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Hands on Zabbix

The exercise consists in the following steps:

• install a Zabbix Server+Frontend on a test machine (say vm1)
• configure the Zabbix Server+Frontend
• install a Zabbix agent on another test machine (say vm2)
• configure the Zabbix agent to write on the server installed so far (vm2->vm1)
• configure different types of sensors
• configure triggers, actions
• use Zabbix API to get some (very simple) information

Main reference: https://www.zabbix.com/documentation/2.2

Installation, configuration and optimization of the server

Log into the first machine and install the Zabbix server:

# wget http://repo.zabbix.com/zabbix/2.2/ubuntu/pool/main/z/zabbix-release/zabbix-release_2.2-1+precise_all.deb
# dpkg -i zabbix-release_2.2-1+precise_all.deb
# apt-get update

Then the following command:

# apt-get install zabbix-server-mysql zabbix-frontend-php

will install the Zabbix server and web frontend with mysql database.

You will be asked for the MySQL root password during the MySQL installation: please take note of the MySQL root password for the future. Right after the MySQL installation, the installation of the zabbix-server-mysql package will ask for the same password.

After that, install the zabbix-get package as well (it will be useful later):

# apt-get install zabbix-get

Reference here.

Uncomment and edit the timezone in /etc/apache2/conf.d/zabbix:

php_value date.timezone Europe/Rome

then restart Apache:

# service apache2 restart

The frontend is ready for installation at the following URL:

http://vm1/zabbix

where vm1 is the IP of your server. There you will be redirected to the setup.php page: follow the step by step procedure:

• default username/password is Admin/zabbix
• when asked, provide the setup with the MySQL password
• when asked, add the IP of the server in the corresponding field (here we use localhost, but in general it can be different)
• after finishing the procedure, log in and enjoy the Zabbix frontend.

In particular you may want to change the admin password:

• go to Administration>Users then select Users in the dropdown menu
• click on Admin to edit the admin user
• change the password
• (optional) you can play with other interesting features in the Administration/Users page (create new users, create new groups, add user to group, modify privileges for a given user/group)

Installation and configuration of the Zabbix Agent

In principle we should install a Zabbix Agent 2.2 alligned to the 2.2 server just installed in order to exploit all the new features coming with 2.2; this example will install the agent version coming with Ubuntu 12.04 (zabbix-agent 1.8).

To install the agent, log into a second test machine (say vm2):

# apt-get install zabbix-agent

To configure the agent, edit the Zabbix agent configuration file /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf. You need to configure this file for every host with zabbix_agentd installed.

In particular, you must specify the Zabbix server IP address in the file:

Server=10.10.10.231

Connections from other hosts will be denied. The restart the agent:

/etc/init.d/zabbix-agent restart

To test if the agent is well-configured, you can use the zabbix_get utility from vm1:

vm1# zabbix_get -s vm2 -k system.cpu.load

where vm1 is the server (where we previously installed the zabbix_get) and vm2 is the agent. If a number is returned, everything is OK; if ZBX_NOTSUPPORTED is returned, you have a problem (and have to revise the procedure above).

Putting everything together

We will:

• create a host entry for vm2
• create an item for monitoring its CPU
• verify that a graph is created
• (optional) create a trigger which activates if the CPU is too high
• (optional) create an action which sends you an email

On the Frontend:

• Configuration>Hosts, then "Create host" and provide the parameters in the first tab "Host"

• then click on the "Templates" tab, write "Linux" in the "Link new templates" field, select "Template OS Linux", then "Add" and "Save"

• Configuration>Hosts, then click on "Items" for the vm2, then "Create item": add an item named "CPULOAD", "system.cpu.load" as key

In principle, this procedure is correct; but the Frontend will say "Not supported by Zabbix agent": the agent version is too old! We don't want to upgrade to 2.2.

A solution can be using a custom sensor:

• open /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf and add:

UserParameter=mycpuload,awk -F '.' '{print }' /proc/loadavg

then restart the agent;

• use zabbix_get to test the new sensor:

# zabbix_get -s 10.10.10.232 -k mycpuload

Then modify the item in the frontend changing the key to "mycpuload".

Finally, use Monitoring>"Latest data" to get the information and the graphs related to the metric just created. If you want the graph to display some meaningful value, open a shell on vm2 (the agent) and run the following (just copy/paste the whole command):

# apt-get -y install stress ; while [ 1 ] ; do (stress --cpu 2 --timeout 10; sleep 10 ) ; done

This will keep the CPU busy for 10 seconds, then stop for 10 seconds, in a never ending cycle. You should be able to see the corresponding graph on the server side.

Try to create a trigger and an action for the CPULOAD item.