How to Build and Install Latest Smokeping on Ubuntu 20.04

Smokeping is the old-school tool for monitoring website/IP by using PING. Many ISP around the world rely on Smokeping to monitor their upstream/downstream IP. The stability and low memory foodprint have been my favorite since I know the Smokeping.

The latest version of Smokeping (2.8) 2.8.2 at this time, not available on Ubuntu 20.04, so we need to install it from the source. Since most of the command copy-and-paste mode, you can finish this installation in under 10 minutes. We don’t cover SSL/TLS installation on this tutorial, but let me know if you need one, so we can update that part on a later revision.

Install and Update Ubuntu

To keep the Ubuntu installation secure, remember to run this command on weekly basis.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Install Dependency

Since we’ll build the smokeping from the source, we’ll need to install some dependency.

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends gcc make libwww-perl libcgi-fast-perl libtext-soundex-perl libio-pty-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl \
  rrdtool librrds-perl libssl-dev libc6-dev wget autoconf fping -y

these packages need by smokeping, so we must install them.

Download Smokeping 2.8.2

At the time I wrote this tutorial, the latest version of smokeping is 2.8.2.

wget https://oss.oetiker.ch/smokeping/pub/smokeping-2.8.2.tar.gz

extract and build these package

tar zxf smokeping-2.8.2.tar.gz
cd smokeping-2.8.2
LC_ALL=C ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/smokeping 
sudo make install

it’ll take some time until the process is done, at the end of the process you’ll show this output

make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/jack/smokeping-2.8.2/smokeping-2.8.2/htdocs'
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/jack/smokeping-2.8.2/smokeping-2.8.2/htdocs'
make[1]: Entering directory '/home/jack/smokeping-2.8.2/smokeping-2.8.2'
make[2]: Entering directory '/home/jack/smokeping-2.8.2/smokeping-2.8.2'
make[2]: Nothing to be done for 'install-exec-am'.
make[2]: Nothing to be done for 'install-data-am'.
make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/jack/smokeping-2.8.2/smokeping-2.8.2'
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/jack/smokeping-2.8.2/smokeping-2.8.2'

verify if the instalation success, by check the version

/usr/local/smokeping/bin/smokeping --version
# output
2.008002

at this step our instalation already completed, now it’s time to configure Smokeping.

Smokeping Config

Create folder to store data and cache

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/smokeping/{cache,data,var}

Create config file /usr/local/smokeping/etc/config, we’ll put all domain that we monitor here.

sudo nano /usr/local/smokeping/etc/config

copy following code

*** General ***
owner    = Atetux
contact  = hello.darling@atetux.com
mailhost = my.mail.host
imgcache = /usr/local/smokeping/cache
imgurl   = cache
datadir  = /usr/local/smokeping/data
piddir  = /usr/local/smokeping/var
cgiurl   = http://some.url/smokeping.cgi
smokemail = /usr/local/smokeping/etc/smokemail.dist
tmail = /usr/local/smokeping/etc/tmail.dist
syslogfacility = smokeping
 
*** Alerts ***
to = alertee@address.somewhere
from = smokealert@company.xy
+someloss
type = loss
pattern = >0%,*12*,>0%,*12*,>0%
comment = loss 3 times  in a row
 
*** Database ***
step     = 300
pings    = 20
AVERAGE  0.5   1  1008
AVERAGE  0.5  12  4320
    MIN  0.5  12  4320
    MAX  0.5  12  4320
AVERAGE  0.5 144   720
    MAX  0.5 144   720
    MIN  0.5 144   720
 
*** Presentation ***
template = /usr/local/smokeping/etc/basepage.html.dist
charset  = utf-8
 
+ charts
 
menu = Charts
title = The most interesting destinations
 
++ stddev
sorter = StdDev(entries=>4)
title = Top Standard Deviation
menu = Std Deviation
format = Standard Deviation %f
 
++ max
sorter = Max(entries=>5)
title = Top Max Roundtrip Time
menu = by Max
format = Max Roundtrip Time %f seconds
 
++ loss
sorter = Loss(entries=>5)
title = Top Packet Loss
menu = Loss
format = Packets Lost %f
 
++ median
sorter = Median(entries=>5)
title = Top Median Roundtrip Time
menu = by Median
format = Median RTT %f seconds
 
+ overview 
 
width = 600
height = 50
range = 10h
 
+ detail
 
width = 600
height = 200
unison_tolerance = 2
 
"Last 3 Hours"    3h
"Last 30 Hours"   30h
"Last 10 Days"    10d
"Last 360 Days"   360d
 
 
*** Probes ***
+ FPing
binary = /usr/bin/fping
 
*** Targets ***
probe = FPing
menu = Top
title = Network Latency Grapher
remark = Welcome to the SmokePing atetux.com
 
+ SearchEngine
menu = Search-Engine
title = Search Engine
 
++ Google
menu = Google
title = google.com
host = google.com
 
++ Bing
menu = Bing
title = Bing.com
host = bing.com
 
++ DuckDuckGo
menu = DuckDuckGo
title = DuckDuckGo.com
host = duckduckgo.com

run smokeping in debug mode, to check if something goes wrong

sudo /usr/local/smokeping/bin/smokeping --debug

smokeping run debug mode

Smokeping Systemd Service

To manage smokeping processes such as start, stop, and status. We will use systemd service which is the default in many Linux distros.
Create new file

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/smokeping.service

add following config

[Unit]
Description=Smokeping Server
After=network.target
 
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/local/smokeping/bin/smokeping --nodaemon /usr/local/smokeping/etc/config --logfile=/var/log/smokeping.log
 
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

after that we can manage the smokeping using systemd systemctl as usual

# enable smokeping on boot (only need to run this once)
sudo systemctl enable smokeping
# start the smokeping
sudo systemctl start smokeping
# check the status
sudo systemctl status smokeping
# stop the smokeping service (you don't need to run this command)
sudo systemctl stop smokeping

Enable the Web UI

Smokeping had a web UI which is the preferred method to view smokeping for many people. To enable this feature we need to install webserver, because usually smokeping run on it’s own instance so we can just use the famous Apache Web Server for serving the HTTP.

Install Apache

Install apache with fcgi module

sudo apt install apache2 libapache2-mod-fcgid -y

after installing Apache, change the Smokeping directory permission, so it’s accessible by Apache

sudo chown www-data:www-data -R /usr/local/smokeping
Apache Virtual Host

Create new config file for Apache in /etc/apache2/conf-available/smokeping.conf with following content

Alias /smokeping/cache /usr/local/smokeping/cache
Alias /smokeping /usr/local/smokeping/htdocs/
 
 
<Directory "/usr/local/smokeping/cache">
  AllowOverride all
  Require all granted
</Directory>
 
<Directory "/usr/local/smokeping/htdocs/">
 Options FollowSymLinks ExecCGI
 AllowOverride all
 Require all granted
</Directory>

enable the smokeping config that just created

sudo a2enconf smokeping
Enable CGI Module and Restart Apache

The last step is to enable CGI module in Apache, and restart the Apache services

sudo a2enmod cgi
sudo systemctl restart apache2

Open http://SERVER-IP/smokeping/smokeping.fcgi.dist in browser you should see the similar result with picture below
smokeping website

7 thoughts on “How to Build and Install Latest Smokeping on Ubuntu 20.04”

  1. Hallo,

    danke für die ausführliche Anleitung. Leider bekomme ich unter Debian 11 bereits beim make install folgende Fehlermeldung:

    ERROR: read timeout at /usr/share/perl5/Net/HTTP/Methods.pm line 243. at /usr/share/perl5/LWP/UserAgent.pm line 1008.

    Was kann ich da machen?

    Danke!

    Viele Grüße,
    Jens

    Reply
  2. thank you very much for this walk through. very clear and easy to follow steps for a fellow that has just enough Ubuntu knowledge to get into serious trouble.

    Reply

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