Playing around with MRTG, I felt that creating and maintaining CFG files was a chore, a little time consuming and prone to errors. I have been searching for tools to help out, but did not find any that I liked, at least for the Windows platform.
I decided to write something to make my life easier.
For this program I used Visual Basic. You are invited to try it out, see if it is useful.
You can download the program installer (NEEDED FOR FIRST TIME INSTALLATION) or just the executable cfgCreator.exe here.
(Please note that if you have a version earlier than 1.0.4 you should use the installer, since a DLL has been updated!)
If you are downloading this more than once, I would suggest that you always re-Create the template, unless you have made modifications to it. Also, by looking at it, you'll see what keywords I use. Also look at the index.hdr and index.ftr files, which will allow you to modify the look of the index page. I will eventually include in the program a way to look at the list of keywords used.
Version history :
1.0.5
(April 6, 2006) :
- Fixed a
little bug. Creating a cfg file from any two OIDs from the SNMP walker
was throwing an error in particular situations.
1.0.4
(Mars 27, 2006) :
- Fixed
a little issue. After using the SNMP walker, the Interface Counters would
not give the right info and had to be retried.
- Added support
for SNMP ports other than 161. (Since I do not have access to devices
running on other ports, please let me know if this works. Thx.)
1.0.3
(Jan. 20, 2006) :
- Added
a search button when browsing the SNMP tree. It will appear when data
is retrieved.
- Added
the date to the version number in this document.
1.0.2
:
- Fixed
issue where If you were using an Operating System in a language other
than English, then you may have had problems opening the program if the
cfgCreator.INI file exists. This was due to the fact that the value of
the option buttons were saved with the words True and False in the native
language of the OS, but when reading the INI file, the english words were
expected.
1.0.1
:
- Cosmetic
fix. The Settings tab layout was a little messed up.
- Bug
alert! The tracking by anything else than ifIndex does not create correct
CFG files. Working on it. Thanks to Gene Black for pointing it out.
1.0.0
:
- A
few changes, but I decided to bump the version up to 1.0 since it has
been a while that the program has been out and have not received a bug
alert in quite a while. I do welcome your suggestions....
- Added
the capability to set the default interface tracking. Normally it's the
ifIndex that is used, but some people prefer the IP address.
- You can
now change (and save) the ifSpeed for the interface, in addition to the
ifDescription. This is useful where the device does not provide the speed
of the interface (IBM, Rebel, etc.).
0.9.1
:
- Small
modification. If there are no checks at all on either Unscaled, WithPeaks
or Suppress checkboxes, MRTG chokes if the lines are there with no parameters.
Now, it automatically REMs it out if such is the case.
0.9.0
:
- Although
not really a lot of changes, but I decided to bump the version number
up a notch. I should have done it before.
- Increased
the array space for switches with large number of ports.
- When creating
the index page, it adds a sort of index table at the beginning. Useful
when you have a fair amount of graphs on one page. If you don't want it,
it can easily be removed manually.... ;-)
- The screenshots
page starts to be outdated. I'll try to get around to it...,soon... very
soon...
0.8.5
:
- Fixed a
little bug. The program would crash when changing the interval for the
interface grapher, but hitting cancel instead.
0.8.4
:
- Added an
interface grapher. Right click on the interface. Nothing fancy, just something
to quickly verify that there is indeed traffic on the interface. If you
let it run for too long, let's say > 10000 polls, it may crash. I am
using the MSchart.ocx, which has some limitations....
0.8.3
:
- From the
"SNMP Walker", two OIDs can be selected, then a CFG file created
for those OIDs. Thus, an easy way to create a CFG file for ANY OIDs not
just traffic.
- The program
now "remembers" up to the last 4 saved files that have been
worked on.
0.8.00
:
- Added an
"SNMP Walker". It is not the nicest nor the fastest. Not like
the great GetIf !
At the moment it is not used for much besides walking the SNMP tree, BUT
the idea is that eventually you'll be able to choose from here the OIDs
that you want MRTG to graph and it will create the CFG files. Would that
be interesting ? Let
me know.
- Activated
the options for the interface reference (sometimes you need to refer by
other that ifIndex : i.e. ifType, ifDescr,etc.). Do it from the Edit window.
0.7.52
:
- When
Refreshing Data, the program was crashing if one or more of the devices
would not respond. Fixed.
- Activated
the use of flags like WithPeaks, Unscaled and Suppress. (Don't forget
to re-Create the Template)
0.7.51
:
- Fixed a
little bug causing some counters to display as negative number. It was
not affecting the creation of the config files.
0.7.50
:
- Started
modification history. ;-))
- Updated
SScrRun.dll to 1.4 (This is a great freeware DLL made by Franz Krainer
at http://www.netal.com/ )
-
When adding interfaces to the list, they are automatically checked to
be included in the CFG file creation
- Serious
bug (actually an overlook from my part), the file mrtg.cfg (which is used
as a template) was not automatically created, so the program was completely
broken.
- When getting
the interfaces, it shows the MAC Address
For comments or suggestions you can write to me.
Since writing documentation is not my idea of fun, let's get on with it.
Please note that this is work in progress. This program does not yet allow to automatically set all the option that MRTG has. Furthermore, it has been written specifically to facilitate the creation of CFG files for network traffic, it deals especially with network interfaces. Some limited support for other OIDs.
To keep down
the time to access this page I have removed the screenshots and
placed them here 
.
