Install Smokeping On Windows

  1. It was a snap to install smokeping on my windows box and get things up and running. I only had one question – fping on windows only seems to give ping times in millisecond resolution. It does not seem to provide resolution at the microsecond (or rather 1/10 ms) scale.
  2. # Install smokeping - apache gets installed automatically and the config enabled sudo apt-get install smokeping.
Smokeping

Smokepinginstall How to install SmokePing smokepingmasterslave How to run multiple distributed instances of SmokePing smokepingupgrade Notes on upgrading Smokeping smokeping Commandline tool for SmokePing smokepingcgi SmokePing webfrontend smokeinfo poll smokeping site for numeric information smokepingconfig Reference for the SmokePing.

Tracking network latency on FreeBSD with SmokePing

Smokeping docker

Introduction

Tracking network latency should be an integral of anyone’s server management routine. It is essential that you monitor this regularly so you can get a better picture of your server’s health and performance. It can help you determine if your network is overloaded or indicate if there is an incorrect router configuration or downed device. Catching this kind of issues at the right time will help prevent major failures later on.

SmokePing is a network latency tracking tool that you may find very useful when monitoring network latency. This tutorial will assist you in setting up SmokePing with Apache on your server(s) running FreeBSD.

All you need is a FreeBSD 11 server with a root user and Apache (and its FastCGI module) already installed and configured.

Installing and configuring SmokePing

  • The installation is quite simple because SmokePing exists already in the package repository. To proceed, enter the command below:
  • Next, open the file at /usr/local/etc/smokeping/config, which you’ll need to edit to customize a few fields (the ones bolded below):
  • Comment out the entire ***Slaves*** section.
  • Lastly, we turn to Targets.
    Simply put, targets are a hierarchical list of hosts which mark the limits of the network connections the system should monitor.
    In this tutorial, we’ll be setting up a configuration that monitors the latency between your server and two FreeBSD pkg mirrors.
    Thus, we’ll have a total of three graphs.
  • In the same file as above, navigate to the ***Targets*** section. What you’ll do first is delete the sample configuration so the end of your file looks like this:
  • Next, copy and paste the following configuration under the existing default settings.
  • Below it, add one more section to combine multiple targets into one graph.

Enabling the services

Install Smokeping On Windows
  • Next, we’ll start connecting and enabling the services.
    For that, you’ll need to create a configuration file for Apache in /usr/local/etc/apache24/Includes/ called smokeping.conf, like so:
  • Then, paste this into the newly created file:
  • Now, enter these to commands so that default service configuration for Apache and SmokePing can start the processes at boot:
  • Next, start Apache:
  • Then, start the SmokePing service as well:
  • To access SmokePing’s web interface, go to http://your_server_ip/smokeping in your favorite browser.
    By navigating the menu on the left, and then clicking Targets, you will hopefully see the graphs that we’ve previously created and customized.

Congratulations

And that is all! You can track network latency on your server with SmokePing!

« Previous—Next »

Patching Smokeping for Windows so you don't have to.

14 October 2007

I'm releasing this today, but it's still in beta (Everything that used to work with my old 2.0.8 patch works with that version, but not all new features have been tested yet)

What you'll need:

-Perl (latest version if you can)
-A web server (wamp is good, but others should work fine as well)


What the script will do and what it won't:

it will: download smokeping, rrdtool, and fping, help you configure smokeping (owner, mail, etc), patch what's needed to be patched, install a new feature that is not included in smokeping's official package (zoom in/out with pageup|pagedown)
it won't: install/configure your webserver, install perl, add targets in your configuration file


what's working and what's untested yet:

working: everything that used to work with the 2.0.8 version, Ajax based ineractive graph zooming (+ my exclusive zoom with pageup/pagedown feature), Multi Target Graphs, using drives different than 'c:'
not tested yet: Master/Slave setup for multi source smokeping deployments.

How to configure wamp, or apache:
edit httpd.conf (C:wampApache2confhttpd.conf with wamp)
change: ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ 'C:/wamp/Apache2/cgi-bin/' into ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ 'c:/wamp/cgi/' *
change: <Directory 'C:/wamp/Apache2/cgi-bin/'> into <Directory 'c:/wamp/cgi'>*
(* you don't _have_ to do that, and of course you can change every paths, you just have to provide every paths to the install script)
create a folder in your www root folder (c:wampwww if you're runing wamp) and name it 'simg'

The install script will ask you the www root folder and the image folder

WWW root folder [Default: C:wampwww] (must already exist)

image folder from C:wampwww [Default: simg]

WindowsSmokeping setup

that's it! if something is not self explanatory enough, or if you have questions feel free to leave a comment

for testing, and autostart take a look at steps 7,8, and 10 here http://dev.pulsed.net/wp/?p=3

Download the Smokeping Installer for Windows, unzip it and launch 'install n patch.pl'

Archived in Windows, perl, smokeping, win32 | Trackback | del.icio.us | Top Of Page

Install Smokeping On Windows 10 Pro

  1. Joksi Says:

    Nice job!

    However, seem there is a problem for me with this.

    Installation works nice, but when I start smokeping.pl i get the followin message:

    Can't locate Smokeping.pm in @INC (@INC contains: lib ../lib F:/Perl/site/lib
    /Perl/lib .) at F:wwwsmokeping-2.2.4binsmokeping.pl line 7.
    BEGIN failed–compilation aborted at F:wwwsmokeping-2.2.4binsmokeping.pl

  2. Joksi Says:

    add (after line 5): use lib qw(C:smokeping-2.0.8lib);

    This solved it, I thinkg you will have to change this in your install script :)

    But still, when I enter smokeping html pages i get this:

    ERROR: Could not parse color in '
    'DEF:median1=F:/WWW/smokeping-2.2.4/var/Test/James.rrd:median:AVERAGE'

  3. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    the first issue is a little bit odd because ../lib should be just fine, anyway as you mentionned, it is possible to manually add the path to the library with 'use lib qw(pathtosmokepinglib);'

    The second issue is actually not an issue:
    i've commented the whole '*** Slaves ***' section out in the config.dist file, this is for the 'Master/Slave setup for multi source smokeping deployments' thing; however i somehow forgot to comment the 'slaves = boomer' line;
    all you have to do is delete or comment this line and it should work.

  4. Colin Cashin Says:

    Kevin

    Excellent work. You're a legend. Its nice to get this working on Windows coz not every Enterprise allows what they consider non-standard OS's on the network :-P
    Thanks again for the good work.

    Regards
    Colin

  5. Joksi Says:

    Hi again Kevin

    Okey, I see.

    Well I have commented out the boomer-line now, and your right the RRDtool error message dissapears.

    But it becomes empty though! No graphs/graphics at all.

  6. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    Hey Colin,

    Thanks for your comment. I have the same 'non-standard OS’s' problem here too, that's why I started to port smokeping.

  7. Markus Joosten Says:

    Hi there,

    first off, great tool, and thanks a lot for your effort creating this package for smooth smokeping installation under windows!
    Saved me a lot of time!

    Fping probes are working fine now, but i seem to have some issues regarding curl probes.
    I dl'ed curl-windows binary, placed it in D:Smokeping-2.2.4curl
    and defined the Curl probe in config.dist right underneath the Fping probe.

    Now when i start smokeping.pl, it reports that some path does not exist, one syntactic error and that '-' is no file or command.

    I suspect some parsing errors regarding my curl probe config.

    EchoPingHttp won't work as well :(

    Pls help!
    Thanks in advance!

  8. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    Joksi,

    It looks like you're trying to ping the default target (James) which is not a real host.

    Please take a look here http://oss.oetiker.ch/smokeping/doc/smokeping_config.en.html and here http://oss.oetiker.ch/smokeping/doc/smokeping_examples.en.html to set up your own target hosts.

  9. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    Hey Markus,

    I didn't have enough spare time yet to look for other probes.
    I'll try to get it working soon

  10. Joksi Says:

    Hi

    Nope, I have addd my targets, but there isnt any graphs displayed on the webpage. However I see graphs are created in the /simg dir.

  11. Joksi Says:

    My targets gets created in individual folders, however the graphs are created in the root of /simg and, and not in each subfolder.

  12. Doug M Says:

    Scroll down to bottom to see the error I'm getting…

    —————————–

    C:smokepinginstaller>'install n patch.pl'
    i found the perl executable here C:Perlbinperl.exe
    press enter if that's ok, or type the correct path to the perl interpreter execu
    table

    Where do we install smokeping? [Default: C:smokeping-2.2.4]

    Owner (your name should be ok)
    John Doe

    contact mail (as displayed on the smokeping page)
    john.doe@isp.com

    SMTP host (not using PopBeforeSMTP or something)
    mail.isp.com

    WWW root folder [Default: C:wampwww] (must already exist)

    image folder from C:wampwww [Default: simg]

    cgi url (not sure what exactly this is for) [Default: http://127.0.0.1/cgi-bin/
    smokeping.pl]

    cgi folder [Default: c:wampcgi] (must already exist)

    Alerts: 'alertee'
    john.doe@isp.com

    Alerts: sender email (can be fake)
    john.doe@isp.com

    installing RRDs
    Can't find unicode character property definition via main->e or e.pl at unicode/
    Is/e.pl line 0

    OK 256

    C:smokeping-2.2.4bin>smokeping.pl
    Can't locate RRDs.pm in @INC (@INC contains: lib ../lib C:/Perl/lib C:/Perl/site
    /lib .) at ../lib/Smokeping.pm line 13.
    BEGIN failed–compilation aborted at ../lib/Smokeping.pm line 13.
    Compilation failed in require at C:smokeping-2.2.4binsmokeping.pl line 7.
    BEGIN failed–compilation aborted at C:smokeping-2.2.4binsmokeping.pl line 7.

  13. Markus Joosten Says:

    Hi Doug,

    the error you mention seems to be caused by mismatched RegEx chars.

    Try entering the Paths with slashes instead of backslashes.

    i.e. C:/Perl/bin/perl.exe
    C:/Smokeping-2.2.4
    C:/wamp/www

    and so on.

    Greetings

  14. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    Joksi

    Could you please paste your *** target *** section with 2-3 targets in it (feel free to give fake ips if you're more confortable that way)

  15. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    hi Doug,

    the unicode thing kind of reminds me older windows version (95, 98, me); which windows version are you using?

    After a quick googling this issue seems to be related to ppm (activestate's package installer), did you try with the latest perl version?

  16. Joksi Says:

    *** Targets ***

    probe = FPing

    menu = Top
    title = Network Latency Grapher
    remark = Welcome to the SmokePing website of xxx Company.
    Here you will learn all about the latency of our network.

    + LAN
    menu= LAN

    + Joksi

    menu = Joksi
    title = Joksi
    alerts = someloss
    host = 10.1.1.2

    + Google

    menu = Google
    title = Google
    alerts = someloss
    host = google.com

  17. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    mhh I see, I guess.

    Try to add another + before Joksi and Google like that:

    ++ Joksi

    menu = Joksi
    title = Joksi
    alerts = someloss
    host = 10.1.1.2

    ++ Google

    menu = Google
    title = Google
    alerts = someloss
    host = google.com

    '+ Lan' is a 'container', and I think that it thinks that '+ Joksi' and '+ Google' are containers too

  18. Joksi Says:

    I did that just now, and it doesnt show graphs still.

    The folder structure that gets created is the following:

    simg/
    simg/LAN/Joksi
    simg/LAN/Google

    In simg/LAN the graphs exist, but the Joksi and Google folders are empty.

  19. Joksi Says:

    Im starting to think that the problem is the variable with value ../simg, that its the wrong path.

  20. Joksi Says:

    Solved it, changed ../simg to http://domain/simg

  21. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    strange, first ../lib, and now ../simg, don't know what could cause this

  22. Joksi Says:

    yeah its strange.

    also, when i click on a graph, i dont have the possibility to use page up and down, cannot change the graph at all

  23. Markus Joosten Says:

    Hi Kevin,

    i just started to port Curl probe for use with smokeping under windows, because i need it kinda fast :)
    Are you interested in including my changes in your smokepinginstaller since I think many people would be interested in measuring HTTP response times.

    As for now, I am making some progress in filtering Unix-specific commands from smokeping's curl module.

    Greetings

  24. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    Joksi, it looks like you have some pieces left from version 2.0.8

    Markus,
    I'd be happy to include your modifications to the curl probe in the installer!

  25. Joksi Says:

    Hi Kevin

    I dont think so, cause I deleted the old smokeping folder and then downloaded your installer.

  26. Colin Cashin Says:

    Folks,

    If anyone is working on porting probes, the CiscoRTTMonTcpConnect probe would be really cool to have.
    Can check response time for any TCP service running on any device on your network from a remote router. Performance management heaven. Loads of possibilities with this one. . .

  27. Joksi Says:

    Can't locate Sys/Syslog.pm in @INC (@INC contains: F:smokeping-2.2.4lib /usr/p
    ack/rrdtool-1.2.23-mo/lib/perl F:/Perl/site/lib F:/Perl/lib .) at F:smokeping-2
    .2.4lib/Smokeping.pm line 14.
    BEGIN failed–compilation aborted at F:smokeping-2.2.4lib/Smokeping.pm line 14
    .
    Compilation failed in require at F:smokeping-2.2.4binsmokeping.pl line 7.
    BEGIN failed–compilation aborted at F:smokeping-2.2.4binsmokeping.pl line 7.

    This is when I deleted the Smokeping folder and tried a new setup with the installer script.
    It doesnt help when chaging /lib to the right path like before either!

  28. Joksi Says:

    Strange, tried installation again and now it worked directly without modifications =S
    However, the zoom function doesnt work, and the javascripts are existing for it in the simg folder

  29. Joksi Says:

    It works!

  30. Julien Says:

    Hi

    We use web proxy with authentication to go on internet. Any mean that your script could take care of this?

  31. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    Joksi, I'm glad it eventually worked out!

    Julien, yeah it is possible, you have to set one environment variable 'HTTP_proxy' to 'http://user:pass@server:port' without the quotes and with the correct values (you may need to reboot you computer, or simply launch another cmd.exe windows and call the perl script from there)

    I added a 'no download switch' to the script, but i haven't had time to test it out correctly yet (but still, it should work); call 'install n patch.pl –nodl' from a cmd.exe window and follow the procedure (ie download what it says with some random navigator, put it in the correct folder, and rerun the 'install n patch.pl –nodl' command and you're done!

  32. Julien Says:

    Hi, I have some problem :D (sorry i'm totally noob with developpement)

    C:Documents and SettingstotoBureausmokepinginstaller>'install n patch
    .pl' -nodl
    installing Text::Patch
    ppm install failed: Can't find any package that provide Text-Patch
    Can't locate Text/Patch.pm in @INC (@INC contains: C:/Perl/site/lib C:/Perl/lib
    .) at C:Documents and Settingsschafer.admtotosmokepinginstallerinstall n
    patch.pl line 43.

    Thanks :)

  33. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    Hi!

    Text::Patch is needed to patch smokeping.
    tho it works fine to install it without the -nodl switch, it's not that easy when it's set; here's what you need to do:

    Download http://ppm4.activestate.com/MSWin32-x86/5.8/820/MSWin32-x86-multi-thread-5.8/Text-Patch-1.4.tar.gz
    download http://ppm4.activestate.com/MSWin32-x86/5.8/820/Text-Patch.ppd

    put both files in some temp directory, create a directory named 'MSWin32-x86-multi-thread-5.8' in that temp folder, put Text-Patch-1.4.tar.gz into MSWin32-x86-multi-thread-5.8
    open a cmd.exe window from here(temp directory), and launch 'ppm install Text-Patch.ppd'

    You may need to do the same thing for 'Archive::Zip'
    Download http://ppm4.activestate.com/MSWin32-x86/5.8/820/MSWin32-x86-multi-thread-5.8/Archive-Zip-1.20.tar.gz
    and Download http://ppm4.activestate.com/MSWin32-x86/5.8/820/Archive-Zip.ppd
    And do the exact same thing

    be carefull firefox seems to want to save '.ppd' files as '.ppd.xml'

  34. Julien Says:

    C:Documents and SettingstotoBureauzdf>ppm install Text-Patch.ppd
    ppm install failed: Can't find any package that provide Text::Diff for Text-Patc
    h
    Can't find any package that provide Text-Diff for Text-Patch

    Sorry :-(

  35. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    mhh yes Text::Diff is a prerequisite for Text::Patch, and I think that Archive-Zip depends on a lot of other modules.

    You should really considerate to use the HTTP_proxy thing:
    Open a cmd.exe windows
    type 'set HTTP_proxy=http://[user]:[pass]@[proxy ip or fqdn]:[port]' with the correct values for [user], [pass], [proxy], and [port]
    launch 'install n patch.pl' from that windows without the -nodl switch
    the HTTP_proxy variable will vanish as soon as the script is done running and you've closed that cmd window

  36. Julien Says:

    Ok it's working nice with the HTTP_proxy trick :)
    Everything went smooth but when i try to launch http://127.0.0.1/cgi-bin/smokeping.pl i get nothing. It tells me that the page doesnt exist oO
    WAMP is running normaly… any idea?

  37. Julien Says:

    Ok sorry i just had to restart services.
    Its seems to work.
    Thanks a lot Kevin !

  38. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    nah, no need to apologize! It works that's what matters :p

  39. Julien Says:

    Hum. I'd like to know how I can make smokeping to ping targets every 30sec an not every 300sec (default)
    I tried to modify the step parameter (database in config.dist) but when i opened the webpage i had rrd tools errors…
    Must i use the fping parameter? (hostinterval)
    Thanks for your help

  40. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    yeah it is possible, all you need to do is change the step value in config.dist (step = 30 to do what you want), kill smokeping (right-click the smokeping task in the 'scheduled tasks' window, and then click 'end task'), and delete everything in the var folder (but not the var folder)
    and run the task again, it'll create every rrd files again with the correct step.

    oh and just so you know, you can't change the step again in like a year and keep the history (in other words, it is not possible to change the step on an existing .rrd file, meaning you have to recreate them, and therefore lose everything that was in those files)

  41. Julien Says:

    Guy, you definitely rocks :-)

  42. julien Says:

    Erf…
    I installed this on a new server. I modified some little things (step, targets) and i get this message when I try to open the menu target (on the left side of the screen) :
    Software error:
    Can't call method '_pings' on an undefined value at C:/smokeping-2.2.4/lib/Smokeping.pm line 706.

    For help, please send mail to the webmaster (webmaster@localhost), giving this error message and the time and date of the error

    :X

  43. Julien Says:

    I commented some things in alerts and it's working nice now. Sorry to flood your board.
    Last question : I'd like to access smokeping pages from other machines than the server. But when i connect to http://servername/cgi-bin/smokeping.pl, all the images aren't shown (only the red cross appears)
    Any idea?

  44. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    yep, edit the httpd.conf file (in C:wampApache2conf') in the '<Directory c:wampwww>' section there should be something like:
    Deny from all
    Allow from 127.0.0.1

    change the 'allow from' line to 'allow from all' (that'll work for sure!!) or 'allow from 192.168.0.0/24' (ip/mask, 24 is 255.255.255.0 because in binary it's 24 1s from the left to the right, change networkip/mask with your own network values)
    save, and restart apache

  45. Julien Says:

    Ok everything works fine now :-)
    I just have to spend some time… there a lot of options to configure :D
    Thanks again for your help.

  46. raju Says:

    i am not able to install the smokeping although i performed the each & every step mentioned in mail same as it was given.

    Thanks
    Raju

  47. Khairul Says:

    I am facing same problem like, Serial number 32 in the board. Later solution provided as to set HTTP_proxy environment variable.
    My office LAN is wireless – DHCP, if I go to Internet explore to find proxy address that option is disable. How I can find my proxy address & port and which user name & password shall I use to set HTTP_porxy variable.

  48. Julien Says:

    Hi
    Here I am again :/
    I wanted to create different folders on the left side of the screen (LAN, WAN, Internet…) with different targets inside.
    The probleme is that I only have graphs for the 1st folder. When I open other folders I see the grid but there is no graph. I think Fping don't send anything to these targets.
    Any idea?

  49. Gareth Phillips Says:

    Hey Kevin!! Congrats on a great conversion script bro. After using MRTG and finding that quite useful, I thought that I would give Smokeping a try not realising that it wouldn't be as Windows friendly!!

    I almost managed to get it working manually myself on my XP box but a lot of things weren't working properly. Now that I've used your script, everything is working as it should be. I'll really find this useful for my job. Thanks dude!!

  50. Khairul Says:

    Hi Kevin, Finally i am able to install this. When i start smokeping then following message appear
    —————————————————–
    C:smokeping-2.2.4bin>smokeping.pl
    NOTE: your fping binary doesn't support source address setting (-S), I will igno
    re any sourceaddress configurations – see http://bugs.debian.org/198486.
    Smokeping version 2.002004 successfully launched.
    Not entering multiprocess mode for just a single probe.
    FPing: probing 2 targets with step 300 s and offset 152 s.
    ——————————————————
    After 15 min if i browse for graph, no graph appear in the page > one script error appear in the browser as follows

    Line: 131
    Char: 16
    Error: 'null' is null or not an object
    Code: 0
    URL: http://127.0.0.1/cgi-bin/smokeping.pl
    ——————————————————-

    Any suggestion..

  51. Khairul Says:

    Okkk… Finally i got the graph :)
    Thanks a lot for your tutorial. I have downloaded the fping (-S) from your previous post http://dev.pulsed.net/wp/?p=3.

  52. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    Julien's problem was solved by stopping and restarting the scheduled task.

    Gareth, thanks for the supportive comment!!

    Khairul, thanks for the heads up!

  53. Gareth Phillips Says:

    Hi Kevin,

    I was wondering if you had managed to get this running as a Windows service for yourself yet?

    I used instsrv and srvany and got a service built and it even started successfully, but the script doesn't seem to be running as the graphs no longer print.

    The only time that they will start again is if I manually double click the bin/smokeping.pl file?

    When I use instsrv + srvany, my executable path for the service in the registry points to the srvany executable, the application directory points to the …bin directory, the application points to C:perlbinwperl.exe and the application parameters point to the …/bin/smokeping.pl file.

    As I said, the service will successfully start, but nothing works after that……any ideas?

    G.

  54. hart Says:

    I have got this problem when trying to
    >'install n patch.pl' with msg:
    installing RRDs
    ppm install failed: The PPD does not provide code to install for this platform

    OK 256

    Thus trying to patch as recommended on blog entry 33…,
    C:vddMSWin32-x86-multi-thread-5.8>ppm install Text-Patch.ppd
    ppm install failed: The PPD does not provide code to install for this platform

    can't find the code that it is asking for ?
    sorry..

  55. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    Hi!

    hart, are you using vista x64 or xp x64 (with the 32 or 64bits activeperl?) or maybe you are using the latest 5.10.x perl ?

    please let me know!

    Gareth, I'll try to do the service thing as soon as I have enough spare time

  56. hart Says:

    Thanks…
    it's ActivePerl-5.10.0.1001-MSWin32-x86-283495 and installed on winxp(32bit) sp2 on VMware 5.5.2.

  57. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    If I were you I'd try to uninstall it, and install the latest 5.8.8.822 version! (I don't think that all the modules in the ppm repository are already build for the 5.10.x)

  58. hart Says:

    Thank you..installation works great now with latest 5.8.8.822, but opening up the page http://localhost/cgi-bin/smokeping.pl show 'you are not authorized to view…' though all installed under admin account…
    ple let me know

  59. hart Says:

    Well it's OK now after re-installing all apps. Thanks Kevin, it's an excellent work you have here.

  60. James Says:

    Is anyone using the Curl module? I cannot get it to work.

  61. Kris Dahl Says:

    I wasn't able to get smokeping working as a service in Windows either. Mucked around with instsrv.exe, srvany.exe etc., now am doing some research into just getting perl script generically to run as services.

    Big part of it at first I think was having the CWD have to be smokeping/bin. Hard coded the lib path and I think that was part of it, but still no go getting it to run as a windows service.

    We need the monitoring to automatically start every time the machine boots.

  62. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    Gareth, Kris,

    If you only need to start automatically smokeping, you could use the task scheduler (see http://dev.pulsed.net/wp/?p=3 '8) Autostart under NT AUTHORITYSYSTEM', that's what I use at work!) It's a great workaround, since I suppose that it's not very easy to start a perl script as a service)

  63. Gabriel Says:

    I have managed to get smokeping running, it's great!

    However had to set the PC clock back a month to re-compile some invoices, and having returned the PC clock to normal smokeping is stuck.

    I have tried empting the smokeping2.2.4var and the htdocssimg folders, but it reserects the old data from somewhere and won't reset. Any idea how i reset the data?

    Thanks

  64. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    Hey Gabriel!

    The right thing is to stop the scheduled task, delete everything in the < > folder (see config.dist, it's usually the var folder) and then restart the scheduled task.

  65. indigo Says:

    Hello Kevin.

    I would like to thank you, that u made this possible. Runnin' smokeping app on Win systems! I have managed to install smokeping manually. I am using:

    - apache 2.2.8
    - smokeping 2.2.4
    - fping with (-s) option

    but … ajax zooming is not working for me. How do i enable that zooming? If you need any further info about my setup please tell me. Tnx for you support and effort Kevin.

    Mathias.

  66. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    Hi Mathias!

    First of all, thanks for your supportive comment!

    The ajax zooming feature does only work on the highest level graph (when the image title is 'Navigator Graph', and when you see 'Time range', two text boxes and a generate button beneath the graph; at that point the url in your address bar should be something like …cgi-bin/smokeping.pl?displaymode=n;start=2008-02-18%2008:27;end=…)

    Could you look in your {www root folder}simg if there's a directory called cropper with files in it and another directory with files in it as well?

  67. indigo Says:

    Hello Kevin

    Tnx you for your fast respond. I looked into simg directory, but there is no cropper directory and no other directory within it. Is this the cause for ajax non-working problem? What should i do? Create cropper directory?

  68. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    Mathias,

    did you use the smokeping installer script on that page, or did you use the old manual way ( http://dev.pulsed.net/wp/?p=3 )?

    The old manual thing uses smokeping 2.0.8 which does not provide that ajax feature (and is deprecated by the way)

    The smokeping installer that you can get on this page, does almost everything automaticaly, and uses smokeping 2.2.4 why those new fancy features!

    If you've used the old fashioned way (smokeping 2.0.8) I don't think that it's easily possible to adapt that feature, so i would recommend you to use the smokeping installer that is available from this page (installs smokeping for windows in less than 10 mins).

    If you've already used the smokeping installer, I'd be happy to help you to solve that issue!

  69. indigo Says:

    Hey Kevin,

    i used the old manual way, but with smokeping 2.2.4. I am using smokeping 2.2.4 and haven't use the installer because i have installed apache and many other things manually. If i understand the problem correct the only problem is the directory structure in the /simg directory.

  70. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    Hey again!

    Here's the cropper directory and everything that should be in it : http://dev.pulsed.net/misc/smokeping_cropper_fix_indigo.zip simply unzip it in simg!

    after that you'll have to edit the basepage.html.dist which is in the smokepingetc folder and change everything that starts with <script src='cropper/… by <script src='{relative/path/to}/simg/simg/cropper/
    In my case <script src='../simg/cropper/… works just fine!

  71. indigo Says:

    Kevin, tnx you so much for your fantastic help. I will try that (have tryed that by myself … i only forgot to try with ..simg option). I will report if this works! Once again tnx you very much. :) You make us Windowz' users happy to use one of the most coolest graph tool avaible. :)

  72. indigo Says:

    Huurraay, it works. :) Tnx for your help Kevin!

  73. James Dwyer Says:

    Thanks much for making this available! I've got SmokePing installed and running and gathering data and providing alerts and think this will provide great value. I do have one question/problem – is there a problem with the rawlog option on windows? I get an error message about strftime syntax not being correct when I provide the basic rawlog=%Y=%m-%d option in my targets to get daily TSV logs created. Any thoughts?

  74. James Dwyer Says:

    That is a typo BTW – i entered rawlog=%Y-%m-%d not rawlog=%Y=%m-%d….

  75. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    Hi James,

    I didn't know about that, I'm going look at it.

  76. Dominic Says:

    Hey there everyone. I have a particular setup. I need to install Smokeping in some monitoring servers that does not have access to the net. Not even trough a proxy. I've figured that –nodl part but when I run the installer I get an error message when it is installing RRDs and it says

    ppm install failed: the ppd does not provide code to install for this platform.

    what's wrong with this install?

    thanks

  77. Dominic Says:

    Me again, Figured my problem. The issue was that I had installed active perl 5.10.

    Heads up guys.

  78. James Dwyer Says:

    BTW – I was able to get smokeping.pl running as a service and data is being generated… I'm running XPSP2. I used SC to create a service running Srvany.exe and added the appropriate Parameters key with the Application and AppParameters strings pointing to c:perlbinperl.exe and c:smoke…binsmokeping.pl and the service seems to be working fine. There's a nice instruction set on page 17 of this chapter if you're not familiar with these tools: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/ntmaint/book/ch02.pdf. I didn't do anything different other than use SC instead of instsrv to create the service.

  79. Scuzz Says:

    Hi kevin,
    Looks a super tool, am a newbie to this but have unzipped smokeping and installed wamp
    as per your notes, however do i need to go back to steps 5a,b and c to get this to work. Nothing working as is

  80. W Yang Says:

    Hi Markus and Kevin, is there a working cURL probe available now? Thanks,

  81. Andreas Ueberbacher Says:

    hi,

    tried it unter 2k8 Server with IIS 7:

    i get an error:

    Software error:
    ERROR: creating C:/inetpub/wwwroot/smokeping/simg/Test: No such file or directory

    he can´t create the files and rrds obviously. any ideas how to fix that?

  82. Terziyski Says:

    Hi,
    I tried autostart of smokeping.pl as NT AuthoritySystem, but there is no graphing.In Scheduled tasks it has status running, but there is no graphing at all.
    When I try for the first time to schedule the smokeping.pl it seems to do graphing for a few days, but then stoped.
    If I start mannualy smokeping.pl there is normal graphing.
    Any suggestions ?

  83. than Says:

    hello, my smokeping is working under win2003 server. my problem is the quality of png pictures. the pictures are not smooth, there is no fade out picks but only colouring squares.
    i use the patch and activeperl 5.8.8.822.

  84. sophia Says:

    Hi,

    I am a student and i was tasked to explore smokeping and try it. However, when I try to launch the install n patch.pl, nothing particular happens, a folder named –smokeping224– is the only one generated. I hope anyone could help.I am a total newbie with this.

    Thank you very much,
    sophie

  85. Darrell Says:

    Excellent port of a very useful network tool. Thank you!

    I am able to get this working under winXp, but in win2k3 it will not create the subdirectories in the simg directory nor any graphs.

    *perplexed*

  86. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    @than: I had the same issue on one of my 2003 serv, It seems that another 5.8 version of perl solved the problem..

    @Sophie: everything that's required for the script to work is downloaded in that folder. It's like a temp folder. Make sure your internet connection uses no proxy or you'll have to configure ppm to work with that (or the whole thing won't work)

    @Darrell: that's odd, what's your perl version?

  87. Darrell Says:

    Hi Kevin thanks for the reply. I went back and setup a brand new Windows 2003 Server and started from scratch and found my original error. Had to do with the cgi-bin directory being not reachable to run smokeping.pl…. my error :(

    I have now set it up and it is working perfectly, even in IIS as a web server (I prefer Apache, but I must do as I am told sometimes!).

    Anyways thanks for this. Very easy to read and SUPER useful. Merci Beaucoup!

  88. Kevin Says:

    I am a little confused with smokeping for windows. I have read through the post on this site and my directory structure is different than most that are mentioned.

    I followed all of the instructions the best that I could manage I am using the…

    I downloaded active perl and installed it
    I downloaded the smoke ping progem and unzipped it and then I followed the path instructions.

    I have a couple of questions.

    1. The wamp server is shoing off line in my sytem tray eventhough I have stopped and restarted the services.

    2. what do I do now. I can't figure out how to get a graph to display or where to put and address of a device I want to graph. If I type in http://localhost all I get is a management webpage for the wamp server. There is a simg folder under the heading of your projects.

    My httpd.comf file is located in C:wampbinapacheapache2.2.8conf Should I be making edits to this file to setup something to graph?

    Have I missed a step or forgtotten something? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

  89. Kevin L Gaudineer Says:

    I am having nothing but problems trying to figure this install out…..

    First I have downloaded and installed perl. Then I downloaded and installed wamp. Lastly I downloaded and ran the smokeping install.

    Then I tried to move on to the first line of of the install instructions. The instructions indicate that I need to change something in a C:wamapapache2 directory. The problem is that I don't have an apache2 directory after completeing the wamp install. After some checking I did find an apache directory but that path is different. This apache is in c:wampbinapacheapache2.2.8

    I have been reading the posts on this site and I am thinking that there may be an issue with the RRD tool. How do I know if that installed or is working correctly? If I try to open a web page (http://localhost) all I get is a wamp server admin page. how do I see the smokeping screen?

  90. bob Says:

    Hello first of all i am really grateful to you related to the script you provided.Bu can you please tell me will this sript work with iis on windows 2003.With the script changed can this tool run with iis on windows 2003.Thanks

  91. bob Says:

    if it works an you please tell me are there any changes i need to do if i am using iis with smokeping.Please help me i am a newbie and i need to do this in my project

  92. Joe Says:

    Right now, I'm trying to get this running on a Vista 32 bit setup to monitor the status of my wireless internet connection. Everything seems to be working so far, except that fping seems to have no output at all, leaving to graphs showing 100% packet loss. I've tried using a different ping output, but nothing. Any ideas?

  93. Joe Says:

    Well… I found that the perl install has a version of fping… going to see if I can get that to work.

  94. Fernando Says:

    Great job, Kevin. This is great. I just installed it twice, in 2003 and 2008 servers, and both installs are running fine.

    After reading all the posts I wanted to comment two thingss.

    I ran into the empty web pages issue, but this was fixed giving rights to the IIS user in the Smokeping folder. Missed seeing it mentioned here, and thought it might save someone the time it took me to find.

    I fought for two days to get IIS 7 in peace with Smokeping. Did the tricks about adding handles for .pl and .cgi, gave the rights as in the paragraph above. It did not work. I then downloaded apache and had smokeping running in all of 40 minutes. I bet there is a patch or how-to somewhere for IIS 7, but I did not see it.

    If someone know of a http probe ported to Windows, please post it. Thanks again for the great tool.

  95. bapu Says:

    Dear kevin,

    ho have configured smokeping its work on windows. but graphs not showing on webserver..can u help me …its work on local host ,graphs show on local but not showing on web.

  96. bapu Says:

    plz check and help me

  97. Stian ØTh Says:

    Many of the problems here arise because you are probably using ActivePerl 5.10 or 5.6. Use ActivePerl 5.8.8! ! !

  98. Phil Says:

    Hi Kevin,

    great job. this script makes it much more comfortable to deploy smokeping on windows.
    i just got a little issue left. i'd like the cmd box to disappear from desktop, but have no idea how this could work.
    thx in advance.

    best regards phil

  99. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    Hi Phil,

    Check http://dev.pulsed.net/wp/?p=3 '8) Autostart under NT AUTHORITYSYSTEM'

    basically you'll have to run the perl script as a 'scheduled task' using the NT AUTHORITYSYSTEM user.

    let me know if it doesn't work as expected!

    -k

  100. Phil Says:

    (RTFM)^^ , well i guess it would work if i had sufficient permissions (@work)… thx tho. maybe i can get the permission later.

  101. Phil Says:

    ok, been talkin rubbish. obviously, i just had to do it without password. works fine now.

    greats

  102. Tharindu Says:

    hey kevin gotta big problem,i have installed and run everything without a problem but now the thing is that i cannot get any alerts from smokeping.Im running on windows xp sp 3.I want to configure sendmail option to smtp.gmail.com.please tell me the way to get alerts as mails.will be a great favour

  103. Tharindu Says:

    I got hold of the way to send mails from msmtp.but dont know the way to connect it to smokeping

  104. Tharindu Says:

    also by the way i also tried disabling pop3 in gmail and to use it through sendmail but it ddnt work either.If you have any alternative suggestions please let me know(Something other than smtp.gmail.com)

  105. Phil Says:

    is there some tech support for smokeping on windows above version 2.2.4 ?? i'd like to use addition features. like filter, hierachies and smoketrace…

    cya

    phil

  106. Paul Fletcher Says:

    Hi guys,

    Great article, easy to follow if you have Wamp… But like many others here I have to use the MS toolset, so I am stuck with IIS. I can make smokeping work, but none of the webside – regardless of what the hell I do.

    If anyone who has got this working would like to enlighten me/us, please do!!

    Cheers,

    Fletch

  107. Pierre Says:

    I have a problem.

    the website is OK, all graphes are displayed. But with no value.

    in apache error.log I've the message

    Argument '-1.#IND00e+000' isn't numeric in numeric le (<=) at C:/smokeping/lib/Smokeping.pm line 666., referer: http://localhost/cgi-bin/smokeping.pl?target=

  108. Cuba Says:

    Hi guys,
    At first I thought it is impossible to run smokeping on win32 platform. My former installations were small Debian servers with its apt-get install wonder ;-)
    But our customer has very strict policy – in short: win only. No exceptions. Reading through your manual I was able to run smokeping in one hour! Great work, thank you very much! :-)

  109. david Says:

    i have a problem that says:
    C:C:smokeping-2.0.8binsmokeping.pl
    Error: C:/smokeping-2.0.8/etc/config.dist, line 26: unknown variable 'template'

    I have foolowed everything on the steps above. what should i do?
    plz help me immediately.
    david

  110. david Says:

    please let any body help me with the problem below
    unknown variable 'template'
    thanks
    david

    code file is here-below
    # Note that all IP addresses in this file are false, to prevent some
    # machine falling under a deadly DOS storm because all users keep
    # the same addresses in their config.

    *** General ***

    owner = dbowner
    contact = daud@mail.com
    mailhost =thismail.mailserver.com
    #sendmail = /usr/lib/sendmail < Comment this line
    imgcache = C:/wamp/www/simg
    imgurl = ../simg
    datadir = smokeping-2.0.8/var # designate implicitly c:smokeping-2.0.8var
    piddir = C:/smokeping-2.0.8/var
    cgiurl = http://127.0.0.1/cgi-bin/smokeping.pl
    smokemail = C:/smokeping-2.0.8/etc/smokemail.dist
    tmail = C:/smokeping-2.0.8/etc/tmail.dist

    # syslogfacility = local0 < = Comment this line!!!!

    *** Alerts ***
    to = jcob@mail.com
    from =smokeping@localhost.local

    template = C:/smokeping-2.0.8/etc/basepage.html.dist

    + FPing
    binary = C:/smokeping-2.0.8/fping/fping.exe

    title =google
    remark = host

    google is for demonstrational purpose only; please refer to smokeping help to set your own targets

    + Google

    menu = Google
    title =Google Connectivity
    alerts = bigloss,someloss,startloss
    host = google.fr

  111. webster Says:

    When I try to run smokeping.pl from the cmd line, I get a message about the fping binary not supporting source address setting, and then the HTML code for the resulting webpage. I don't get a simple screen like the one shown in step 7 'Testing' on the other provided page. When I try to view the actual device on the page, I get a bunch of messages about not being able to locate the rrd file/directory. If I manually create the file/directory I get errors about the Cookies for the RRD not being correct. I assume this issue is due to the initial issue with running smokeping.pl. Can you offer any insight as to why it would do this? Thanks

  112. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    david,
    it should be smokeping 2.2.4 when you're usig the autoinstaller to install it… 2.0.8 was the manual way which isn't supported anymore, please try again with the autoinstaller.

  113. Kevin DEHLINGER Says:

    webster,
    could you please provide your config.dist file?

  114. webster Says:

    Below are the two part of the config.dist file that were changed. Middle portion wasn't touched from install. Names and addresses changed to protect the innocent.


    *** General ***

    owner = administrator
    contact = webster@here.com
    mailhost = 10.0.0.0
    #sendmail = /usr/lib/sendmail
    imgcache = c:/Inetpub/wwwroot/simg
    imgurl = ../simg
    datadir = C:/smokeping-2.2.4/var
    piddir = C:/smokeping-2.2.4/var
    cgiurl = http://127.0.0.1/cgi/smokeping.pl
    smokemail = C:/smokeping-2.2.4/etc/smokemail.dist
    tmail = C:/smokeping-2.2.4/etc/tmail.dist
    # specify this to get syslog logging
    #syslogfacility = local0
    # each probe is now run in its own process
    # disable this to revert to the old behaviour
    # concurrentprobes = no

    *** Alerts ***
    to = webster@here.com
    from = smokeping@here.com

    Middle part is as provided by downloaded install


    *** Targets ***

    probe = FPing

    menu = Top
    title = Company US
    remark = Latency testing

    + Location
    menu= Location

    ++ Server1

    host = 10.0.0.1

  115. webster Says:

    Well, I feel foolish. Having multiple perl scripts with the same name was throwing me for a loop. Launching the smokeping.pl located in the bin folder worked like a charm. I had been launching the smokeping.pl located in the wwwpub folder. Had a facepalm moment when looking over the directions for the 30th time.

  116. DC Says:

    Hey all,

    I downloaded ActivePerl-5.8.8.824-MSWin32-x86-287188.msi and WampServer2.0h.exe

    I installed Active Perl, and Wamp.

    I changed the following in C:wampbinapacheApache2.2.11confhttp.conf

    – changed 'cgi-bin' to 'c:/wamp/cgi/' (and created that directory
    – changed to
    – created simg folder in c:wampwww

    I restarted apache.

    I then double clicked on 'install n patch.pl' and a black dos window popped up for a second and then dissapeared. It made a –smokeping224– sub-directory but that's about it. Nothing else was done.

    Out of interest, I tried running 'install n patch.pl' using a dos prompt ie perl install n patch.pl and it says can't open perl script xxxxx: invalid argument

    Any suggestions on what I've done wrong or am missing?

    Thanks!!!

  117. DC Says:

    Not sure what happened in post above, but the dash points should read:

    – changed 'cgi-bin' to 'c:/wamp/cgi/' (and created that directory
    – changed to to
    – created simg folder in c:wampwww

    Thanks

  118. DC Says:

    hmm it seems to be cutting the second point, pretty much i did what it mentions at the top of the blog (the second change to http.conf)

  119. DC Says:

    Well I tried a few things – and it seems to be working now.

    1) Downgraded to ActivePerl-5.8.8.822
    2) Restarted the server
    3) I noticed that the wamp was 'offline', so I did 'start all services' and then 'Put online'

    After doing the above (not sure which helped or not!), I ran the 'install n patch.pl' again and this time it went through the install process.
    Set up some targets and am now in the process of capturing some data…

  120. brian Says:

    Great post. It was a snap to install smokeping on my windows box and get things up and running.

    I only had one question – fping on windows only seems to give ping times in millisecond resolution. It does not seem to provide resolution at the microsecond (or rather 1/10 ms) scale. Is there any fix for this? I would very much like to have ping time resolution < 1 ms as some of our connectivity have very low latency and therefore 1ms is not enough granularity.

  121. Dan Says:

    Hi

    I'm struggeling a bit with running the script. It just quits after i've entered alerts: Sender email, and nothing is beeing copyed into C:smokeping-2.2.4. What am i doing wrong? I've installed wamp and ActivePerl-5.8.8.822. Have tryed several perl versions with the same result :( If i remove perl and reinstall it again i get a bit further. The script then installs rrd's and then stops. Any suggestions?

  122. Nasser Says:

    I've installed it on Windows 7 and everything seemed OK until I tried to actually test fping out and found out that it didn't work.

    I've turned on Windows XP compatibility for fping and it runs but in a different process so the output isn't actually captured by smokeping. Is there any solution for this?

  123. Shravya Says:

    Hey,

    I am new to this.
    I am running smokeping with IIS.
    I am having lot of trouble…
    Could you tell me if any specific changes are required in the script for IIS?
    I would really be grateful if you could help me with this..

    Thanks!

  124. Shravya Says:

    Hey,

    I have successfully run this in command prompt but
    have not been able to run it on the browser…
    When I enter the path http://127.0.0.1/cgi/smokeping.pl
    the perl command runs and then disappears but nothing appears on the browser…
    I am using IIS as the server…

    Please help me with this.
    Would appreciate an answer as soon as possible….

    Thanks~

  125. Paps Says:

    i get this error….

    C:Dokumente und EinstellungenUserX>C:smokeping-2.2.4binsmokeping.pl
    Can't locate Smokeping.pm in @INC (@INC contains: lib ../lib C:/Perl/lib C:/Perl
    /site/lib .) at C:smokeping-2.2.4binsmokeping.pl line 7.
    BEGIN failed–compilation aborted at C:smokeping-2.2.4binsmokeping.pl line 7.

  126. Paps Says:

    It works !!!
    OMG i love u so much Kev !!

    btw, the first post from Joksi fixed my problem !!

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