Having installed the web interface and finding that the page shows up blank I searched this forum and found only one other post where the user experienced the same issue. The response was a reiteration of the instructions to install the interface. Unfortunately the original poster did not re-post his solution.
So here I am asking for help.
This is installed on Ubuntu 12.04LTS
I am not a linux expert by any stretch. So be gentle... :-)
I have followed the set of instructions found below:
Installing:
- Install netdb-cgi.conf in /etc and configure the options for your site.
- Make sure the netdb.conf and netdb-cgi.conf files are readable by www-data
- Create netdbReport.csv in /var/www/ and make it owned by the webserver user (www-data)
- Copy or link the depends directory from netdb/extra/depends/ to the root location on
your web server (eg /var/www/depends).
- Copy the netdb.cgi.pl file to your cgi-bin directory and rename to netdb.pl
- Use the netdb-template.html file as the basis for your own website, relies on
and netdb.css primarily
So let's start with my questions:
- Install netdb-cgi.conf in /etc and configure the options for your site.
I did this but I am a little confused by what some of the settings should be.
The only items I changed were the ownerEmail, everything else I left with the settings found in the file, as I installed everything (apache, mySQL, etc) with defaults I am assuming the defaults settings in this file will suffice.
Make sure the netdb.conf and netdb-cgi.conf files are readable by www-data
These two files are in the /etc/ folder and when I look at the permissions, they are owned by root, and all others have read permission.
Create netdbReport.csv in /var/www/ and make it owned by the webserver user (www-data)
Did this, it is owned by www-root and the group is root
Copy or link the depends directory from netdb/extra/depends/ to the root location on your web server (eg /var/www/depends).
I copied the contents of the netdb/extra/depends folder to the /var/www folder so all the files are in the root of the web.
Copy the netdb.cgi.pl file to your cgi-bin directory and rename to netdb.pl
I copied and renamed the file as instructed to /usr/lib/cgi-bin folder. The file has root as owner and group with others having read only permissions.
Use the netdb-template.html file as the basis for your own website, relies on
and netdb.css primarily
Not sure what to do here. I was assuming this file was ready to go and would display something out of the box. Am I supposed to add anything to this file to make it show something? If so maybe someone can post an example.
I have run sudo netdb -i 192.168.42.242 and it returns a "No records found in 7 days" so I am assuming the program is up and running it just hasn't done anything yet.
So after many hours of running through the instructions, double checking, triple checking etc, I still can't get the web interface to work.
Hopefully with the amount of detail I put here someone can guide me to a solution. Please remember I am new to linux, and what seems obvious to you doesn't to me...
Last edit: Scott 2013-11-21
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
That should show something or throw an error. If nothing comes up check the contents of /var/log/apache2/error.log.
Also it looks like you've not tried to populate the database so far so there's no data to search on, but the web page should pop right up at that URL or at least error out and tell you what the problem is. There is no index.html or default webpage at the root of the web server so you have to go to the CGI script directly with that URL. On the VM edition, I made an index.html in /var/www/ that redirects to the /cgi-bin/netdb.pl.
While you've already done a ton of work, consider the VMWare revision of 12.04 LTS I have on the site if you're still having trouble. It is all configured and working with MRTG graphs and everything, all you have to do is boot it and edit the /etc/netdb.conf.
I'll be around tomorrow if you run in to anymore problems, good luck.
Jonathan
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
That was more than likely the issue as I was not using that url. Unfortunately I decided to install OpsView on the same server so going to that url brings up OpsView. I am guessing they cannot co-exist?
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I'm not actually familiar with opsview but it sounds like it's doing a redirect and overriding the cgi script. NetDB uses a simple cgi script in cgi-bin, so if opsview messed with the cgi directory then that would cause a problem. You could run another instance of Apache2 on another port that points to cgi-bin, but at this point I couldn't be sure what opsview has done to your web server. I would inquire from that project if the web server can co-exist with existing cgi-bin scripts or if it takes over the web server completely.
Good luck,
Jonathan
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Having installed the web interface and finding that the page shows up blank I searched this forum and found only one other post where the user experienced the same issue. The response was a reiteration of the instructions to install the interface. Unfortunately the original poster did not re-post his solution.
So here I am asking for help.
This is installed on Ubuntu 12.04LTS
I am not a linux expert by any stretch. So be gentle... :-)
I have followed the set of instructions found below:
Installing:
- Install netdb-cgi.conf in /etc and configure the options for your site.
- Make sure the netdb.conf and netdb-cgi.conf files are readable by www-data
- Create netdbReport.csv in /var/www/ and make it owned by the webserver user (www-data)
- Copy or link the depends directory from netdb/extra/depends/ to the root location on
your web server (eg /var/www/depends).
- Copy the netdb.cgi.pl file to your cgi-bin directory and rename to netdb.pl
- Use the netdb-template.html file as the basis for your own website, relies on
and netdb.css primarily
So let's start with my questions:
- Install netdb-cgi.conf in /etc and configure the options for your site.
I did this but I am a little confused by what some of the settings should be.
The only items I changed were the ownerEmail, everything else I left with the settings found in the file, as I installed everything (apache, mySQL, etc) with defaults I am assuming the defaults settings in this file will suffice.
Make sure the netdb.conf and netdb-cgi.conf files are readable by www-data
These two files are in the /etc/ folder and when I look at the permissions, they are owned by root, and all others have read permission.
Create netdbReport.csv in /var/www/ and make it owned by the webserver user (www-data)
Did this, it is owned by www-root and the group is root
Copy or link the depends directory from netdb/extra/depends/ to the root location on your web server (eg /var/www/depends).
I copied the contents of the netdb/extra/depends folder to the /var/www folder so all the files are in the root of the web.
Copy the netdb.cgi.pl file to your cgi-bin directory and rename to netdb.pl
I copied and renamed the file as instructed to /usr/lib/cgi-bin folder. The file has root as owner and group with others having read only permissions.
Use the netdb-template.html file as the basis for your own website, relies on
and netdb.css primarily
Not sure what to do here. I was assuming this file was ready to go and would display something out of the box. Am I supposed to add anything to this file to make it show something? If so maybe someone can post an example.
I have run sudo netdb -i 192.168.42.242 and it returns a "No records found in 7 days" so I am assuming the program is up and running it just hasn't done anything yet.
So after many hours of running through the instructions, double checking, triple checking etc, I still can't get the web interface to work.
Hopefully with the amount of detail I put here someone can guide me to a solution. Please remember I am new to linux, and what seems obvious to you doesn't to me...
Last edit: Scott 2013-11-21
Hey, sorry about all the trouble but it sounds like you've mostly done everything correctly so far. Have you gone to this URL?
http://yourwebserver/cgi-bin/netdb.pl
That should show something or throw an error. If nothing comes up check the contents of /var/log/apache2/error.log.
Also it looks like you've not tried to populate the database so far so there's no data to search on, but the web page should pop right up at that URL or at least error out and tell you what the problem is. There is no index.html or default webpage at the root of the web server so you have to go to the CGI script directly with that URL. On the VM edition, I made an index.html in /var/www/ that redirects to the /cgi-bin/netdb.pl.
While you've already done a ton of work, consider the VMWare revision of 12.04 LTS I have on the site if you're still having trouble. It is all configured and working with MRTG graphs and everything, all you have to do is boot it and edit the /etc/netdb.conf.
I'll be around tomorrow if you run in to anymore problems, good luck.
Jonathan
That was more than likely the issue as I was not using that url. Unfortunately I decided to install OpsView on the same server so going to that url brings up OpsView. I am guessing they cannot co-exist?
Scott,
I'm not actually familiar with opsview but it sounds like it's doing a redirect and overriding the cgi script. NetDB uses a simple cgi script in cgi-bin, so if opsview messed with the cgi directory then that would cause a problem. You could run another instance of Apache2 on another port that points to cgi-bin, but at this point I couldn't be sure what opsview has done to your web server. I would inquire from that project if the web server can co-exist with existing cgi-bin scripts or if it takes over the web server completely.
Good luck,
Jonathan
Thanks Jonathan, I am going to setup another box and try this again. I don't mind as I need the experience... Besides I still have hair left. :-)