd with cacti is feasible, I tried
to run cacti on top of lighttpd
using the following steps:
1. I installed lighttpd, configured it to run on a different port, enabled the
built-in fastcgi module,
installed php5-cgi, and added an alias to cacti's site folder.
2. Again, I needed to manually add "extension=mysql.so" to
/etc/php5/cgi/php.ini.
3. At this point, cacti was working fine on lighttpd, too.
The next step was to make sure that lighttpd is capable of running cacti on its
own and without any help from
any apache component, I tried to purge apache and its related stuff and make
sure lighttpd can still run
cacti. So, I did the following (every remove in the following is actually a
purge):
1. Remove apache2 (I'm not sure if apache2 package was really installed or not,
since apache2-mpm-prefork provides
apache2 and was installed):
Effect:
- No effect. Not used. apache2-mpm-prefork (a dependency of
libapache2-mod-php[45]) is used instead.
2. Replace libapache2-mod-php5 with an empty package that provides
libapache2-mod-php5 (created using equivs):
Effect:
- php doesn't work with apache anymore after a force-reload.
- lighttpd still works fine after a force-reload.
3. Replace apache2-mpm-prefork with an empty package that provides apache2
(trying to remove apache2-mpm-prefork
caused cacti to get uninstalled since apache2-mpm-prefork provides apache2
which is a dependency of cacti):
Effect:
- No apache server installed.
- lighttpd still working with php and cacti.
4. Remove apache2-common.
Now the only apache-related package still installed (other than the equivs
dummies!) is apache2-utils,
which is suggested by lighttpd and removing it won't casue any problems.
Conclusion
----------
cacti can work with other web servers than apache variants. I verified this
lighttpd only, but there should be no
reason for any other web server that supports php not to be able to run cacti.
I did not try to find out an alternative set of dependencies for cacti, but
basically httpd along with some php
dependency should do it, besides the database setup dependencies.
I have to say that I did not have to worry about any database stuff. It was
well setup by default.
The system information below is for a temporary test setup. My final deployment
system is an arm architecture.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.15-1-686
Locale: LANG=en_CA.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_CA.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Versions of packages cacti depends on:
ii apache2-dummy [apache2] 1.0 A dummy package replacing apache2
ii dbconfig-common 1.8.13 common framework for packaging dat
ii debconf [debconf-2.0] 1.5.1 Debian configuration management sy
ii libapache2-mod-php5-dummy [li 1.0 A dummy package replacing libapach
ii libphp-adodb 4.72-0.1 The 'adodb' database abstraction l
ii logrotate 3.7.1-3 Log rotation utility
ii mysql-client-5.0 [virtual-mys 5.0.22-2 mysql database client binaries
ii php5-cli 5.1.2-1+b1 command-line interpreter for the p
ii php5-mysql 5.1.2-1+b1 MySQL module for php5
ii php5-snmp 5.1.2-1+b1 SNMP module for php5
ii rrdtool 1.2.11-0.5 Time-series data storage and displ
ii snmp 5.2.2-3 NET SNMP (Simple Network Managemen
ii ucf 2.0010 Update Configuration File: preserv
Versions of packages cacti recommends:
ii iputils-ping 3:20020927-3 Tools to test the reachability of
ii mysql-server 5.0.22-2 mysql database server (current ver
ii mysql-server-5.0 [mysql-ser 5.0.22-2 mysql database server binaries
-- debconf information:
cacti/app-password-confirm: (password omitted)
cacti/mysql/admin-pass: (password omitted)
cacti/password-confirm: (password omitted)
cacti/mysql/app-pass: (password omitted)
cacti/db/app-user: cacti
cacti/mysql/admin-user: root
cacti/upgrade-backup: true
cacti/install-error: abort
* cacti/webserver: Apache2
cacti/internal/reconfiguring: false
cacti/mysql/method: unix socket
cacti/remote/host:
cacti/upgrade-error: abort
cacti/import-oldsettings:
cacti/dbconfig-upgrade: true
cacti/remote/newhost:
cacti/purge: false
cacti/passwords-do-not-match:
cacti/dbconfig-remove: true
cacti/dbconfig-install: true
cacti/performing_upgrade: false
cacti/database-type:
cacti/remove-error: abort
cacti/db/dbname: cacti
cacti/remote/port:
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