Appendix B. Frequently Asked Questions

Troubleshooting

Problems encountered with software installation (.deb, .tgz, .rpm) are mostly related to the difference between the Linux environments (library incompatibilities, missing packages, different paths to binaries etc.)

B.1. Installation

B.1.1.

I can't connect to MySQL database.

When you see this message during installation, type the correct username and password for access to MySQL database. If you are trying to connect to a remote database, check if MySQL is configured for networking (disable option --skip-networking in MySQL configuration file). If you forgot your username and password into MySQL, please, refer to the database documentation (chapter How to Reset the Root Password) or use following steps:

  1. Log on to your system as either the Unix root user or as the same user that the mysqld server runs as.
  2. Locate the `.pid' file that contains the server's process ID. The exact location and name of this file depends on your distribution, hostname, and configuration. Common locations are `/var/lib/mysql/', `/var/run/mysqld/', and `/usr/local/mysql/data/'. Generally, the filename has the extension of `.pid' and begins with either `mysqld' or your system's hostname. Now you can stop the MySQL server by sending a normal kill (not kill -9) to the mysqld process, using the pathname of the `.pid' file in the following command: kill `cat /mysql-data-directory/host_name.pid` Note the use of back ticks rather than forward quotes with the cat command; these cause the output of cat to be substituted into the kill command.
  3. Restart the MySQL server with the special --skip-grant-tables option: mysqld --skip-grant-tables &
  4. Set a new password for the root@localhost MySQL account: mysqladmin -u root flush-privileges password newpwd Replace ``newpwd'' with the actual root password that you want to use.
  5. Restart the MySQL server without any special option. mysqld_safe &
  6. You should now be able to connect using the new password.

B.1.2.

Apache configuration file is not found.

If the above message is displayed, you must find and modify the Apache configuration file manually. Configuration filename is mostly httpd.conf and it is stored in the default directory /etc/apache or /etc/apache2. Locate this directory and add to configuration file the following line: Include /etc/netflow/apache.conf

In the file "/etc/netflow/apache.conf" there are various options relating to the NetFlow web portion. Don't forget to restart the Apache daemon after modifying its configuration via command: /etc/init.d/apache restart

B.1.3.

I can't access the web interface.

  1. First check if Apache web server is running: ps -ax | grep apache
  2. Check Apache log files: less /var/log/apache/error.log and/or less /var/log/apache/access.log
  3. Check if file /etc/netflow/apache.conf is included in Apache configuration. You can include contents of this file directly into your web server configuration. You can use this file per each virtual host.
  4. Check if PHP scripting is enabled in your web server (refer PHP documentation and Apache documentation).

B.1.4.

When I tried to restart netflow collector I saw message: "Error: unknown parameter restart"

This message is displayed when you run the command nfcd restart without /etc/init.d/ prefix. Please, run this command with full path. Correct command is: /etc/init.d/nfcd restart

Or you can run short nfcd without any parameter, but /etc/init.d/... syntax is preferred. After restarting collector, check your system log file (cat /var/log/syslog).