How to Install and Configure VMware vSphere Hypervisor 6.0 (ESXi 6.0)

1. Register with VMware.com and Download VMware vSphere Hypervisor 6.0

Open the following link in your web browser https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=free-esxi6

Click the License and Download Tab

VMware60-DownloadCenter1

Click Create an Account, to Create an Account and Login to the VMware Download Center. VMware will email you an Activation link which needs to be opened to create the account.

The following page will be displayed when you have successfully logged into the VMware Download Center.

VMware60-DownloadCenter2

Pay special attention to the FREE License information which is displayed, and record this License Number, this will be required in a later article.

Click the download link for VMware vSphere Hypervisor 6.0 – Binaries ESXi ISO Image to download the software required to install ESXi 6.0 and also download the VMware vSphere Client 6.0. The VMware vSphere Client 6.0 software is the client software that allows us to connect and manage the ESXi 6.0 server, this will be required in a later article.

Either use the Download Manager or Manually Download button (which uses your web browser). The CD ISO is only 301MB so should not take too long to download. We have a very slow internet connection, at approx 350 kB/sec, and it takes us approximately 10 minutes to download.

2. Installing VMware vSphere Hypervisor 6.0 (ESXi 6.0)

Write (Burn) the VMware-VMvisor-Installer-6.0.0-2159203.x86_64.iso downloaded in Step 1, to a blank CDROM, using your favourite CD writing software. We use ISO Recorder (http://alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm). If you are using remote server utilities, e.g. HP iLo or Dell iDRAC,. you can attach the virtual CDROM drive in the server to the VMware-VMvisor-Installer-6.0.0-2159203.x86_64.iso ISO, so there is no requirement to write a CDROM.

This is a step which is often missed, ensure the BIOS BOOT order is set to BOOT from the CDROM Device or ATAPI device in the server, otherwise the computer will not BOOT from the CDROM.

Power on the Computer, the computer will BOOT from the CDROM, and the following BOOT screen will be displayed

ESXi6.0-CDROM-BOOT

The default option is to BOOT ESXi-6.0.0-2159203-standard Installer after 10 seconds, hit any key will pause the BOOT process.

ESXi6.0-CDROM-BOOT1

At the Welcome to the VMware ESXi 6.0.0 Installation screen Hit Enter to Continue the installation.

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Press F11 (Function Key 11) to Accept the VMware End User License Agreement (EULA)

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The ESXi installer will scan the computer storage controller for available devices to install ESXi.

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ESXi can be installed on a USB flash drive, SD card attached to the computer, local SATA, local RAID Array, or Fibre Channel or iSCSI LUN. All these are supported options. As the footprint for ESXi is very small only 1GB is required for the ESXi OS installation.

We have written an EE Article here on How to Backup an ESXi installation on an USB Flash Drive or SD card, for security or redundancy. After you have completed the ESXi 5.1 installation, shutdown the server, remove the USB flash drive or SD card, and duplicate it using our EE Article.

When prompted select a disk to install ESXi on, in the following example, we have two disks connected to this computer, a single 1GB disk, and a 120GB disk. We are going to use the small disk for the OS. (this simulates the USB flash drive!). The larger 120GB disk will be used later for the storage of virtual machines.

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When prompted, select the keyboard layout and hit Enter to continue. The default keyboard layout is US Default.

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When prompted enter a root password, confirm the password and hit Enter to continue

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The following will be displayed

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When prompted Confirm the Installation on the selected disk and press F11 (Install)
– Function Key 11
All data will be erase, as the disk will be repartitioned.

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The Progress Bar will confirm installation progress.

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The installation only takes approximately 5-10 minutes, depending upon speed of storage. When the installation has completed the following screen will be displayed.

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Remove the CDROM installation disk before rebooting. Hit Enter to Reboot. After hitting Enter the follow screen will be displayed and the computer will reboot.

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ESXi 6.0 will operate in evaluation mode for 60 days. This is the same mode as a FULLY LICENSED ESXi 6.0 server. If you wish to evaluate all the bells and whistles that ESXi 6.0 has to offer, do not register your FREE license. for 60 days, this will allow you to evaluate ESXi 6.0 server fully. On day 59/60, Apply your FREE license to continue using the product, or you will not be able to power on any virtual machines.

3. Configuring VMware vSphere Hypervisor 6.0 (ESXi 6.0)
The following screen is displayed when VMware ESXi 6.0 first boots1

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The server is fully booted when it displays the following screen

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The default server configuration is to use DHCP, if you do not have a DHCP server issuing IP Addresses on your network you will need to assign an IP Address. We recommend you use a static IP Address for your ESXi Host Server.

Press F2 to Customize System, you will be prompted to enter the root username and password.

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Select Configure Management Network to change Network Parameters.
Select IPv4 Configuration

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Set the Static IPv4 address and network configuration, Subnet Mask and Default Gateway, it’s important to set the correct Default Gateway, as this will be used later. Hit Enter to confirm and save the configuration.

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Select DNS Configuration, enter the correct DNS information for your network, and enter a hostname for your server. Hit Enter to save the configuration.

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Select Custom DNS Suffixes
Enter your DNS suffix (the domain name for your network). Make sure you have created a DNS A Record in your DNS, so that this server can be resolved correctly through forward and reverse lookups.

Hit Enter to save your configuration.

Press Escape, the following screen will appear, select Y(es) to apply changes.

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Press Escape to Logout and return to the console screen.

You will notice on the console screen, the server now has a hostname configured, and correct static IP Address.

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Congratulations you have successfully installed and configured VMware vSphere Hypervisor 6.0.

In the next article in the series, we will connect and continue to configure the VMware vSphere Hypervisor 6.0.

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How To Install and Configure Bacula Server on CentOS 7

Introduction
Bacula is an open source network backup solution that allows you create backups and perform data recovery of your computer systems. It is very flexible and robust, which makes it, while slightly cumbersome to configure, suitable for backups in many situations. A backup system is an important component in most server infrastructures, as recovering from data loss is often a critical part of disaster recovery plans.

Getting Started

The first thing to do after the installation is complete is update the CentOS using:

yum update

This goes through the update which takes a couple of minutes depending on how fast the network is.  You may be prompted to enter a “Y” at various stages of this process.
Installing Nano Text Editor

The next thing to do is install nano text editor so I can easily edit files.  I  find it much easier to use than vi so I prefer using nano.  To install this, I use:

yum -y install nano

Installing wget

Install wget because you will need it later in the installation process.

yum -y install wget

Installing Webmin on CentOS 7

After nano is installed, you need to create a new file called webmin.repo and save it in /etc/yum.repos.d/.  To do this, you can type:

nano /etc/yum.repos.d/webmin.repo

This opens a blank file where you can type in (or copy and paste):

[Webmin]
name=Webmin Distribution Neutral
#baseurl=http://download.webmin.com/download/yum
mirrorlist=http://download.webmin.com/download/yum/mirrorlist
enabled=1

Once it’s pasted (by right clicking), hit Control+X and then Y then Enter to save the file.

Now, install Webmin GPG key using this command:

rpm --import http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc

Now lets check for any updates by typing:

yum check-update

Now it’s time to install Webmin and we do that by typing in:

yum -y install webmin

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After a short period of time, Webmin will be installed and it’s time to set it to start automatically by typing the following lines:

chkconfig webmin on
service webmin start

Webmin is now installed and running but we need to allow port 10000 through the firewall so we can access it from another computer.  In order to do this, type the following command:

firewall-cmd --add-port=10000/tcp

If you want to make this rule permanent, you can also type in this which will add it to the rules:

firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=10000/tcp

If you plan on running Webmin on a different port, you can skip adding 10000 as a permanent rule and set it later with the port of your choice.

Now you should be able to access Webmin using the IP address you used to set up the server when you installed it by going to the browser and typing:

http://192.168.1.2:10000 (where 192.168.1.2 is the IP of your server)

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Installing Bacula 7 on CentOS 7

Now that I have Webmin installed and running, it’s time to install Bacula.

The first thing that you need to do is install epel.  To do this, go find the latest release for CentOS 7 and right click on it to copy the link:

http://www.rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=epel-release

Once you have the link copied, type in wget and paste the link…  it should look like

wget  ftp://195.220.108.108/linux/centos/7.0.1406/extras/x86_64/Packages/epel-release-7-5.noarch.rpm

This will download the RPM and now you will need to install it by typing in the following:

yum -y install epel-release-7-5.noarch.rpm

NOTE: the latest version may be different than shown above so be sure to change it if that is the case.

After the installation of the EPEL, Go ahead and do another update by typing in:

yum update

Now we need to create a file in the /etc/yum.repos.d/ directory like we did with Webmin above.  To to that, we will use nano again and type in the following:

nano /etc/yum.repos.d/epel-bacula7.repo

Now you will need to copy and paste the following into the file we just created:

[epel-bacula7]
name=Bacula backports from rawhide
baseurl=http://repos.fedorapeople.org/repos/slaanesh/bacula7/epel-$releasever/$basearch/
enabled=1
skip_if_unavailable=1
gpgkey=http://repos.fedorapeople.org/repos/slaanesh/bacula7/RPM-GPG-KEY-slaanesh
gpgcheck=1
[epel-bacula7-source]
name=Bacula backports from rawhide - Source
baseurl=http://repos.fedorapeople.org/repos/slaanesh/bacula7/epel-$releasever/SRPMS
enabled=0
skip_if_unavailable=1
gpgkey=http://repos.fedorapeople.org/repos/slaanesh/bacula7/RPM-GPG-KEY-slaanesh
gpgcheck=1

Now hit Control + X to exit and hit Y and then Enter to save the new file.

Once you have saved the file, verify that Bacula 7 shows up on the list by typing the following and hitting enter:

yum list bacula*

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If you don’t see Bacula 7, verify that you did the steps above correctly.
Now we are ready to Install MariaDB and Bacula

Next you will install MariaDB and all of the Bacula files.  To do that, type in the following:

yum -y install mariadb mariadb-server bacula-director-mysql bacula-console
yum -y install bacula-client bacula-storage-mysql mysql-server mysql-devel

Once everything installs (takes about a minute or two), you will need to start the MariaDB database server by typing in:

systemctl start mariadb.service
chkconfig mariadb on

Next you need to run through the secure installation process for MariaDB which will allow you to set the root password, remove test users etc.  The prompts are easy to follow and everything should be Yes.

mysql_secure_installation

The default root password is blank to just hit enter and set a new root password.  This isn’t the password you will use for Bacula, it’s the root mysql password.

After you have completed this step, you will want to go to Webmin which you installed earlier so you can set up the database and a Bacula user for the database.

If you look under Servers, you will probably not see MySql Database Server because you just installed it.  You will need to go to Refresh Modules at the bottom of the menu and click it.  Now you should see MySql Database Server in the list.  Click it and you will be asked to enter the username and password for the database.  This will be root and the password you just entered when setting up the database.

Now you will need to add a bacula database so click Create a New Database.

Type in bacula as your database name for your bacula database and leave the rest of the fields default.  Note, the name must be bacula!

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Now you will need to create a bacula user for your database.  To do this, go to User Permissions and Add User to add the user.  Be sure to set the Hosts to localhost and don’t worry about setting permissions.  Click Create.
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Now you will click on Database Permissions and add all permissions except Grant for the user you created to the bacula database.  Once again, be sure to have the hosts set as localhost.

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Now that your database is created and the user is setup, you will need to create the tables.  You can do this by going back to your SSH terminal and typing (note: add the username you created):

/usr/libexec/bacula/make_mysql_tables -u usernameyoucreated -p

Enter the password you used for the user.

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Now we need to tell Bacula to use Mysql as the libary.  To do this, lets first stop the services by typing in:

systemctl stop bacula-dir
systemctl stop bacula-fd
systemctl stop bacula-sd

Now lets set Bacula to use the Mysql library:

su -c 'alternatives --config libbaccats.so'

This should show you the following:
There are 3 programs which provide ‘libbaccats.so’.

Selection    Command
———————————————–
1           /usr/lib64/libbaccats-mysql.so
2           /usr/lib64/libbaccats-sqlite3.so
*+  3           /usr/lib64/libbaccats-postgresql.so

Hit 1 and press enter to select MySql.

Now lets start the services back by using the following commands:

systemctl start bacula-dir

systemctl start bacula-fd

systemctl start bacula-sd

Now you should be able to go to Webmin and look under System and you will need to click on Bacula Backup System.  Don’t worry if it gives you an error.  This is because you haven’t set up the config yet.  You will need click on Module Configuration and set it up to use MySql and enter the login information you created previously for your Bacula user.

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Click Save and you should be able to access the Bacula page where you can set up your Bacula System.

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Getting Everything Working

Now that you have that part working, you still can not start any of the daemons yet since they are not set up.  You will have to go into each file and modify them so that they will communicate with each other.

If you try to start Bacula, you may receive the following message:

The Bacula console command /sbin/bconsole could not communicate with the Bacula director. Make sure the password in /etc/bacula/bconsole.conf is correct.

You can either use the File Manager within Webmin or connect to your server using sftp and look in the /etc/bacula directory and you will find the following files you need to edit.  I just drag them back to my desktop and edit them in a text editor.

bacula-dir.conf
bacula-fd.conf
bacula-sd.conf
bconsole.conf

There are a lot of passwords and IP addresses that need to be changed in there files so pay attention to and @@PASSWORD@@ areas and change them accordingly.

Be sure to catch the bottom of the bacula-dir.conf file and change the catalog database password to the one you assigned when you created the database user.

Also, look for localhost and change this to your local IP address on your backup server.  You don’t need to do this on the clients since you will be setting those up later on.  In fact, you can delete most of the test clients that are in the default if you wish.  I will post a guide on setting up all the configuration files later on.
Firewall Ports

In order to allow clients and consoles to talk to your Bacula server, you need to open ports 9101, 9102 and 9103.  The following command in your SSH console with open these ports.

firewall-cmd --add-port=9101/tcp
firewall-cmd  --permanent --add-port=9101/tcp
firewall-cmd --add-port=9102/tcp
firewall-cmd  --permanent --add-port=9102/tcp
firewall-cmd --add-port=9103/tcp
firewall-cmd  --permanent --add-port=9103/tcp

Now you should be able to start Bacula and see all of the Daemons are showing UP.

Installing Bacula-Web

Bacula-Web uses Apache to serve up the pages so you will need to install Apache and get it running using the following:

yum -y install httpd
chkconfig httpd on
service httpd start

Configure Apache to start at boot:

systemctl start httpd.service
systemctl enable httpd.service

Next you need to add MySql support to Apache by entering the following:

yum -y install php php-gd php-gettext php-mysql php-pdo

Install other common modules needed…

yum -y install php-gd php-ldap php-odbc php-pear php-xml php-xmlrpc php-mbstring php-snmp php-soap curl curl-devel

In order for Apache to get past the firewall, you will need to open the ports by using the following:

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=http
firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=https
firewall-cmd --reload

Now you need to get the web files.  Go to the Bacula-Web website and download the latest version.

http://www.bacula-web.org/download.html

Save and unpack the archive to your desktop or another location.  We will need to modify the config file before uploading to the server.

Open the Application/Config directory and rename config.php.sample to config.php and then open it in a text editor.

Look for the MySql area and change the settings to match your server.  Be sure to uncomment the config settings be removing the “//” in front of the $config settings.  You probably just need to edit the password at this point.

//MySQL bacula catalog
$config[0]['label'] = 'Backup Server';
$config[0]['host'] = 'localhost';
$config[0]['login'] = 'bacula';
$config[0]['password'] = 'verystrongpassword';
$config[0]['db_name'] = 'bacula';
$config[0]['db_type'] = 'mysql';
$config[0]['db_port'] = '3306';

After you have saved the config file, you need to upload the files to your server under the /var/www/ directory.  You can SFTP to your server using FileZilla and the IP of your server.   If this server is only serving as a backup server, you can upload the files into the root HTML directory, otherwise you can put the files in whatever directory you wish.   Go ahead and upload the files now.

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Now you will need to modify the php.ini file so it has the correct time zone for your system.  Since you already have the FTP up, browse to /etc/php.ini and copy if over to your desktop and them open it in a text editor.  Do a search for “date.timezone” which should be around line 878.  You can find the different time zones available by going to: http://php.net/date.timezone

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Make the change and save the file then re-upload it to the server.

Now you need to go into SELINUX and change the settings to PERMISSIVE.  In order to do this, exit the config file for SELINUX:

nano /etc/selinux/config

Change if from enforcing to permissive and hit Control + X then Y then Enter to exit and save.

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Type reboot

After the system comes back online, you should be able to use your IP address to access Bacula-Web!

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YOU’RE DONE!

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How to install Webmin on CentOS 7

Webmin is a web-based graphical tool for unix . It is used to manage services like User management, Disk managemet, Network, Iptables (Firewall), Cron, Apache, DNS, File sharing and much more .
In this article i will show you how to install webmin on CentOS 7 linux.

 

Install Webmin on CentOS 7

To get started, login your remote server and follow the steps below:
First, create a new file webmin.repo in /etc/yum.repos.d/ :

vi /etc/yum.repos.d/webmin.repo

and paste below line:

[Webmin]
name=Webmin Distribution Neutral
#baseurl=http://download.webmin.com/download/yum
mirrorlist=http://download.webmin.com/download/yum/mirrorlist
enabled=1

Install webmin GPG key using below command.

rpm --import http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc

Now, update the repositorys:

yum check-update

Install webmin:

yum install webmin -y

Start the service and make it start automatically

chkconfig webmin on
service webmin start

By default, Webmin will listen on port 10000. Enable webmin Port:

firewall-cmd --add-port=10000/tcp

Now, open http://ip.add.re.ss:10000 in your browser and enter yor root username and password:

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That is all!

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Install Cacti (Monitoring tool) on ubuntu 15.04 / 15.10 server.

Cacti is a complete network graphing solution designed to harness the power of RRDTool’s data storage and graphing functionality. Cacti provides a fast poller, advanced graph templating, multiple data acquisition methods, and user management features out of the box. All of this is wrapped in an intuitive, easy to use interface that makes sense for LAN-sized installations up to complex networks with hundreds of devices.

Features Graphs

Unlimited number of graph items can be defined for each graph optionally utilizing CDEFs or data sources from within cacti.
Automatic grouping of GPRINT graph items to AREA, STACK, and LINE[1-3] to allow for quick re-sequencing of graph items.
Auto-Padding support to make sure graph legend text lines up.
Graph data can be manipulated using the CDEF math functions built into RRDTool. These CDEF functions can be defined in cacti and can be used globally on each graph.
Support for all of RRDTool’s graph item types including AREA, STACK, LINE[1-3], GPRINT, COMMENT, VRULE, and HRULE.

Data Sources

Data sources can be created that utilize RRDTool’s “create” and “update” functions. Each data source can be used to gather local or remote data and placed on a graph.
Supports RRD files with more than one data source and can use an RRD file stored anywhere on the local file system.
Round robin archive (RRA) settings can be customized giving the user the ability to gather data on non-standard timespans while store varying amounts of data.

Data Gathering

Contains a “data input” mechanism which allows users to define custom scripts that can be used to gather data. Each script can contain arguments that must be entered for each data source created using the script (such as an IP address).
Built in SNMP support that can use php-snmp, ucd-snmp, or net-snmp.
Ability to retrieve data using SNMP or a script with an index. An example of this would be populating a list with IP interfaces or mounted partitions on a server. Integration with graph templates can be defined to enable one click graph creation for hosts.
A PHP-based poller is provided to execute scripts, retrieve SNMP data, and update your RRD files.

Templates

Graph templates enable common graphs to be grouped together by templating. Every field for a normal graph can be templated or specified on a per-graph basis.
Data source templates enable common data source types to be grouped together by templating. Every field for a normal data source can be templated or specified on a per-data source basis.
Host templates are a group of graph and data source templates that allow you to define common host types. Upon the creation of a host, it will automatically take on the properties of its template.

Graph Display

The tree view allows users to create “graph hierarchies” and place graphs on the tree. This is an easy way to manage/organize a large number of graphs.
The list view lists the title of each graph in one large list which links the user to the actual graph.
The preview view displays all of the graphs in one large list format. This is similar to the default view for the 14all cgi script for RRDTool/MRTG.

User Management

User based management allows administrators to create users and assign different levels of permissions to the cacti interface.
Permissions can be specified per-graph for each user, making cacti suitable for co location situations.
Each user can keep their own graph settings for varying viewing preferences.

Preparing your system

Before installing cacti you need to make sure you have installed Ubuntu 15.04 LAMP server.

Install Cacti on ubuntu 15.04 / 15.10 server

Open the terminal and run the following command

sudo apt-get install cacti-spine

The above command starts the cacti installation and you should see the first as php path change select ok and press enter

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Now select the webserver you want to use (in my case it is apache2)

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Cacti database configurations select yes

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Enter database admin user password

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Mysql application password for cacti

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confirm the password

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Now that Cacti is installed, we can start the configuration process on it.

Configuring cacti

Point your web browser towards http://YOURSERVERIP/cacti/install/ to start the initial setup and click next

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Select new install option and click next

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In the following screen you need to make sure you have all the required paths are correct and click on finish

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Now login to Cacti with the default admin/admin, and change the password to something more sensible

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After login in to Cacti you should see similar to the following screen

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That is all!

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