Archive | Zabbix

Zabbix is our favorite monitoring tool and the new 2.0 release contains a range of great new features.

One of the most useful features of the Zabbix architecture is support for Zabbix proxies. A Zabbix proxy gathers monitoring data and forwards it to the central monitoring server. This is really useful if you have a group of servers inside a firewall that need to be monitored. Just setup a Zabbix proxy inside the firewall and all the monitoring data can be securely forwarded to the central external monitoring server.

The documentation of proxy setup is here:

http://www.zabbix.com/documentation/2.0/manual/distributed_monitoring/proxies

For a CentOS 6 server here are the steps that I used to install and configure a Zabbix proxy.

1. Download latest source distribution from http://www.zabbix.com/download.php.
2. Unpack, compile and install according to docs at:

   http://www.zabbix.com/documentation/2.0/manual/installation/install

   Since we’re installing from source we need a selection of build tools which I added with:

   yum install gcc make

   1	yum install gcc make

   The Zabbix proxy needs a local database. We used SQLite because it’s lightweight and setup is automatic with the new 2.0 version of Zabbix.

   yum install sqlite sqlite-devel

   1	yum install sqlite sqlite-devel

   We want SNMP enabled so we’ll need to add the net-snmp devel and libs packages. Also we need the ssh2 packages:

   yum install net-snmp-libs net-snmp-devel libssh2-devel libssh2

   1	yum install net-snmp-libs net-snmp-devel libssh2-devel libssh2

   Now we’re ready to do the build:

   [root@host]# tar -xvzf zabbix-2.0.3.tar.gz ... [root@host]# cd zabbix-2.0.3 [root@host zabbix-2.0.3]# groupadd zabbix [root@host zabbix-2.0.3]# useradd -g zabbix zabbix [root@host zabbix-2.0.3]# ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc/zabbix --enable-proxy \ --with-net-snmp --with-sqlite3 --with-ssh2 ... [root@host zabbix-2.0.3]# make install ...

   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

   [root@host]# tar -xvzf zabbix-2.0.3.tar.gz ... [root@host]# cd zabbix-2.0.3 [root@host zabbix-2.0.3]# groupadd zabbix [root@host zabbix-2.0.3]# useradd -g zabbix zabbix [root@host zabbix-2.0.3]# ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc/zabbix --enable-proxy \    --with-net-snmp --with-sqlite3 --with-ssh2 ... [root@host zabbix-2.0.3]# make install ...

   Notice for the configure command we (a) set the install prefix to /usr which is consistent with CentOS; (b) enable the proxy features; (c) select SQLite as the database and (d) enable support for snmp and ssh2.

   Now create a directory for the database and load the initial schema:

   [root@host]# mkdir /var/zabbix [root@host]# chown zabbix.zabbix /var/zabbix [root@host]# cd database/sqlite3/ [root@host]# sqlite3 /var/zabbix/zabbix.db < schema.sql [root@host]# chown zabbix.zabbix /var/zabbix/zabbix.db

   1 2 3 4 5

   [root@host]# mkdir /var/zabbix [root@host]# chown zabbix.zabbix /var/zabbix [root@host]# cd database/sqlite3/ [root@host]# sqlite3 /var/zabbix/zabbix.db < schema.sql [root@host]# chown zabbix.zabbix /var/zabbix/zabbix.db

   Next, edit /etc/zabbix/zabbix_proxy.conf and set the “Server=” parameter to the address of the zabbix server. Also set the “DBName=” as the path to the database:

   Server=123.123.123.123 DBName=/var/zabbix/zabbix

   1 2	Server=123.123.123.123 DBName=/var/zabbix/zabbix

   Add startup command to /etc/rc.local:

   /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy -c /etc/zabbix/zabbix_proxy.conf

   1	/usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy -c /etc/zabbix/zabbix_proxy.conf

   Also run the startup command manually to start the proxy for the first time.

3. Next we’ll configure the central monitoring server to recognize the proxy.
   1. Login to the web interface and go to Administration -> DM.
   2. Click the Create Proxy button.
   3. On the new proxy form, enter the hostname of the proxy into the “Proxy name” field.
   4. Click the Save button
4. Finally, on install Zabbix Agents as you would normally on the servers to be monitored from the proxy. In the Zabbix web interface, when defining a host monitored via the proxy, set the “Monitored by proxy” field on the host configuration form.