How to install LibreNMS in Ubuntu Linux?

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LibreNMS is a free and open-source fully featured auto discovering network monitoring tool that is based on PHP, MySQL and uses SNMP protocol. It supports various hardware such as Cisco, Juniper, Foundry, and operating systems including Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, etc.

In this article, I will discuss how to install LibreNMS in Ubuntu Linux.

Prerequisites

You should have access to a user account that has sudo privileges.

How to install LibreNMS in Ubuntu

For running LibreNMS we require a database server, PHP, and a web server. Follow the given steps to install all the required packages and LibreNMS on your system.

Installing web server

We will use Nginx as a web server so if you are installing Nginx on your system you should not have another web server installed.

First, run the given command to make sure the apt repository is updated –

sudo apt update

Now if you have apache installed simply remove it by using –

sudo apt -y remove apache2

Use the following command to install Nginx –

sudo apt -y install nginx

Once the package gets installed use the following command to start and enable Nginx services –

sudo systemctl start nginx
sudo systemctl enable nginx

Make sure Nginx services are active and running –

sudo systemctl status nginx

nginx service status

Installing PHP

Next, we need to install Php on our system you can use the following command to install PHP and other required packages-

sudo apt -y install wget php php-{pear,cgi,common,curl,mbstring,gd,mysql,bcmath,imap,json,xml,snmp,fpm,zip}

You can verify the installation of PHP by using the given command –

php -v

php version

Configure PHP-FPM

Use the following command to edit both php.ini files –

sudo nano /etc/php/*/fpm/php.ini
sudo nano /etc/php/*/cli/php.ini

In the Date section set your own time zone.

set time zone

Save both the files and restart PHP-FPM services –

sudo systemctl restart php*-fpm.service

Installing and configuring database server

We will use MariaDB as our database server. Use the following command to install it on your system –

sudo apt install mariadb-server

Press y and then enter if it asks for your confirmation.

LibreNMS is not fully compatible with MYSQL strict mode so disable it for now –

sudo nano /etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-server.cnf

In mysqld section add the given lines –

[mysqld]
innodb_file_per_table=1
sql-mode=""
lower_case_table_names=0

Save this file and exit.

Now restart the MariaDB services –

sudo systemctl restart mariadb

Once the database server is set up, create a database for LibreNMS.

First, use the following command to log in to the MariaDB server –

sudo mysql -u root

Next, create a database for LibreNMS by using the given query-

CREATE DATABASE librenms CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;

Use the given query to create a user –

CREATE USER 'librenms'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'StrongPassword';

Grant all the privileges to the user on the created database –

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON librenms.* TO 'librenms'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit

Installing LibreNMS

In this section, we will download and install LibreNMS on our system. First, use the given command to install git if it is not installed already –

sudo apt install git -y

LibreNMS will run under its own user called librenms so use the following command to add a new user –

sudo useradd -r -M -d /opt/librenms librenms
getent passwd librenms

Add the created user to the group www-data –

sudo usermod -a -G librenms www-data

Use the following command to install some prerequisite packages to your system –

sudo apt install rrdtool whois fping imagemagick graphviz  mtr-tiny nmap python3 python3-pip python3-mysqldb snmp snmpd python3-memcache mtr-tiny composer acl unzip python3-pymysql python3-dotenv python3-redis python3-setuptools python3-systemd -y

Clone LibreNMS from GitHub –

git clone https://github.com/librenms/librenms.git librenms

Move the downloaded folder librenms to /opt –

sudo mv librenms/ /opt/

Configure snmpd

Next, configure snmpd –

sudo cp /opt/librenms/snmpd.conf.example /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf
sudo nano /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf

Add the following string to your own community –

com2sec readonly default LibreStr0ngSecret

Next download the distro –

curl -o distro https://raw.githubusercontent.com/librenms/librenms-agent/master/snmp/distro
chmod +x distro
sudo mv distro /usr/bin/distro

Restart snmpd –

sudo systemctl restart snmpd

Configure PHP-FPM

Copy default PHP-FPM www.conf file by using –

sudo cp /etc/php/*/fpm/pool.d/www.conf /etc/php/*/fpm/pool.d/librenms.conf

Now open and edit librenms.conf file by using –

sudo nano /etc/php/*/fpm/pool.d/librenms.conf

Change [www] to [librenms]:

Change user and group to librenms –

user = librenms
group = librenms

Change listen to a unique name –

listen = /run/php-fpm-librenms.sock

Create LibreNMS cron job

Create the cron job by using the given command –

sudo cp /opt/librenms/librenms.nonroot.cron /etc/cron.d/librenms

Copy logrotate configuration

Use the following command to rotate the old logs of directory /opt/librenms/logs –

sudo cp /opt/librenms/misc/librenms.logrotate /etc/logrotate.d/librenms

Provide the required permissions –

sudo chown -R librenms:librenms /opt/librenms
sudo setfacl -d -m g::rwx /opt/librenms/rrd /opt/librenms/logs /opt/librenms/bootstrap/cache/ /opt/librenms/storage/
sudo setfacl -R -m g::rwx /opt/librenms/rrd /opt/librenms/logs /opt/librenms/bootstrap/cache/ /opt/librenms/storage/

Run composer install –

sudo su - librenms
./scripts/composer_wrapper.php install --no-dev
exit

Enable lnms command –

sudo ln -s /opt/librenms/lnms /usr/bin/lnms
sudo cp /opt/librenms/misc/lnms-completion.bash /etc/bash_completion.d/

Configure Nginx

Now create the VirtualHost definition for Nginx to be used by LibreNMS.

sudo nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/librenms.conf

Add the given content to this file –

server {
 listen      80;
 server_name librenms.example.com;
 root        /opt/librenms/html;
 index       index.php;

 charset utf-8;
 gzip on;
 gzip_types text/css application/javascript text/javascript application/x-javascript image/svg+xml text/plain text/xsd text/xsl text/xml image/x-icon;
 location / {
  try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
 }
 location ~ [^/]\.php(/|$) {
  fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php-fpm-librenms.sock;
  fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
  include fastcgi.conf;
 }
 location ~ /\.(?!well-known).* {
  deny all;
 }
}

Check the syntax by using –

sudo nginx -t

Finally restart the Nginx –

sudo rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
sudo systemctl restart nginx

Restart PHP-FPM services –

sudo systemctl restart php7.4-fpm.service

Access LibreNMS Web interface

Open a browser and enter the given URL –

http://server_ip

For example –

http://librenms.example.com/install.php

First, confirm that preinstall check is successful –

librenms

Next, enter your database credentials i.e. user name, password, and database name, and click on the Check Credentials button.

librenms db

Once the database credential check is successful click on Build Database.

On the next screen, enter create a new user choose a user name, enter the password for it and enter your email finally click on Add User.

libreNMS

Next click on validate your install to fix any issue and finish the installation.

librenms

Finally, you can log in to LibreNMS by entering the username and password that you have created –

librenms

For more information on the usage of LibreNMS, you can visit its official website.

Conclusion

Ok, so we hope you have set up LibreNMS successfully on your Ubuntu system. Now for any query you can write us in the comments below.

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