Welcome!

Thank you for selecting RackTables as your datacenter management solution! If you are looking for documentation or wish to send feedback, please look for the respective links at project's web-site.

How to install RackTables

1. Prepare the server

RackTables uses a web-server with PHP (5.2.10 or newer) for front-end and a MySQL/MariaDB server version 5 for back-end. The most commonly used web-server for RackTables is Apache httpd.

1.1. Install MySQL server

Distribution	How to do
ALTLinux 4.0	`apt-get install MySQL-server`
CentOS 5	`yum install mysql-server mysql`
Debian 6	`aptitude install mysql-server-5.1`
Debian 7	`aptitude install mysql-server-5.1`
Fedora 8-16	`yum install mysql-server mysql`
Fedora 23	`dnf install mariadb-server mariadb`
openSUSE 11.0	YaST -> Software -> software management -> Web and LAMP server -> mysql
openSUSE 42.1	`zypper install mysql-community-server`
Scientific Linux 6	`yum install mysql-server mysql`
Ubuntu 14.04	`apt-get install mysql-server`

1.2. Enable Unicode in the MySQL server

Distribution	How to do
ALTLinux 4.0	add `CHSET=utf8` line to `/etc/sysconfig/mysqld` file and restart mysqld
CentOS 5	add `character-set-server=utf8` line to `[mysqld]` section of `/etc/my.cnf` file and restart mysqld
Debian 6	add `character-set-server=utf8` line to `[mysqld]` section of `/etc/mysql/my.cnf` file and restart mysqld
Debian 7	add `character-set-server=utf8` line to `[mysqld]` section of `/etc/mysql/my.cnf` file and restart mysqld
Fedora 8-16	add `character-set-server=utf8` line to `[mysqld]` section of `/etc/my.cnf` file and restart mysqld
Fedora 23	`printf "[mysqld]\ncharacter-set-server=utf8\n" > /etc/my.cnf.d/mysqld-charset.cnf; systemctl restart mariadb`
openSUSE 11.0	add `default-character-set=utf8` line to `[mysql]` section of `/etc/my.cnf` file and restart mysqld
openSUSE 42.1	No action required, comes configured for UTF-8 by default.
Scientific Linux 6	add `character-set-server=utf8` line to `[mysqld]` section of `/etc/my.cnf` file and restart mysqld
Ubuntu 14.04	`printf "[mysqld]\ncharacter-set-server=utf8\n" > /etc/mysql/conf.d/charset.cnf; service mysql restart`

1.3. Install PHP and Apache httpd (or nginx)

Distribution	How to do
Fedora 8-16	`yum install httpd php php-mysql php-pdo php-gd php-snmp php-mbstring php-bcmath`
Fedora 23	`dnf install httpd php php-mysql php-pdo php-gd php-snmp php-mbstring php-bcmath`
Debian 6	`aptitude install libapache2-mod-php5 php5-gd php5-mysql php5-snmp`
Debian 7 (nginx)	`aptitude install nginx php5-fpm` (see note below)
Ubuntu 14.04	`apt-get install apache2-bin libapache2-mod-php5 php5-gd php5-mysql php5-snmp`
ALTLinux 4.0	`apt-get install apache2-httpd-prefork php5-gd2 php5-pdo_mysql php5-pdo apache2-mod_php5 php5-mbstring`
openSUSE 11.0	use YaST to install apache2-mod_php5, php5-gd, php5-mbstring, php5-mysql, php5-bcmath, php5-snmp and php5-ldap
openSUSE 42.1	`zypper install apache2-mod_php5 php5-gd php5-mbstring php5-mysql php5-bcmath`
Scientific Linux 6	`yum install httpd php php-mysql php-pdo php-gd php-mbstring php-bcmath`
CentOS 5	`yum install httpd php53 php53-mysql php53-pdo php53-gd php53-mbstring php53-bcmath`
FreeBSD 8	see note below

1.3.a. Debian 7 with nginx

Remember to adjust server_name in server {} section, otherwise your logout link will point to localhost (and thus fail). Notice, that fpm.sock is advised, keep the rest on default configuration, or tweak to your needs. You may need to set fastcgi_read_timeout 600; if you use some external addons like fping, which may take some time in certain situations. Please note that setting aggresive caching for php scripts may result in stale content - so maximum of 60 seconds is advised, but by default it is not enabled.

1.3.b. FreeBSD 8

# make -C /usr/ports/www/apache13-modssl install
# make -C /usr/ports/www/php5-session install
[X] CLI        Build CLI version
[X] APACHE     Build Apache module
[X] MULTIBYTE  Enable zend multibyte support
# make -C /usr/ports/graphics/php5-gd install
# make -C /usr/ports/databases/php5-pdo_mysql install
# make -C /usr/ports/devel/pcre install
!!! Enable UTF-8 support ............ : yes
!!! Unicode properties .............. : yes
# make -C /usr/ports/devel/php5-pcre install
# make -C /usr/ports/converters/php5-mbstring install
[X] REGEX  Enable multibyte regex support

# make -C /usr/ports/net-mgmt/php5-snmp install
# make -C /usr/ports/net/php5-ldap install

2. Copy the files

Unpack the tar.gz/zip archive to a directory of your choice and configure Apache httpd to use wwwroot subdirectory as a new DocumentRoot. Alternatively, symlinks to wwwroot or even to index.php from an existing DocumentRoot are also possible and often adisable (see README.Fedora).

3. Run the installer

Open the configured RackTables URL and you will be prompted to configure and initialize the application.

Distribution	Apache httpd UID:GID	MySQL UNIX socket path
Fedora 23	`apache:apache`	`/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock`
openSUSE 42.1	`wwwrun:www`	`/var/run/mysql/mysql.sock`
Ubuntu 14.04	`www-data:www-data`	`/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock`

How to upgrade RackTables

Backup your database and check the release notes below before actually starting the upgrade.
Remove all existing files except configuration (the inc/secret.php file) and local plugins (in the plugins/ directory).
Put the contents of the new tar.gz/zip archive into the place.
Open the RackTables page in a browser. The software will detect version mismatch and display a message telling to log in as admin to finish the upgrade.
Do that and report any errors to the bug tracker or the mailing list.

Release notes

Upgrading to 0.20.11

New IPV4_TREE_SHOW_UNALLOCATED configuration option introduced to disable dsplaying unallocated networks in IPv4 space tree. Setting it also disables the "knight" feature.

Upgrading to 0.20.7

From now on the minimum (oldest) release of PHP that can run RackTables is 5.2.10. In particular, to continue running RackTables on CentOS 5 it is necessary to replace its php* RPM packages with respective php53* packages before the upgrade (except the JSON package, which PHP 5.3 provides internally).

Database triggers are used for some data consistency measures. The database user account must have the 'TRIGGER' privilege, which was introduced in MySQL 5.1.7.

The IPV4OBJ_LISTSRC configuration option is reset to an expression which enables the IP addressing feature for all object types except those listed.

Tags could now be assigned on the Edit/Properties tab using a text input with auto-completion. Type a star '*' to view full tag tree in auto-complete menu. It is worth to add the following line to the permissions script if the old-fashioned 'Tags' tab is not needed any more:

  deny {$tab_tags} # this hides 'Tags' tab

This release converts collation of all DB fields to the utf8_unicode_ci. This procedure may take some time, and could fail if there are rows that differ only by letter case. If this happen, you'll see the failed SQL query in upgrade report with the "Duplicate entry" error message. Feel free to continue using your installation. If desired so, you could eliminate the case-duplicating rows and re-apply the failed query.

Upgrading to 0.20.6

New MGMT_PROTOS configuration option replaces the TELNET_OBJS_LISTSRC, SSH_OBJS_LISTSRC and RDP_OBJS_LISTSRC options (converting existing settings as necessary). MGMT_PROTOS allows to specify any management protocol for a particular device list using a RackCode filter. The default value (ssh: {$typeid_4}, telnet: {$typeid_8}) produces ssh://server.fqdn for servers and telnet://switch.fqdn for network switches.

Upgrading to 0.20.5

This release introduces the VS groups feature. VS groups is a new way to store and display virtual services configuration. There is a new "ipvs" (VS group) realm. All previously existing VS configuration remains functional and user is free to convert it to the new format, which displays it in a more natural way and allows to generate virtual_server_group keepalived configs. To convert a virtual service to the new format, it is necessary to manually create a VS group object and assign IP addresses to it. The VS group will display a "Migrate" tab to convert the old-style VS objects, which can be removed after a successful conversion.

The old-style VS configuration becomes deprecated. Its support will be removed in a future major release. So it is strongly recommended to convert it to the new format.

Upgrading to 0.20.4

Please note that some dictionary items of Cisco Catalyst 2960 series switches were renamed to meet official Cisco classification:

old name	new name
2960-48TT	2960-48TT-L
2960-24TC	2960-24TC-L
2960-24TT	2960-24TT-L
2960-8TC	2960-8TC-L
2960G-48TC	2960G-48TC-L
2960G-24TC	2960G-24TC-L
2960G-8TC	2960G-8TC-L
C2960-24	C2960-24-S
C2960G-24PC	C2960-24PC-L

The DATETIME_FORMAT configuration option used in setting date and time output format now uses a different syntax. During upgrade the option is reset to the default value, which is now %Y-%m-%d (YYYY-MM-DD) per ISO 8601.

This release intoduces two new configuration options: REVERSED_RACKS_LISTSRC and NEAREST_RACKS_CHECKBOX.

Upgrading to 0.20.1

The 0.20.0 release includes bug which breaks IP networks' capacity displaying on 32-bit architecture machines. To fix this, this release makes use of PHP's BC Math module. It is a new reqiurement. Most PHP distributions have this module already enabled, but if yours does not - you need yo recompile PHP.

Security context of 'ipaddress' page now includes tags from the network containing an IP address. This means that you should audit your permission rules to check there is no unintended allows of changing IPs based on network's tagset. Example:

	allow {client network} and {New York}

This rule now not only allows any operation on NY client networks, but also any operation with IP addresses included in those networks. To fix this, you should change the rule this way:

	allow {client network} and {New York} and not {$page_ipaddress}

Upgrading to 0.20.0

WARNING: This release have too many internal changes, some of them were waiting more than a year to be released. So this release is considered "BETA" and is recommended only to curiuos users, who agree to sacrifice the stability to the progress.

Racks and Rows are now stored in the database as Objects. The RackObject table was renamed to Object. SQL views were created to ease the migration of custom reports and scripts.

New plugins engine instead of local.php file. To make your own code stored in local.php work, you must move the local.php file into the plugins/ directory. The name of this file does not matter any more. You also can store multiple files in that dir, separate your plugins by features, share them and try the plugins from other people just placing them into plugins/ dir, no more merging.

$path_to_local_php variable has no special meaning any more.
$racktables_confdir variable is now used only to search for secret.php file.
$racktables_plugins_dir is a new overridable special variable pointing to plugins/ directory.

Beginning with this version it is possible to delete IP prefixes, VLANs, Virtual services and RS pools from within theirs properties tab. So please inspect your permissions rules to assure there are no undesired allows for deletion of these objects. To ensure this, you could try this code in the beginning of permissions script:

allow {userid_1} and {$op_del}
deny {$op_del} and ({$tab_edit} or {$tab_properties})

Hardware gateways engine was rewritten in this version of RackTables. This means that the file gateways/deviceconfig/switch.secrets.php is not used any more. To get information about configuring connection properties and credentials in a new way please read this.

This also means that recently added features based on old API (D-Link switches and Linux gateway support contributed by Ilya Evseev) are not working any more and waiting to be forward-ported to new gateways API. Sorry for that.

Two new config variables appeared in this version:

SEARCH_DOMAINS. Comma-separated list of DNS domains which are considered "base" for your network. If RackTables search engine finds multiple objects based on your search input, but there is only one which FQDN consists of your input and one of these search domains, you will be redirected to this object and other results will be discarded. Such behavior was unconditional since 0.19.3, which caused many objections from users. So welcome this config var.
QUICK_LINK_PAGES. Comma-separated list of RackTables pages to display links to them on top. Each user could have his own list.

Also some of config variables have changed their default values in this version. This means that upgrade script will change their values if you have them in previous default state. This could be inconvenient, but it is the most effective way to encourage users to use new features. If this behavior is not what you want, simply revert these variables' values:

variable	old	new	comment
`SHOW_LAST_TAB`	no	yes
`IPV4_TREE_SHOW_USAGE`	yes	no	Networks' usage is still available by click.
`IPV4LB_LISTSRC`	{$typeid_4}	false
`FILTER_DEFAULT_ANDOR`	or	and	This implicitly enables the feature of dynamic tree shrinking.
`FILTER_SUGGEST_EXTRA`	no	yes	Yes, we have extra logical filters!
`IPV4_TREE_RTR_AS_CELL`	yes	no	Display routers as simple text, not cell.

Also please note that variable IPV4_TREE_RTR_AS_CELL now has third special value besides 'yes' and 'no': 'none'. Use 'none' value if you are experiencing low performance on IP tree page. It will completely disable IP ranges scan for used/spare IPs and the speed of IP tree will increase radically. The price is you will not see the routers in IP tree at all.

Upgrading to 0.19.13

A new "date" attribute type has been added. Existing date based fields ("HW warranty expiration", "support contract expiration" and "SW warranty expiration") will be converted to this new type but must be in the format "mm/dd/yyyy" otherwise the conversion will fail.

Upgrading to 0.19.2

This release is different in filesystem layout. The "gateways" directory has been moved from wwwroot directory. This improves security a bit. You can also separate your local settings and add-ons from the core RackTables code. To do that, put a single index.php file into the DocumentRoot of your http server:

<?php
$racktables_confdir='/directory/with/secret.php/and/local.php/';
require '/directory_where_you_extracted_racktables_distro/wwwroot/index.php';
?>

No more files are needed to be available directly over the HTTP. Full list of filesystem paths which could be specified in custom index.php or secret.php:

$racktables_gwdir: path to the gateways directory;
$racktables_staticdir: path to the directory containing pix, js, css directories;
$racktables_confdir: path where secret.php and local.php are located. It is not recommended to define it in secret.php, cause only the path to local.php will be affected;
$path_to_secret_php: Ignore $racktables_confdir when locating secret.php and use the specified path;
$path_to_local_php: idem for local.php.

Upgrading to 0.19.0

The files, which are intended for the httpd (web-server) directory, are now in the wwwroot directory of the tar.gz archive. Files outside of that directory are not directly intended for httpd environment and should not be copied to the server.

This release incorporates ObjectLog functionality, which used to be available as a separate plugin. For the best results it is advised to disable (through local.php) external ObjectLog plugin permanently before the new version is installed. All previously accumulated ObjectLog records will be available through the updated standard interface.

RackTables is now using PHP JSON extension which is included in the PHP core since 5.2.0.

The barcode attribute was removed. The upgrade script attempts to preserve the data by moving it to either the 'OEM S/N 1' attribute or to a Log entry. You should backup your database beforehand anyway.

Upgrading to 0.18.x

RackTables from its version 0.18.0 and later is not compatible with RHEL/CentOS (at least with versions up to 5.5) Linux distributions in their default installation. There are yet options to work around that:

Install RackTables on a server with a different distribution/OS.
Request Linux distribution vendor to fix the bug with PCRE.
Repair your RHEL/CentOS installation yourself by fixing its PCRE RPM as explained here

tfnab/racktables