Network Management System for ISPs, built on CakePHP.
- Inventory of access points, network devices, electricity-meter readings, …
- RouterOS device auto-registration via SNMP — devices identify themselves through the Watcher Agent, which reads them over SNMP and pushes the inventory here; the matching device-type profile is then applied automatically.
- Optional checks for radio interference with Czech weather radar stations.
RouterOS device provisioning runs through the Watcher Agent — a small on-site service that can reach customer-edge devices the NMS cannot talk to directly. The agent reads the device over SNMP, pushes the inventory to this NMS, and returns the generated configuration script back to the device.
Configure a scheduler on the RouterOS device to fetch and run the script from the agent. The URL embeds the device-type identifier and the device's serial number; the agent verifies the serial over SNMP and the NMS returns the appropriate script response.
/tool fetch url=( \
"https://agent.watcher.domain/provision/routeros/{device-type-identifier}/" \
. [/system routerboard get serial-number] \
. "/\?token=***" \
) dst-path=watcher-config.rsc
/import watcher-config.rsc
:delay 5
/file remove watcher-config.rsc
The ?token=*** must match the agent's AGENT_ROUTEROS_QUERY_TOKEN, and the
device's source IP must fall within the agent's AGENT_ROUTEROS_ALLOW_CIDRS
allowlist (see the Watcher Agent
configuration).
To also update the admin password (derived from the serial number and the system‑wide salt), enable this option for the device type in the web UI and ensure the script is imported after fetching.
The currently generated password for each device is shown on its detail page.
Otherwise the script only logs the provisioning status and performs no changes.
Radio units on the bands operated under the general authorisation VO-R/12 are checked against the register the regulator keeps at rlan.ctu.gov.cz. Two overviews report the result — radio units against the stations registered for them, and the stations against the units that record them. Nothing is ever written back to the portal; an ordinary portal account that may only look is enough.
Set the account in config/.env:
export RLAN_EMAIL=""
export RLAN_PASSWORD=""
# the account number your stations are registered to; the listing also carries
# the stations of every account that shares with yours
export RLAN_USER_ID=""Then say which bands are registered — tick Units Require RLAN Registration on each band under Radio Unit Bands. Nothing is reported for a band until it is, so an installation that has not got round to it sees an empty listing rather than a wall of findings.
Read the register on a schedule, e.g. daily:
bin/cake rlan_stations_updateA radio unit is matched to a station by the MAC address it is recorded under
(station_address), and failing that by the number the registration was filed
under (authorization_number). The second is the name the portal shows for the
station — both ends of a point-to-point link share one, so the address is what
tells them apart.
Only the 60 GHz bands publish technical parameters; the 5.2 and 5.8 GHz ones are registered by coordinates and address alone, and the overview says so rather than reporting them as mismatched.
The registered coordinates are compared against the place the unit is recorded at, which is either an access point of yours or a customer connection — the client end of a link is at the customer, and there is no mast of yours to name for it. A unit stands in one place, so fill in one or the other, not both; the access point is the one compared against if both are there.
Units recorded before the customer connection was offered can be placed from the devices carrying them — a unit is matched to its device by the serial number, and the device has usually been placed already:
bin/cake radio_units_link_customers --dry-run # say what would be placed
bin/cake radio_units_link_customersIt only fills in units that say nothing about where they stand, never overwrites, and reports the units it could not place. There is nothing to schedule — a unit recorded from then on is placed as it is recorded.
- PHP 8.2 or newer
- PostgreSQL
- Redis
- Watcher Agent — required only for
SNMP reads and RouterOS provisioning. It is a separate service (run it in
Docker, even on the same host; it supports the PROXY protocol behind a load
balancer). The NMS no longer talks SNMP directly, so the PHP
snmpextension is no longer needed.
The Docker Compose stack below provides PostgreSQL and Redis out of the box, so on a fresh host you only need Docker.
Two install paths are supported. Docker Compose is recommended.
git clone https://github.com/Mapiiik/Watcher-NMS.git
cd Watcher-NMS
cp config/.env.example config/.env
# edit config/.env — set APP_NAME and any integration URLs / API keys
docker compose -f compose.production.yaml up -dThe production image runs composer run-script migrations and rebuilds the
schema cache automatically on container start, so the app is reachable at
http://localhost (and https://localhost with a self-signed cert) once the
container is healthy. Set SERVER_NAME in the compose environment to a real
domain to enable Let's Encrypt issuance via the bundled acme.sh.
For hosts already running their own PHP webserver:
git clone https://github.com/Mapiiik/Watcher-NMS.git
cd Watcher-NMS
composer install --no-dev
cp config/.env.example config/.env
# edit config/.env — at minimum DATABASE_URL and CACHE_*_URL
composer run-script migrations
composer run-script schema-cachePoint your webserver's document root at the webroot/ directory. SNMP polling
and RouterOS provisioning are handled by the separate
Watcher Agent, so no PHP snmp
extension is required here.
Later updates of such an installation are one script:
./update.shIt refuses to run on a tree with local changes, then pulls, installs, migrates,
relinks the plugin assets and clears the caches. Where opcache is configured not to
check file timestamps, set PHP_FPM_SERVICE to the service name and the script
reloads the pool at the end.
Runtime settings live in config/.env (or are passed in as environment
variables — see the environment: blocks in the compose files for the keys
read at boot). Common groups:
- Database / cache:
DATABASE_URL,CACHE_*_URL - Server:
APP_NAME(used as cache prefix),SERVER_NAME(domain for ACME / TLS in the production image) - Maps:
NOMINATIM_*andPHOTON_URLname the services behind the address search and reverse geocoding. See below.
The maps are drawn by the Maps plugin in plugins/Maps — Leaflet with
OpenStreetMap tiles, vendored so a map needs nothing from a CDN. MAP_PROVIDER
selects the mapping stack and osm is the only one built in; see the plugin's
README for what adding another one takes.
Addresses come from two OpenStreetMap services: Photon answers the search box while you type, and Nominatim says what a pair of coordinates falls on. No API key and no billing. The browser asks neither directly — it asks this application, which keeps the choice of geocoder, and any key it needs, on the server.
Both default to the public community servers. They are fine for a normal
installation (results are cached per access point), but their usage policies
expect low volume and a User-Agent identifying your installation — set
NOMINATIM_USER_AGENT to something like Watcher NMS (nms@example.com). Both
are self-hostable; point NOMINATIM_URL and PHOTON_URL at your own instances
to lift the public rate limits.
OpenStreetMap is map data, not photography, so the imagery comes from separate services. The maps carry a layer switcher offering:
- OpenStreetMap — the street map, shown on load
- Ortofoto ČR (ČÚZK) — the Czech national orthophoto, free and keyless, up to zoom 20, Czech Republic only
- Satellite (Esri) — Esri World Imagery, worldwide coverage
The list lives under Maps.baseLayers, which the plugin ships in
plugins/Maps/config/maps.php and config/app.php may override. Each entry is
either type: xyz (a plain {z}/{x}/{y} tile service) or type: wms; add your
own services or drop the ones you do not need. The first entry is the layer
shown on load. Keep the attribution values — displaying them is a licence
condition of both imagery providers.
See config/.env.example for the full list of map related variables.
If compose.production.yaml doesn't fit your environment, copy it to
compose.yaml and customize there — compose.yaml is git-ignored, so
git pull won't overwrite your changes.
cp compose.production.yaml compose.yaml
# edit compose.yaml as needed
docker compose up -dTypical reasons to override: pointing services at infrastructure already running on the host (e.g. an existing PostgreSQL instance, external Redis, reverse proxy), removing bundled containers you don't need, or tweaking volumes / networks.
Two compose files target local development:
compose.dev-frankenphp.yaml— FrankenPHP (HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, HTTP/3)compose.dev-nginx.yaml— classic nginx + PHP-FPM
Both bind-mount the working tree into the container and place vendor/,
tmp/, logs/, plus the PostgreSQL data directory and Redis data on
tmpfs — fast iteration and disposable state, but everything in those paths
is lost when the stack is torn down.
docker compose -f compose.dev-frankenphp.yaml upThe Postgres and Redis ports are exposed to the host (5432, 6379) so you
can connect with local clients while the stack is running.
Watcher NMS is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0. Copyright (c) 2026 Martin Patočka.
You are free to use, modify and run this software. If you modify it and make it available to others (including as a network service), you must also make your modifications available under the same license.