mrtg config question

[Bob Chiodini]

Don Russell wrote:
> I just installed mrtg 2.13.2 on FC5 and noticed the sample config file 
> in /etc/mrtg/mrtg.cfg
>
> This file has LogDir defined as /var/lib/mrtg
>
> I suppose it doesn't really matter... but is that an error/typo? 
> Shouldn't logs be kept in /var/log/... ?
>
> I was going to Bugzilla this, but thought I'd get some other opinions 
> first. :-)
>
> Part 2: (The fun part) :-)
>
> I created a new userid (mrtg) and created a little script to run 
> cfgmaker and indexmaker, but now I don't know how to run mrtg so it 
> can produce the graphs etc in /var/www/mrtg...
>
> I suppose I could run mrtg as root... but I hate running stuff as root 
> if not needed.
> Or, how can I grant write permission so the mrtg user can write to 
> /var/www/mrtg, but not other apache-owned files/directories?
>
> Thanks,
> Don
>
>
>
>
Don,

We run MRTG at work to monitor our backbone routers.  It's run as a 
cron  job, every 5 minutes as root.  Since it doesn't have any open 
network connectivity the security issues are fairly low.

If you want run MRTG as the mrtg user, your best bet would probably be 
to manipulate group write permissions for the related directories and 
set up the MRTG user in the appropriate group.  We've been running MRTG 
as root for years and have no problems.  I guess someone could rootkit 
mrtg and screw around, but, in our case the box is dedicated to MRTG and 
is tightly firewalled.

Bob...