Overview of Cacti automation

The automation of the many administrative Cacti tasks can be done using either the Cacti CLI, Autom8, or both. Let's look into the different functionalities which the Cacti CLI and Autom8 have to offer.

The Cacti CLI

The Cacti CLI was the first tool to automate the different Cacti tasks. As its name suggests, it is a CLI-based set of PHP files which interact with the Cacti core functions and database. The Cacti CLI can be used to create scripts for integrating external tools such as an asset management tool into Cacti. NOC environments usually have a central inventory management system holding detailed device information, and the Cacti CLI will help you import devices into Cacti using this information. What else does the Cacti CLI offer you?

Users

Cacti users can be created using the CLI by copying an existing user with a new userID. You've already done this in Chapter 4 when you imported a list of users into Cacti.

Permissions

When you create a user, the user has...