Install smokeping on Raspbian
Install
apt-get -y install smokeping sendmail sipsak
redirection
If you want to redirect your root web site to /smokeping
vi /var/www/html/index.html
An example is here.
<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=/smokeping" /> </head> <body></body> </html>
Config Files
Location
/etc/smokeping/config.d/
Alerts
This is simple enough. The email address to send alerts to and the from address.
/etc/smokeping/config.d/Alerts
Database
/etc/smokeping/config.d/Database
Smokeping has a default of 5 minute averages which I don't like. I changed mine to be 1 minute averages.
1 ping every 5 seconds.
step = 60 pings = 12
General
Very general stuff here. Owner, email and SMTP server.
/etc/smokeping/config.d/General
Presentation
This is how the graphs look and the default displaying of graphs.
I didn't like the default at all. I defaulted mine to be 1 Hour, 6 Hours, 1 Day, 30 Days and 1 Year.
/etc/smokeping/config.d/Presentation
"Last 1 Hour" 1h "Last 6 Hours" 6h "Last 1 Day" 1d "Last 1 Week" 7d "Last 30 Days" 30d "Last 1 Year" 365d
I also changed the summary graphs to be double the height for easier reading.
+ overview width = 600 height = 100 range = 6h
Slaves
/etc/smokeping/config.d/Slaves
Targets
/etc/smokeping/config.d/Targets
This for me was the hardest to understand. The official example page is here. Let me start at the top of the file and try to explain each section.
Use the default probe of FPing. You can change the probe to be different for each host. Example sipsak can be use to test SIP servers.
*** Targets *** probe = FPing
This information is displayed on the home page of smokeping.
menu = Top title = Network Latency Grapher remark = SmokePing website for my network. Authorised access only.
The first line will represent the URL. Example myserver.com/smokeping/?target=Menu1
The second line will represent the name of the menu item on the web page.
The third line will be a title of the graphs within this menu.
+ Menu1 menu = Menu title = Description
This next section will ping each node.
The first line will represent the URL. Example myserver.com/smokeping/?target=Menu1.Item1
The second line will represent the name of the menu item on the wen page.
The third line will be a title of the graphs within this menu.
The fourth line will allow an email to be sent if there is any loss based on the configuration of the Alerts file.
the fifth line is only if you are not using the default probe otherwise this line is not required.
The sixth line is the host to ping. You can use IP or FQDN.
++ Item1 menu = Node1 title = Title Name alerts = smoeloss probe = SipSak host = google.com
Structure
- You can only have one probe define globally.
- You can only define one menu, title and remark for the landing page of smokeping.
- The menu structure is:
+url menu title ++ url menu title host ++ url menu title host . . . +url (New menu structure) title ++ url menu title host ++ url menu title host . . . and so forth
This is the basics of Targets. There is a lot more that you can do. Refer to the documentation for more information.
example extract
*** Targets *** probe = FPing menu = Top title = Network Latency Grapher remark = SmokePing website for my network. Authorised access only. + Internode menu= Internode title = Internode Nodes ++ One menu = Hop 1 title = 150.101.32.109 1st Hop to ISP alerts = someloss host = 150.101.32.109 ++ Two menu = Hop 2 title = 150.101.35.80 2nd Hop to ISP alerts = someloss host = 150.101.35.80 ++ SMTP menu = SMTP title = SMTP Server probe = EchoPingSmtp host = mail.internode.on.net + External menu= External title = Internet Nodes ++ Google_NS menu = NS Google 1 title = 8.8.8.8 Google NS Server 1 alerts = someloss probe = DNS host = 8.8.8.8 ++ NS_OpenDNS menu = NS OpenDNS 1 title = 208.67.222.222 OpenDNS NS Server 1 alerts = someloss probe = DNS host = 208.67.222.222 ++ Gil menu = gil title = gil.com.au alerts = someloss host = gil.com.au + Internal menu = Internal title = Internal Servers ++ Firewall menu = Firewall title = Billion Router alerts = someloss host = 10.13.13.254 ++ PBX menu = PBX Server title = Asterisk SIP PBX Server alerts = someloss host = 10.13.13.253 + SIP menu = sip title = SIP Servers ++ SipTalk menu = SipTalk title = SipTalk SIP Server alerts = someloss probe = SipSak host = sip.siptalk.com.au ++ Telecube menu = Telecube title = Telecube SIP Server alerts = someloss probe = SipSak host = sip.telecube.net.au ++ Internode menu = Internode title = sip.internode.on.net alerts = someloss probe = SipSak host = sip.internode.on.net ++ MyNetFonee menu = MyNetFone title = sip.mynetfone.com.au alerts = someloss probe = SipSak host = sip.mynetfone.com.au
Probes
If you have added additional probes you will need to add them to smokeping here.
As I added sipsak I need to add the following.
/etc/smokeping/config.d/Probes
+ SipSak binary = /usr/bin/sipsak
+DNS binary = /usr/bin/dig
+EchoPingSmtp binary = /usr/bin/echoping
Note: dig and echoping binaries are already installed from Raspberry image.
rrd files
/var/lib/smokeping/
enable changes
Reboot or restart apache and smokeping
systemctl restart apache2 systemctl restart smokeping
Notes
I installed sipsak so I can do a sip ping rather than an ICMP ping to SIP servers. There are other modules you can install like DNS, HTTP, HTTPS, SSH, CISCO and others. Refer to smokeping probes.
I noticed the latency was 1 to 10 ms higher when using application probes. Probably because it takes that bit long for a reply to come form the application.
