# GRAPHS.CFG

Section: File Formats (5)
Updated: Version 4.3.30: 25 Jan 2026
Index Return to Main Contents

## NAME

graphs.cfg - Configuration of the showgraph CGI

## SYNOPSIS

$XYMONHOME/etc/graphs.cfg

## DESCRIPTION

showgraph.cgi(1) uses the configuration file $XYMONHOME/etc/graphs.cfg to build graphs from the RRD files collected by Xymon.

## FILE FORMAT

Each definition of a graph type begins with a "[SERVICE]" indicator, this is the name passed as the "service" parameter to showgraph.cgi(1). If the service name passed to showgraph.cgi is not found, it will attempt to match the service name to a graph via the TEST2RRD environment variable. So calling showgraph.cgi with "service=cpu" or "service=la" will end up producing the same graph.

A graph definition needs to have a TITLE and a YAXIS setting. These are texts shown as the title of the graph, and the YAXIS heading respectively. (The X-axis is always time-based).

If a fixed set of RRD files are used for the graph, you just write those in the RRDtool definitions. Note that Xymon keeps all RRD files for a host in a separate directory per host, so you need not worry about the hostname being part of the RRD filename.

For graphs that use multiple RRD files as input, you specify a filename pattern in the FNPATTERN statement, and optionally a pattern of files to exclude from the graph with EXFNPATTERN (see "[tcp]" for an example). When FNPATTERN is used, you can use "@RRDFN@" in the RRDtool definitions to pick up each filename. "@RRDIDX@" is an index (starting at 0) for each file in the set. "@RRDPARAM@" contains the first word extracted from the pattern of files (see e.g. "[memory]" how this is used). "@COLOR@" picks a new color for each graph automatically.

The remainder of the lines in each definition are passed directly to the RRDtool rrd_graph() routine.

The following is an example of how the "la" (cpu) graph is defined. This is a simple definition that uses a single RRD-file, la.rrd:

[la]
TITLE CPU Load
YAXIS Load
DEF:avg=la.rrd:la:AVERAGE
CDEF:la=avg,100,/
AREA:la#00CC00:CPU Load Average
GPRINT:la:LAST: %5.1lf (cur)
GPRINT:la:MAX: %5.1lf (max)
GPRINT:la:MIN: %5.1lf (min)
GPRINT:la:AVERAGE: %5.1lf (avg)\n

Here is an example of a graph that uses multiple RRD-files, determined automatically at run-time via the FNPATTERN setting. Note how it uses the @RRDIDX@ to define a unique RRD parameter per input-file, and the @COLOR@ and @RRDPARAM@ items to pick unique colors and a matching text for the graph legend:

[disk]
FNPATTERN disk(.*).rrd
TITLE Disk Utilization
YAXIS % Full
DEF:p@RRDIDX@=@RRDFN@:pct:AVERAGE
LINE2:p@RRDIDX@#@COLOR@:@RRDPARAM@
-u 100
-l 0
GPRINT:p@RRDIDX@:LAST: %5.1lf (cur)
GPRINT:p@RRDIDX@:MAX: %5.1lf (max)
GPRINT:p@RRDIDX@:MIN: %5.1lf (min)
GPRINT:p@RRDIDX@:AVERAGE: %5.1lf (avg)\n

## ADVANCED GRAPH TITLES

Normally the title of a graph is a static text defined in the graphs.cfg file. However, there may be situations where you want to use different titles for the same type of graph, e.g. if you are incorporating RRD files from MRTG into Xymon. In that case you can setup the TITLE definition so that it runs a custom script to determine the graph title. Like this:

`` TITLE exec:/usr/local/bin/graphitle

The /usr/local/bin/graphtitle command is then called with the hostname, the graphtype, the period string, and all of the RRD files used as parameters. The script must generate one line of output, which is then used as the title of the graph. Each of the RRD pathname parameters will be enclosed in double quotes.

## ENVIRONMENT

TEST2RRD Maps service names to graph definitions.

## NOTES

Most of the RRD graph definitions shipped with Xymon have been ported from the definitions in the larrd-grapher.cgi CGI from LARRD 0.43c.

## SEE ALSO

xymonserver.cfg(5), rrdtool(1), rrdgraph(1)

## Index

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
FILE FORMAT
ADVANCED GRAPH TITLES
ENVIRONMENT
NOTES
SEE ALSO

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 18:36:45 GMT, January 25, 2026