Ganglia is an open source scalable distributed monitoring software tool for high-performance computing systems that can be used to view live statistics metrics such as average CPU load and network utilization for multiple systems.

Ganglia uses XML for data representation, RRDtool for data storage and visualization and XDR for compact, portable data transport. It uses carefully engineered data structures to achieve very low overheads and high concurrency. Currently Ganglia is used by thousands of clusters around the world.

In this tutorial, we will learn how to install Ganglia server on Ubuntu 16.04.

Requirements

• A server runing Ubuntu-16.04 on your system.
• A non-root user with sudo privileges setup on your server.

Update the System

Before starting, you will need to update the system’s package repository database with the latest version. You can do this with the following command:

sudo apt-get update -y
sudo apt-get upgrade -y

Once your system is up to date, you can proceed to the next step.

Installing LAMP Stack

Before starting, you will need to install LAMP on your server.
You can install it by running the following command:

sudo apt-get install apache2 mariadb-server php7.0 libapache2-mod-php7.0 php7.0-mbstring php7.0-curl php7.0-zip php7.0-gd php7.0-mysql php7.0-curl php7.0-mcrypt

Once installation is complete, start the apache service and enable it to start on boot with the following command:

sudo systemctl start apache2
sudo systemctl enable apache2

Installing Ganglia Server

Ganglia consists of three main components Ganglia Monitoring Daemon, Ganglia Meta Daemon and the Ganglia PHP Web Front-end.

1. Ganglia Monitoring Daemon : It listens to the cluster message channel and stores the data in-memory then and answer requests for an XML description of the cluster state.. Gmond runs on each system you want to monitor and monitor changes in the host state.
2. Ganglia Meta Daemon : The Ganglia Meta Daemon runs on the master nodes and collects information from multiple client machines.
3. Ganglia PHP Web Front-end: : It is used to displays all the gathered information from the client machines via web pages.

You can install Ganglia by just running the following command:

sudo apt-get install ganglia-monitor rrdtool gmetad ganglia-webfrontend

Once installation is complete, you can proceed to the next step.

Configure Ganglia Master Node

First, you will need to copy the Ganglia configuration file to the Apache conf folder with the following command:

sudo cp /etc/ganglia-webfrontend/apache.conf /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/ganglia.conf

Next, edit the gmetad.conf file:

sudo nano /etc/ganglia/gmetad.conf

Change the following line:

data_source "my cluster" 50 192.168.15.110:8649

Where 192.168.15.110 is the master node IP address.

Save and close the file. Then edit gmond.conf file:

sudo nano /etc/ganglia/gmond.conf

Change the file as shown below:

cluster {
  name = "my cluster"  ## Name assigned to the client groups
  owner = "unspecified"
  latlong = "unspecified"
  url = "unspecified"
}

udp_send_channel   {
  host = 192.168.15.110   ## Master node IP address
  port = 8649
  ttl = 1
}

udp_recv_channel {
  port = 8649
}

tcp_accept_channel {
  port = 8649
}

Save and close the file. Then start ganglia-monitor, gmetad and apache services with the following command:

sudo systemctl start ganglia-monitor
sudo systemctl start gmetad
sudo systemctl restart apache2

Once you are done, you can proceed to the next step.

Install and Configure Ganglia Client

Next, you will need to install the Ganglia package on each client you want to monitor.

You can install it by running the following command:

sudo apt-get install ganglia-monitor

Once installation is complete, edit the following configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/ganglia/gmond.conf

CHange the file as shown below:

cluster {
  name = "my cluster"     ## Cluster name
  owner = "unspecified"
  latlong = "unspecified"
  url = "unspecified"

udp_send_channel {
  host = 192.168.15.110   ## IP address of master node
  port = 8649
  ttl = 1
}

#You can specify as many udp_recv_channels as you like as well.
#udp_recv_channel {
#  mcast_join = 239.2.11.71
#  port = 8649
#  bind = 239.2.11.71
#}


tcp_accept_channel {
  port = 8649
}

Save and close the file, then start ganglia-monitor service with the following command:

sudo systemctl start ganglia-monitor

Once you are done, you can proceed to the next step.

Configure Firewall

Before accessing Ganglia, you will need to allow port 8649 through UFW firewall. By default UFW is disabled on your system, so you need to enable it first.

You can enable it with the following command:

sudo ufw enable

Once UFW firewall is enabled, you can allow port 8649 by running the following command:

sudo ufw allow 8649

You can now check the status of UFW firewall by running the following command:

sudo ufw status

Access e thGanglia Web Interface

Once everything is up to date. It’s time to access the Ganglia Web interface.

Open your web browser and type the URL http://192.168.15.110/ganglia. You should see the following page:

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If you want to view a perticular node graphs, select the particular node you want from the Grid Choose Node drop-down box.

For example if you want to see the graphs of Ubuntu client node with name Vyom-PC.local.lan, choose this Node from drop-down box. You should see the following page:

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You can also access lots of interesting information about each node individually and in groups.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have successfully installed the Ganglia monitoring server on Ubuntu 16.04. You can now easily install, explore, and play around with Ganglia as per your need.