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Introduction

This document will describe how to install NMIS8 (Version 8.5.6G and newer) on GNU/Linux systems.

Caveats

NMIS8 has been widely deployed and tested on many Linux distros, with Red Hat/CentOS being the most popular. This document contains variations specific to several Linux distros, but not all of them have been tested equally heavily: Centos 6, Debian 7, Ubuntu 12 and 14 are our main platforms for in-house testing.
We appreciate your feedback and any modifications or changes that you might submit to support@opmantek.com.

Assumptions

The reader is assumed to have a working knowledge of UNIX or GNU/Linux systems, how to compile software, and what Perl is. While NMIS is written in Perl, you do not need to be a "Perl hacker" to install this program and make it work.

Also, this document will use the <nmisdir> tag to refer to NMIS's installation directory. The default location is /usr/local/nmis8.

The Installation Process

Linux Distribution

First, install your GNU/Linux distribution. It is recommended to select a basic installation type with no extra stuff. That means no GNOME, KDE, "Server" packages, or anything else.

Linux Security Settings

If you're running CentOS or any other Red Hat-derived distribution, be sure that SELinux is turned off. Permissive mode was tested and it worked well, just very nagging. So disabling SELinux is a lot easier that way.

NMIS8 Installation

And speaking of NMIS, if you haven't already downloaded it, the latest version (v8.5.6G at time of this writing) is available at http://opmantek.com/.

Download the NMIS distribution archive (a compressed tar file), save it in a convenient place on the machine in question (/tmp or root's home directory are common choices), then unpack the NMIS distribution:

 

sudo bash # or use su to gain superuser privileges
tar -xvzf nmis8.5.6g.tar.gz
The unpacking of the tarball in the previous step has created a directory called nmis8.5.6g that contains the installer and all of NMIS' other files.
Since version 8.5.6G the installer takes care of all necessary operations on the supported platforms: all pre-requisite software is installed and configured, an existing NMIS installation is upgraded in place and basic integration of NMIS with the operating system is performed on your behalf as well. The installer does require Internet access for installing pre-requisites using apt-get, yum or CPAN.
As of 8.5.6G using the installer is the only supported method for installing or upgrading NMIS, simply because the installer is now quite mature and robust, and because it's very very easy to miss crucial operations in a totally manual installation (but feel free to read the installer source, it's pretty straightforward to figure out what it does, why and how).
The installer is interactive and will commonly request your confirmation for any critical operations it needs to perform; if you don't consent to it making some particular change it will likely show you a message about the consequences of not performing that operation and ask you to confirm that you've read that before continuing the installation.
To use the installer, simply cd into the directory containing the unpacked NMIS source and run the installer script install.pl as root:

 

sudo bash # if you're not the superuser yet/anymore
cd nmis8.5.6g
./install.pl
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NMIS Installation Script
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Checking Perl version...
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The version of Perl installed on your server is v5.14.2 and OK
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Checking Dependencies...
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
...lots more....

The installer has a very few command line options, which it displays to you when you run it as ./install.pl -h:

  • site=<somedirectory> instructs it to install NMIS into a non-standard directory. Default is /usr/local/nmis8.
  • listdeps=true instructs it to NOT install NMIS at all, but to only perform the dependency resolution and check and install any prerequisites.

The installer creates a log of all the operations that it performs, which is saved in the main NMIS installation directory as install.log. Subsequent NMIS upgrades add extra information to that log file, but the installer always starts its work with an initial log message that indicates when an installation/upgrade was performed.

 

And that's really all there is to it! When the installer finishes NMIS should be fully installed and working.

Initial NMIS Test

When the installer has completed its work you should be set to start using NMIS. As an initial check of NMIS you should likely try the command line tool nmis.pl and then the NMIS web GUI:

cd /usr/local/nmis8/
sudo ./bin/nmis.pl type=audit

This command will do a quick check of directory and file existence as well as ownership and permissions; if all is well it will not print anything whatsoever.

Now, fire up your favourite Web browser and surf to your server. The primary url for NMIS is http://<yourhostname-or-ip>/nmis8/, and that page shows both a link to the  NMIS dashboard and the  online NMIS documentation.

Check the NMIS Dashboard. After authenting you should see the dashboard in all its glory, likely overlapped by the "Basic Setup" helper panel if this is an NMIS installation from scratch.

 

If you can't access the NMIS web site check that there is no firewall keeping you from accessing your NMIS system (NMIS needs access to TCP port 80), that the apache web server on your NMIS server is running, and that there is no SELinux throwing a spanner in the works.
You may need  to check iptables -L on your NMIS server, as well as /etc/selinux/config and the exit code of selinuxenabled.

SNMPD, Net-SNMP and collecting stats of the NMIS server itself

 

NMIS8 ships with one default node configured for collection, primarily to prove it is all working. This node is called localhost and NMIS will collect statistics from your NMIS server using SNMP - if an SNMP agent is available, or just Ping statistics if not.

However, the installer does not automatically configure this local Net-SNMP daemon; if you would like to collect the NMIS server's statistics follow the instructions below - otherwise you're done with the installation.

You will likely want to consult and use the example configuration for Net-SNMP's snmpd, which ships with NMIS in the file <nmisdir>/install/snmpd.conf.

Because the installer has installed Net-SNMP for you already, you only need to backup its default config and move in the NMIS example one. You should very much modify this config to secure the SNMP read access according to your organisation's security policy!

 

cd /usr/local/nmis8
mv /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf.orig
mv /etc/snmp/snmptrapd.conf /etc/snmp/snmptrapd.conf.orig
cp install/snmpd.conf /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf
cp install/snmptrapd.conf /etc/snmp
cp install/snmptrapd.options /etc/sysconfig/snmptrapd # for CentOS/Red Hat only

Debian/Ubuntu

 The last command in the list above will fail as there is no /etc/sysconfig directory on this platform.  Instead the snmptrap service is started by the snmpd service, and is enabled by updating the file /etc/default/snmpd:

TRAPDRUN=yes

 

Auto Start SNMP Daemons

Ensure that you tell Linux to start SNMPD automatically

 

/sbin/chkconfig snmpd on
/sbin/chkconfig snmptrapd on

Debian/Ubuntu

 

sysv-rc-conf snmpd on
service snmpd start  

 

Run a Test Update

Once your local snmpd is running, you can run a test update operation:

 

sudo /usr/local/nmis8/bin/nmis.pl type=update node=localhost info=true

 

The output will look similar to this example:

 

Copyright (C) Opmantek Limited (www.opmantek.com)
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY;
This is free software licensed under GNU GPL, and you are welcome to
redistribute it under certain conditions; see www.opmantek.com or email
contact@opmantek.com

NMIS version 8.5.6G

14:42:47 runPing, INFO (localhost) PING min/avg/max = /0.01/ ms loss=0%
14:42:47 runPing, Finished with exit=1, nodedown=false
14:42:47 getNodeInfo, Starting
14:42:47 getNodeInfo, sysObjectId=1.3.6.1.4.1.8072.3.2.10, sysObjectName=_linux
...
14:42:47 Number of Data Points: 17, Sum of Bytes: 136, RRDs updated: 1, Nodes with Updates: 1
14:42:47 End of nmis-Config-update-localhost Processed 1 nodes ran for 1 seconds.

As the installer has already installed the default NMIS cron schedule NMIS will poll and collect all known nodes every 5 minutes. You can now either run a test collect or sit back and wait for NMIS to do the next one automatically:

 

sudo /usr/local/nmis8/bin/nmis.pl type=collect info=true

After that collect operation has concluded you should see the newest data for your NMIS server on the NMIS dashboard.

 

Historical Manual Installation Instructions

The old manual installation instructions are available for your perusal on this page. Please note that these instructions are no longer updated and will definitely diverge more or less from current best practice! (which is to let the installer handle the installation intricacies on your behalf)

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