Smokeping RRDCacheD on Debian 13

smokeping-rrdcached-debian13.md

Smokeping RRDCacheD on Debian 13

Probably not secure - but it's a start

This assumes smokeping is already installed and running. If not apt install smokeping will be a good starting point.

1. Add the service config below to the systemd smokeping override file: systemctl edit smokeping

   [Service]
   Environment="RRDCACHED_ADDRESS=unix:/var/run/rrdcached.sock"
   

2. Tell systemd to use the overlay file: systemctl daemon-reload

3. Install rrdcached and stop it:

   apt install rrdcached
   systemctl stop rrdcached
   

4. Edit /etc/default/rrdcached file for rrdcached so it runs as smokeping (instead of root):

   1. nano /etc/default/rrdcached
   2. Set the following:

      SOCKGROUP=smokeping
      DAEMON_GROUP=smokeping
      DAEMON_USER=smokeping
      BASE_PATH=/var/lib/smokeping
      

5. Set permissions so rrdcached can still access it's files as smokeping user and remove stale PID and socket:

   chown -R smokeping:smokeping /var/lib/rrdcached
   rm /var/run/rrdcached.*
   

6. Start rrdcached and confirm it is happy:

   systemctl start rrdcached
   systemctl status rrdcached
   

   Check the process is running as smokeping user and group as well as has -b /var/lib/smokeping (you should be able to see this in systemctl's output).

7. Restart smokeping and confirm it is happy:

   systemctl restart smokeping
   systemctl status smokeping
   

8. Use nc to confirm rrdcached is getting records from smokeping (you should see UpdatesReceived increasing).

   1. Connect with nc -U /var/run/rrdcached.sock
   2. Type the following commands to get info: STATS, QUEUE

      STATS
      9 Statistics follow
      QueueLength: 0
      UpdatesReceived: 99
      FlushesReceived: 10
      UpdatesWritten: 15
      DataSetsWritten: 80
      TreeNodesNumber: 5
      TreeDepth: 3
      JournalBytes: 44354
      JournalRotate: 0
      QUEUE
      0 in queue.
      

   3. When done type QUIT

9. Check your graphs in smokeping. They should start getting updates (assuming you have some working targets).