README for Cricket version 1.0.5
================================

This is Cricket. It is a configuration, polling, and data-display
engine wrapped around the RRD tool by Tobias Oetiker. There are
three user-visible pieces to Cricket: the collector, the grapher, and
the config tree. The collector runs from cron and fetches data
from a number of devices according to the info it finds in the
config tree. The grapher is a CGI application that allows users to
traverse the config tree from a web browser and see the data that
the collector recorded. To use Cricket you need to do these things:

	* make a config tree
	* setup the collector to run on a regular basis
	* setup the grapher to let you look at the data

Installing
----------

If you are a brand new Cricket user, you should read and
closely follow the directions in doc/beginner.html.

Upgrading
----------

(1) Read the CHANGES file to see what's new with this version.
(2) Install this version to a separate directory from your
existing version.
(3) Copy subtree-sets and cricket-conf.pl from the existing
version to this installation. Alternatively, rename this version 
cricket-conf.pl.sample to cricket-conf.pl and edit the file
to match your settings from the cricket-conf.pl existing version.
(4) Other potential pitfalls: If you use subtree timing info, you
will need to edit collect-subtrees to set $subtreeTimes = 1. If
you have placed custom images in cricket/images, you will need to
copy these files from the existing version to this installation.
(5) Cutover to this installation from your existing one by swapping
the $HOME/cricket softlink to this version.
(6) Recompile your config tree.
(7) Run the collector or collect-subtrees by hand once to make certain
it's still working.
(8) Now you are ready to start experimenting with the new features
described in the CHANGES file.

Documentation
-------------

Point your web browser at the doc/index.html file and choose
the most appropriate document from there.

Patches
-------

If you manage to add a useful feature to the code (or need to
make a bugfix just to get it running) please share a patch with
the Cricket community, or consider becoming a Cricket developer
and adding your code in to the next release.

You can generate a patch like this:

	tar xvf cricket.tar
	mv cricket my-changes
		# make your changes to this this copy
	tar xvf cricket.tar
	gnudiff -u -r cricket my-changes

This will create a unified context diff from the dist directory
to the "my-changes" directory. It will allow people to apply
your changes to their copies of Cricket.

You can find out more about contributing to Cricket development
here:

	http://cricket.sourceforge.net/devel

Support
-------

You can find the most recent version of Cricket at:

	http://cricket.sourceforge.net/

There is information about how to get help with Cricket
online here:

	http://cricket.sourceforge.net/support/

At that website, you can find the FAQ, mailing lists
to join, mailing list archives to search, and other useful
information about how other people are using Cricket.

License
-------

Cricket is covered by the GNU General Public License.
See the file COPYING for copying permission.

Cricket is Copyright (c) 1998-2004 by Jeff Allen

Individual pieces are copyrighted by their contributors, though
they are covered by same license as Cricket, namely the GPL.
