Install LibreNMS on Ubuntu 22.04/Ubuntu 20.04

Follow through this tutorial to learn how to install LibreNMS on Ubuntu 22.04/Ubuntu 20.04. LibreNMS is a fully featured MySQL/PHP and SNMP based network monitoring system.

Install LibreNMS on Ubuntu

To install LibreNMS on Ubuntu 22.04/Ubuntu 2.04 proceed as follows;

Create LibreNMS system User Account

To begin with, create non privileged system user account for LibreNMS by executing the command below;

useradd -d /opt/librenms -M -r -s /bin/bash librenms

Run system update;

sudo apt update

Install Required Packages

LibreNMS is requires L[E/A]MP stack. Hence, run the command below to install the Webserver, Nginx, PHP, MariaDB and other required packages. Nginx is the recommended web server to use.

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends nginx-full php nmap mtr-tiny \
php-{cli,curl,fpm,gd,gmp,json,mbstring,mysql,snmp,xml,zip} \
rrdtool snmp snmpd whois unzip python3-pymysql python3-dotenv acl curl \
python3-redis python3-setuptools python3-systemd python3-pip git \
mariadb-server mariadb-client composer fping graphviz imagemagick

Create Database and Database User for LibreNMS

Run the initial security script to remove the test tables, disable remote root login, remove test tables/databases/anonymous users.

mysql_secure_installation

Next, login to MariaDB database and create a database and database user for LibreNMS. The names used here are not standard. Feel free to use any suitable name.

mysql -u root -p -e "create database librenmsdb character set utf8mb4 collate utf8mb4_unicode_ci"

mysql -u root -p -e "create user librenmsuser@localhost identified by 'StronGP@ssw0RD'"

mysql -u root -p -e "grant all on librenmsdb.* to librenmsuser@localhost"

mysql -u root -p -e "flush privileges"

Configure InnoDB to use one tablespace file per InnoDB table and enable the preservation of the lettercase of database and table names;

sed -i.bak -e '/\[mysqld\]/a innodb_file_per_table=1\nlower_case_table_names=0' /etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-server.cnf

Install LibreNMS on Ubuntu

Next, install LibreNMS by cloning its Github repository to home directory, /opt/librenms, defined above for the librenms user;

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

Set ownership, permission and access control lists for the LibreNMS directories and files;

chown -R librenms:librenms /opt/librenms
chmod 771 /opt/librenms

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

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

Install LibreNMS PHP dependencies

As user librenms, install required PHP dependencies;

sudo -Hiu librenms /opt/librenms/scripts/composer_wrapper.php install --no-dev

Set the Database Connection credentials

sudo -Hiu librenms vim /opt/librenms/.env

DB_HOST=localhost
DB_DATABASE=librenmsdb
DB_USERNAME=librenmsuser
DB_PASSWORD=StronGP@ssw0RD

Update System and PHP timezone;

Ensure that you update your system and PHP timezone accordingly.

timedatectl set-timezone America/Santiago

grep -irl ';date.timezone =' /etc/php/ | xargs -I {} sed -i.bak 's/;date.timezone =/date.timezone = America\/Santiago/' {}

Configure LibreNMS SNMPD

Copy the default SNMP configuration file;

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

Edit the SNMPD and update the community string.

vim /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf

Replace the RANDOMSTRINGGOESHERE with your string.

Save and exit the file

Next, download and install system distribution detection script;

curl -o /usr/bin/distro https://raw.githubusercontent.com/librenms/librenms-agent/master/snmp/distro

Make the script executable;

chmod +x /usr/bin/distro

Start and enable SNMPD services;

systemctl enable --now snmpd

Install LibreNMS Cron Job

Copy the default cron job in place;

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

Enable Cron jobs log rotation;

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

Create global LibreNMS shortcuts;

ln -s /opt/librenms/lnms /usr/local/bin/lnms

Enable LibreNMS bash completion;

cp /opt/librenms/misc/lnms-completion.bash /etc/bash_completion.d/

Import LibreNMS database schema into the database.

su - librenms

./lnms migrate

Create LibreNMS Nginx Site configuration file

Remove the default Nginx site configuration.

rm -rf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Next, run the commands below to install LibreNMS Nginx site configuration. Be sure to replace the PHP-FPM socket path accordingly.

On Ubuntu 20.04;


cat > /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/librenms << 'EOL'
server {
 listen      80;
 server_name librenms.kifarunix-demo.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(/|$) {
  fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
  fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
  include fastcgi.conf;
  fastcgi_read_timeout 240;
 }
 location ~ /\.(?!well-known).* {
  deny all;
 }
}
EOL

On Ubuntu 22.04;


cat > /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/librenms << 'EOL'
server {
 listen      80;
 server_name librenms.kifarunix-demo.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(/|$) {
  fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock;
  fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
  include fastcgi.conf;
  fastcgi_read_timeout 240;
 }
 location ~ /\.(?!well-known).* {
  deny all;
 }
}
EOL

Change Nginx web user from www-data to librenms user;

sed -i.bak 's/www-data/librenms/' /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Change the PHP FPM user from www-data to librenms user created above.

sed -i.bak 's/www-data/librenms/g' /etc/php/*/fpm/pool.d/www.conf

Restart Nginx and PHP-FPM services

Verify Nginx for any syntax;

nginx -t

Sample output if no errors;

nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful

Restart the services;

systemctl restart nginx php7.4-fpm

systemctl restart nginx php8.1-fpm

Enable to run on boot;

systemctl enable nginx php7.4-fpm

systemctl enable nginx php8.1-fpm

Check the status;

systemctl status nginx php7.4-fpm

systemctl status nginx php8.1-fpm

● nginx.service - A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Thu 2022-05-26 13:31:30 -04; 25s ago
       Docs: man:nginx(8)
    Process: 2501 ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/nginx -t -q -g daemon on; master_process on; (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Process: 2506 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on; (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 2507 (nginx)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 2282)
     Memory: 3.5M
     CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service
             ├─2507 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on;
             ├─2508 nginx: worker process
             └─2509 nginx: worker process

May 26 13:31:30 ubuntu20 systemd[1]: Starting A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server...
May 26 13:31:30 ubuntu20 systemd[1]: Started A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server.

● php7.4-fpm.service - The PHP 7.4 FastCGI Process Manager
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/php7.4-fpm.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Thu 2022-05-26 13:31:30 -04; 26s ago
       Docs: man:php-fpm7.4(8)
    Process: 2513 ExecStartPost=/usr/lib/php/php-fpm-socket-helper install /run/php/php-fpm.sock /etc/php/7.4/fpm/pool.d/www.conf 74 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 2487 (php-fpm7.4)
     Status: "Processes active: 0, idle: 2, Requests: 0, slow: 0, Traffic: 0req/sec"
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 2282)
     Memory: 10.3M
     CGroup: /system.slice/php7.4-fpm.service
             ├─2487 php-fpm: master process (/etc/php/7.4/fpm/php-fpm.conf)
             ├─2511 php-fpm: pool www
             └─2512 php-fpm: pool www

May 26 13:31:30 ubuntu20 systemd[1]: Starting The PHP 7.4 FastCGI Process Manager...
May 26 13:31:30 ubuntu20 systemd[1]: Started The PHP 7.4 FastCGI Process Manager.