Tag Archives: Handy Tips

Handy Tips #31: Detecting invalid metrics with Zabbix validation preprocessing

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-31-detecting-invalid-metrics-with-zabbix-validation-preprocessing/21036/

Monitor and react to unexpected or faulty outputs from your monitoring targets by using Zabbix validation preprocessing.

In case of a failure, some monitoring endpoints like sensors or specific application or OS level counters can start outputting faulty metrics. Such behavior needs to be detected and reacted to as soon as possible.

Use Zabbix preprocessing to validate the collected metrics:

  • Select from and combine multiple preprocessing validation steps
  • Display a custom error message in case of an unexpected metric

  • Discard or change the value in case of an unexpected metric
  • Create an internal action to react to items becoming not supported

Check out the video to learn how to use preprocessing to detect invalid metrics.

Define preprocessing steps and react on invalid metrics:

  1. Navigate to Configuration → Hosts and find your host
  2. Click on the Items button
  3. Find the item for which the preprocessing steps will be defined
  4. Open the item and click on the Preprocessing tab
  5. For our example, we will use the Temperature item
  6. Select the In range preprocessing step
  7. Define the min and max preprocessing parameters
  8. Mark the Custom on fail checkbox
  9. Press the Set error to button and enter your custom error message
  10. Press the Update button
  11. Simulate an invalid metric by sending an out-of-range value to this item
  12. Navigate to Configuration → Hosts → Your Host →  Items
  13. Observe the custom error message being displayed next to your item

Tips and best practices
  • Validation preprocessing can check for errors in JSON, XML, or unstructured text with JSONPath, XPath, or Regex
  • User macros and low-level discovery macros can be used to define the In range validation values
  • The Check for not supported value preprocessing step is always executed as the first preprocessing step
  • Internal actions can be used to define action conditions and receive alerts about specific items receiving invalid metrics

The post Handy Tips #31: Detecting invalid metrics with Zabbix validation preprocessing appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Handy Tips #30: Detect continuous increase or decrease of values with monotonic history functions

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-30-detect-continuous-increase-or-decrease-of-values-with-monotonic-history-functions-2/20867/

Analyze your incoming metrics and look for interruptions in continuously increasing or decreasing metrics with the monoinc and monodec history functions.

A continuous increase or decrease is the norm for metrics such as server uptime, time remaining until a task is executed, number of daily transactions, and many other such use cases. A software or hardware failure could impact these counters and we need to ensure that they are providing the data in an expected manner.

Use monoinc and monodec history functions and detect if value monotonicity is true or false:

  • Detect monotonicity over a number of values or a time period
  • Strict and weak modes of monotonicity detection

  • Receive alerts if a metric is not monotonic
  • The monotonicity check can be combined with other functions to create flexible problem generation logic

Check out the video to learn how to use the monoinc and monodec history functions

How to configure monoinc and monodec history functions:

  1. Identify the items for which you wish to detect monotonicity
  2. For this example, the system.uptime key is used
  3. Navigate to Configuration → Hosts → Your host → Triggers
  4. Press the Create trigger button
  5. Provide the trigger name and severity
  6. Press the Add button to add the trigger expression
  7. Select the item, the monoinc function, evaluation period, mode and result
  8. For this example, we will use the strict mode
  9. An example expression: monoinc(/Linux server/system.uptime,1h,”strict”)=0
  10. Simulate a problem by restarting the host
  11. Navigate to Monitoring → Problems
  12. Confirm that the problem has been generated

Tips and best practices
  • The functions return 1 if all elements in the evaluation period continuously decrease or increase, 0 otherwise
  • The default mode – weak, checks if every value is bigger/smaller or the same as the previous one
  • The strict mode checks if every value has increased/decreased
  • Relative and absolute time shifts can be used to analyze time periods for monotonicity

The post Handy Tips #30: Detect continuous increase or decrease of values with monotonic history functions appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Handy Tips #29: Discovering hosts and services with network discovery

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-29-discovering-hosts-and-services-with-network-discovery/20484/

Automate host creation and monitoring with Zabbix network discovery.

Creating hosts for a large number of monitoring endpoints can become a menial and time-consuming task. It is important to provide the end-users with the tools to automate such tasks to create and start monitoring hosts based on a user-defined set of rules and conditions.

Automate host onboarding and offboarding with Zabbix network discovery:

  • Discover monitoring endpoints and services in user defined IP ranges
  • Define a set of services that should be discovered

  • Provide custom workflows based on the received values
  • Onboard or offboard hosts based on the discovery status

Check out the video to learn how to discover your monitoring endpoints with Zabbix network discovery.

How to configure Zabbix network discovery:

  1. Navigate to Configuration → Discovery
  2. Press the Create discovery rule button service button
  3. Provide the discovery rule name, IP range and update interval
  4. Define discovery checks
  5. Press the Add button
  6. Navigate to ​​​​​​​Configuration → Actions → Discovery actions
  7. Press the Create action button
  8. Provide the action name and action conditions
  9. Navigate to the Operations tab
  10. Define operations to assign templates and host groups
  11. Press the Add button
  12. Wait for the services to be discovered
  13. Navigate to Monitoring → Discovery and confirm the discovery status
  14. Confirm that the hosts have been created in Zabbix

Tips and best practices
  • A single discovery rule will always be processed by a single Discoverer process
  • Every check of a service and a host generates one of the following events: Host or service – Discovered/Up/Lost/Down
  • The hosts discovered by different proxies are always treated as different hosts
  • A host is also added, even if the Add host operation is missing, if you select operations resulting in actions on a host, such as enable/disable/add to host group/link template

The post Handy Tips #29: Discovering hosts and services with network discovery appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Handy Tips #28: Keeping track of your services with business service monitoring

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-28-keeping-track-of-your-services-with-business-service-monitoring/20307/

Configure and deploy flexible business services and monitor the availability of your business and its individual components.

The availability of a business service tends to depend on the state of many interconnected components. Therefore, detecting the current state of a business service requires a sufficiently complex and flexible monitoring logic.

Define flexible business service trees and stay informed about the state of your business services:

  • Business services can depend on an unlimited number of underlying components
  • Select from multiple business service status propagation rules

  •  Calculate the business service state based on the weight of the business service components
  • Receive alerts whenever your business service is unavailable

Check out the video to learn how to configure business service monitoring.

How to configure business service monitoring:

  1. Navigate to Services – Services
  2. Click the Edit button and then click the Create service button
  3. For this example, we will define an Online store business service
  4. Name your service and mark the Advanced configuration checkbox
  5. Click the Add button under the Additional rules
  6. Set the service status and select the conditions
  7. For this example, we will set the status to High
  8. We will use the condition “If weight of child services with Warning status or above is at least 6“
  9. Set the Status calculation rule to Set status to OK
  10. Press the Add button
  11. Press the Add child service button
  12. For this example, we will define Web server child services
  13. Provide a child service name and a problem tag
  14. For our example, we will use node name Equals node # tag
  15. Mark the Advanced configuration checkbox and assign the service weight
  16. Press the Add button
  17. Repeat steps 12 – 17 and add additional child services
  18. Simulate a problem on your services so the summary weight is >= 6
  19. Navigate to Services – Services and check the parent service state

Tips and best practices
  • Service actions can be defined in the Services → Service actions menu section
  • Service root cause problem can be displayed in notifications with the {SERVICE.ROOTCAUSE} macro
  • Service status will not be propagated to the parent service if the status propagation rule is set to Ignore this service
  • Service-level tags are used to identify a service. Service-level tags are not used to map problems to the service

The post Handy Tips #28: Keeping track of your services with business service monitoring appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Handy Tips #27: Tracking changes with the improved Zabbix Audit log

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-27-tracking-changes-with-the-improved-zabbix-audit-log/20176/

Track the creation of new entities, updates to the existing configuration, and potential intrusion attempts with Zabbix audit log.

If your monitoring environment is managed by more than a single administrator, it can become hard to track the implemented changes and additions. Having a detailed audit log can help you analyze any potentially unwanted changes and detect potential intrusion attempts.

Use Zabbix audit log to track changes in your environment:

  • Track configuration changes and updates
  • Audit log displays information about Zabbix server and frontend operations

  • Identify potential intrusion attempts and their source
  •  Filter the audit log by action and resource types

Check out the video to learn how to track changes in Zabbix audit log.

How to track changes in Zabbix audit log:

  1. Navigate to Administration → General → Audit log
  2. Enable and configure your Zabbix audit log settings
  3. Perform a failed login attempt
  4. Check the related entries under Reports → Audit log
  5. Navigate to Configuration →  Hosts
  6. Import hosts or templates from a YAML file
  7. Check the related entries under Reports → Audit log
  8. Filter the entries by the Recordset ID
  9. Navigate to Configuration → Hosts
  10. Find a host with a low-level discovery rule on it
  11. Execute the low-level discovery rule
  12. Check the related entries under Reports → Audit log

Tips and best practices
  • Audit logging should be enabled in the Administration settings to collect audit records
  • Audit log entry storage period can be defined under Administration → General → Audit log
  • Each audit log entry belongs to a Recordset ID which is shared by entries created as a result of the same operation
  • auditlog.get API method can be used to obtain audit log entries via the Zabbix API

The post Handy Tips #27: Tracking changes with the improved Zabbix Audit log appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Handy Tips #26: Displaying infrastructure status with the Geomap widget

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-26-displaying-infrastructure-status-with-the-geomap-widget/20012/

Secure your Zabbix logins from brute-force and dictionary attacks by defining password complexity requirements.

Enforcing an organization-wide password policy can be extremely unreliable if we don’t have a toolset to enforce these policies. By using native password complexity settings, we can provide an additional layer of security and ensure that our users follow our organization’s password complexity policies.

Define custom Zabbix login password complexity rules:

  • Set the minimum password length in a range of 2 – 70 characters
  • Define password character set rules

  • A built-in password list secures users from dictionary attacks
  • Prevent usage of passwords containing first or last names and easy to guess words

Check out the video to learn how to configure Zabbix password complexity requirements.

How to configure Zabbix password complexity requirements:
 
  1. As a super admin navigate to Administration → Authentication
  2. Define the minimum password length
  3. Select the optional Password must contain requirements
  4. Mark Avoid easy-to-guess passwords option
  5. Navigate to Administration → Users
  6. Select use for which we will change the password
  7. Press the Change password button
  8. Try using  easy to guess passwords like zabbix or password
  9. Observe the error messages
  10. Define a password that fits the password requirements
  11. Press the Update button

Tips and best practices:
  • It is possible to restrict access to the ui/data/top_passwords.txt file, which contains the Zabbix password deny list
  • Passwords longer than 72 characters will be truncated
  • Password complexity requirements are only applied to the internal Zabbix authentication
  • Users can change their passwords in the user profile settings

The post Handy Tips #26: Displaying infrastructure status with the Geomap widget appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Handy Tips #25: Securing Zabbix logins with password complexity settings

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-25-securing-zabbix-logins-with-password-complexity-settings/19883/

Secure your Zabbix logins from brute-force and dictionary attacks by defining password complexity requirements.

Enforcing an organization-wide password policy can be extremely unreliable if we don’t have a toolset to enforce these policies. By using native password complexity settings, we can provide an additional layer of security and ensure that our users follow our organization’s password complexity policies.

Define custom Zabbix login password complexity rules:

  • Set the minimum password length in a range of 2 – 70 characters
  • Define password character set rules

  • A built-in password list secures users from dictionary attacks
  • Prevent usage of passwords containing first or last names and easy to guess words

Check out the video to learn how to configure Zabbix password complexity requirements.

How to configure Zabbix password complexity requirements:
 
  1. As a super admin navigate to Administration → Authentication
  2. Define the minimum password length
  3. Select the optional Password must contain requirements
  4. Mark Avoid easy-to-guess passwords option
  5. Navigate to Administration → Users
  6. Select use for which we will change the password
  7. Press the Change password button
  8. Try using  easy to guess passwords like zabbix or password
  9. Observe the error messages
  10. Define a password that fits the password requirements
  11. Press the Update button

Tips and best practices:
  • It is possible to restrict access to the ui/data/top_passwords.txt file, which contains the Zabbix password deny list
  • Passwords longer than 72 characters will be truncated
  • Password complexity requirements are only applied to the internal Zabbix authentication
  • Users can change their passwords in the user profile settings

The post Handy Tips #25: Securing Zabbix logins with password complexity settings appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Handy Tips #24: Preventing downtimes with The Zabbix HA cluster

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-24-preventing-downtimes-with-the-zabbix-ha-cluster/19712/

Configure automated failover between Zabbix server nodes with the native Zabbix server HA cluster.

Preventing downtimes is as vital for a monitoring solution as it is for any other component of an organization’s IT infrastructure. High availability and automated failover can help you prevent unwanted downtimes by supporting multiple application nodes and failing over between them once a primary node has failed.

Deploy native Zabbix server High availability cluster:

  • Deploy two or more Zabbix server nodes
  • No external tools are required to deploy a Zabbix server HA cluster

  • Define custom failover delay before failing over to another node
  • Monitor the status of your Zabbix cluster on Zabbix dashboards

Check out the video to learn how to deploy the Zabbix server High availability cluster:

How to deploy the Zabbix server High availability cluster:
 
  1. Deploy two or more Zabbix server nodes
  2. On all cluster nodes open the Zabbix server configuration file – zabbix_server.conf
  3. On all cluster nodes provide arbitrary node name in the HANodeName parameter
  4. On both nodes provide the node address in the NodeAddress parameter
  5. Open your Zabbix frontend configuration file – zabbix.conf.php
  6. Comment out the //$ZBX_SERVER and $ZBX_SERVER_PORT parameters
  7. From the active node check the HA cluster status with zabbix_server -R ha_status command
  8. Open your Zabbix frontend GUI
  9. Navigate to Reports →  System information
  10. Confirm the Zabbix server HA cluster node status

Tips and best practices:
  • Specifying the HANodeName parameter in the Zabbix server configuration file enables the HA cluster mode
  • The NodeAddress parameter is used by the Zabbix frontend to connect to the active cluster node
  • Zabbix frontend configuration file parameters – $ZBX_SERVER and $ZBX_SERVER_PORT must be commented out for the frontend to automatically detect the active cluster node
  • The current status of the HA cluster can be managed using the dedicated runtime control options

The post Handy Tips #24: Preventing downtimes with The Zabbix HA cluster appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Handy Tips #23: Suppressing problems with Zabbix maintenance periods

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-23-suppressing-problems-with-zabbix-maintenance-periods/19458/

Suppress unwanted problems during planned maintenance by defining Zabbix maintenance periods.

Planned downtimes due to maintenance are a part of every administrator’s life. Be it updating your software or upgrading the underlying hardware – sooner or later we will need to schedule a planned downtime. We also need to find a way to suppress the problems that these planned maintenance jobs can cause.

Define maintenance periods in Zabbix:

  • Prevent alert storms during maintenance periods
  • Define scheduled or one-time downtimes

  • Define maintenance periods for hosts or host groups
  • Use tags to suppress only the matching problems

Check out the video to learn how to use Zabbix Sender to send custom metrics to your Zabbix instance.

How to define a Zabbix maintenance period:
 
  1. Navigate to Configuration → Maintenance
  2. Click on the Create maintenance period button
  3. Type in the maintenance period name
  4. Select the maintenance type and the activity time window
  5. Add a period during which your maintenance will take place
  6. Select hosts and/or host groups
  7. Optionally, specify tags to suppress only the matching problems 
  8. Add the maintenance period
  9. Wait until the configuration changes are picked up by the Zabbix server
  10. Navigate to Monitoring → Problems
  11. Confirm if the problems on the host are suppressed

Tips and best practices:
  • Suppressed problems can be displayed in the problems section by checking the Show suppressed problems checkbox
  • Host status is switched to/from maintenance only at the start of the minute
  • If you create a maintenance period with data collection, the triggers are processed as usual, but any related problems are suppressed
  • If you create a maintenance period with no data collection, no related metrics will be collected during the maintenance period 

The post Handy Tips #23: Suppressing problems with Zabbix maintenance periods appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Handy Tips #22: Deploying Zabbix in the AWS cloud platform

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-22-deploying-zabbix-in-the-aws-cloud-platform/19343/

Deploy a production-ready Zabbix instance in the AWS cloud platform with just a few clicks.

With a major paradigm shift to cloud IT infrastructures, many organizations opt-in to migrate their on-prem systems to the Cloud. Zabbix provides official cloud images for the most popular cloud vendors including the AWS cloud platform.

Deploy the complete Zabbix infrastructure in AWS:

  • Deploying a fully functional environment takes less than 5 minutes
  • Select between multiple geographical regions

  • Select the EC2 Instance type best fit for your Zabbix workloads
  • Perfect for both Q/A and Production environments

Check out the video to learn how to deploy Zabbix in AWS.

How to deploy a Zabbix instance in AWS:
 
  1. Open the Zabbix Cloud Images page and select the AWS Zabbix server image
  2. Click Continue to Subscribe and subscribe to use the image
  3. Read the terms and conditions and click Continue to Configuration
  4. Select the Region in which you wish to deploy a Zabbix instance
  5. Select the launch options and the EC2 instance Type
  6. Select a VPC, a subnet, a Security group, and a key pair
  7. Make sure that the selected security group allows traffic through ports 10051, 22 and 443
  8. Press Launch to launch the instance
  9. Check the instance address and connect to the instance 
  10. Copy the initial frontend username and password
  11. Sign-in into the frontend with your credentials

Tips and best practices:
  • The initial frontend password can be obtained by connecting to the instance terminal
  • By default, the Zabbix frontend uses the UTC timezone
  • The frontend timezone can be changed by editing the php_value[date.timezone] variable in /etc/php-fpm.d/zabbix.conf and restarting the php-fpm process
  • The MySQL root password is stored in /root/.my.cnf configuration file

The post Handy Tips #22: Deploying Zabbix in the AWS cloud platform appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Handy Tips #21: Deploying Zabbix Server with Docker containers

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-21-deploying-zabbix-server-with-docker-containers/18972/

Deploy Zabbix components in docker containers for advanced automation, scalability, and maintenance.

In the past few years, containers have gained prevalence and are being used for many different tasks – from application development to improving automation and management of existing software.

Deploy Zabbix components in Docker containers:

  • Official Docker images are available for individual components
  • Automate the deployment of your Zabbix containers

  • Use containers to quickly scale your environment
  • Upgrade to a newer Zabbix version by deploying containers from the latest container images

Check out the video to learn how to deploy the Zabbix server with Docker containers.

How to deploy Zabbix server with Docker containers:
 
  1. Connect to your Docker container host
  2. Create a new docker network. Specify the subnet and the IP range for containers.
  3. Deploy your Zabbix server container
    1. Give the container a name and assign it to the newly created network
    2. Pass the Database host, user, and password in environment variables
    3. Map the port 10051 on the host to the port 10051 on the container
    4. Select the required Docker image and tag
  4. Deploy your Zabbix frontend container
    1. Give the container a name and assign it to the newly created network
    2. Pass the Database host, user, and password in environment variables
    3. Pass the Zabbix server address in the environment variable
    4. Map port 80 on your host to port 8080 on the container
  5. Use docker ps and docker logs to check if the containers are running
  6. Connect to your Zabbix frontend and confirm that there are no issues with the environment

Tips and best practices:
  • Container logs can be accessed by using the docker logs command
  • Zabbix server checks for an existing Zabbix database. If it does not exist – it will get created.
  • Use the docker exec command to run commands inside a container
  • All of the supported container environment variables are available in https://hub.docker.com/u/zabbix

The post Handy Tips #21: Deploying Zabbix Server with Docker containers appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Handy Tips #20: Agentless metric collection with SSH checks

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-20-agentless-metric-collection-with-ssh-checks/18795/

Collect the results of SSH commands with Zabbix agentless SSH checks.

In environments where Zabbix agent installation is forbidden either by company policies or due to restrictions on the monitored device, we can utilize one of the multiple agentless metric collection methods. One such type of metric collection method is Zabbix SSH checks.

Collect metrics with Zabbix SSH checks:

  • SSH checks are completely agentless
  • SSH checks can be executed by Zabbix server or Zabbix proxy

  •  SSH checks support Password or Public key authentication
  • Multiple commands can be executed one after another

Check out the video to learn how to collect metrics by using SSH checks.

How to collect metrics by using SSH checks:
 
  1. Navigate to Configuration → Hosts and find your host
  2. Click on the Items button next to the host name
  3. Press Create item button
  4. Provide item Name, Key and select the Type of information
  5. Select the required Authentication method
  6. Enter the authentication parameters
  7. Populate the Executed script field with your SSH command
  8. Click the Add button
  9. Wait for the data to get collected
  10. Navigate to Monitoring → Latest data and find your Host and item
  11. Check if the metric has been collected successfully

Tips and best practices:
  • Zabbix preprocessing can be used to transform the collected metrics
  • A dedicated OS user can be defined and used for Zabbix SSH checks
  • SSHKeyLocation configuration parameter defines the location of the public and private keys for Public key authentication
  • It is recommended to use libssh version >= 0.9.5 

The post Handy Tips #20: Agentless metric collection with SSH checks appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Handy Tips #19: Preventing alert storms with trigger dependencies

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-19-preventing-alert-storms-with-trigger-dependencies/18696/

Prevent receiving a flood of unwanted alerts and receive only the most critical notifications by defining trigger dependencies.

Every IT infrastructure has multiple elements, failure of which can cause a cascading set of problems across the particular infrastructure segment. It is important to prevent an unwanted alert storm and highlight only the root cause problem within the problem chain.

Define trigger dependencies to prevent alert storms:

  • Only the most critical problems will be displayed in Zabbix
  • Dependent triggers will not generate problems until the parent trigger is in an OK state

  • Each trigger can have multiple trigger dependencies
  • Trigger dependencies can be defined between triggers on different hosts

Check out the video to learn how to define trigger dependencies.

How to define a trigger dependency:
 
  1. Navigate to Configuration → Hosts
  2. Find the host for which you will define the trigger dependency
  3. Click on the triggers button next to the host
  4. Open the trigger for which you will define the dependency
  5. Click on the Dependencies tab
  6. Click add and select the host containing the parent trigger
  7. Select the trigger on which the current trigger will depend on
  8. If required, add more trigger dependencies
  9. Click the Update button
  10. Simulate a problem to test the dependency
  11. Navigate to Monitoring → Problems and observe the trigger dependency behavior

Tips and best practices:
  • The dependent trigger will only be re-evaluated once the related item receives new metrics
  • Trigger dependency may be added between host triggers as long as it wouldn’t result in a circular dependency
  • A trigger dependency chain between multiple hosts can be created
  • Zabbix will not execute actions for the dependent trigger if the parent trigger is in a problem state

The post Handy Tips #19: Preventing alert storms with trigger dependencies appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Handy Tips #18: Distributed monitoring with a lightweight Zabbix SQLite proxy

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-18-distributed-monitoring-with-a-lightweight-zabbix-sqlite-proxy/18401/

Distribute your monitoring by deploying a lightweight Zabbix SQLite proxy in 5 minutes.

Monitoring remote data centers can be challenging when the data collection is performed from a single location. Distributed monitoring can help us resolve potential issues such as loss of data in case of network outages, horizontal scalability, and much more.

Distribute and scale your monitoring with a lightweight Zabbix SQLite proxy:

  • Collect data in case of network outages between data centers
  • Deploy an unlimited number of Zabbix proxies

  • SQLite proxies are perfect for running on embedded hardware
  • Proxy connections can be encrypted

Check out the video to learn how to deploy a Zabbix SQLite proxy.

How to deploy a Zabbix SQLite proxy:

  1. Install the Zabbix repository and Zabbix proxy packages
  2. Locate and open the zabbix_proxy.conf configuration file
  3. Populate the Server, Hostname, and DBName parameters
  4. Enable and start the Zabbix proxy
  5. Open Administration → Proxies and click the Create Proxy button
  6. Provide the proxy name and click the Add button
  7. Open the Zabbix agent configuration file
  8. Populate the Server and/or ServerActive parameters
  9. Restart the Zabbix agent
  10. Navigate to Configuration → Hosts and open your host
  11. Select the proxy in the Monitored by proxy field and click the Update button
  12. Wait for the proxy to receive the configuration changes
  13. Navigate to Monitoring → Latest data
  14. Check if the Zabbix proxy has collected the metrics 

Tips and best practices:
  • By default, Zabbix proxies receive configuration updates once an hour
  • Each Zabbix Proxy can use a different database engine
  • Monitor the proxy performance with the Zabbix proxy templates
  • Zabbix proxies will perform preprocessing tasks before sending the data to the Zabbix server

The post Handy Tips #18: Distributed monitoring with a lightweight Zabbix SQLite proxy appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Handy Tips #17: Master and dependent items for bulk metric collection

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-17-master-and-dependent-items-for-bulk-metric-collection/18291/

Collect metrics in bulk and reduce monitoring performance overhead with master and dependent items.

Data collection efficiency is an important aspect of monitoring. We need to ensure that our monitoring approach has a minimal impact both on the monitoring system and the system that is being monitored.

Improve your metric collection efficiency and reduce the performance overhead with master and dependent items:

  • Dependent items can extract data from a master item by using preprocessing
  • Combine multiple preprocessing steps for best results

  • Up to 3 dependency levels are supported
  • Up to 29999 dependent items for a single master item

Check out the video to learn how to define master and dependent items

How to define master and dependent items:

 

  1. Navigate to Configuration → Hosts and create a new host representing your API endpoint
  2. Input the Host name, Host group, and add an arbitrary interface
  3. Click the Add button
  4. In Configuration → Hosts Click on the Items button next to the host
  5. Click the Create item button
  6. Select the Type – HTTP agent and populate the URL with your API endpoint address
  7. Select the Type of information – Text
  8. Click the Add button
  9. Create another item of type Dependent item
  10. Define item Key and item Name with arbitrary values
  11. Open the Preprocessing tab
  12. Use a preprocessing step (ex. JSONPath) to extract the required value from the master item
  13. Click the Add button
  14. Navigate to Monitoring → Latest data and filter by your host
  15. Observe the collected metrics

Tips and best practices:
  • Dependent items don’t have their own update intervals
  • Dependent item values get updated as soon as the master item receives a new value
  • Deleting a master item will also delete the items that depend on it
  • Item of any type can be used as a master item

Handy Tips #16: Automating Zabbix host deployment with autoregistration

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-16-automating-zabbix-host-deployment-with-autoregistration/18232/

Configure Zabbix agent autoregistration to automatically deploy and start monitoring Zabbix agent hosts.

As your IT infrastructure scales up, there comes a point where manual host creation is simply not feasible. At this point, the preferable approach is to find a way to automate host deployment.

Deploy and manage hosts automatically with Zabbix active agent autoregistration:

  • Automatically deploy and start monitoring hosts
  • Assign different templates depending on hostname and host metadata

  • Receive notifications whenever a new host is deployed
  • Automatically make changes or perform offboarding of hosts

Check out the video to learn how to configure Zabbix agent autoregistration.

How to configure Zabbix agent autoregistration:

 

  1. Navigate to Configuration → Actions → Autoregistration actions
  2. Click the Create action button
  3. Define action conditions
  4. Navigate to the Operations tab and define the action operations
  5. Connect to your host and open the Zabbix agent configuration file
  6. Populate the Hostname, HostMetadata and HostInterface fields
  7. Restart the Zabbix agent
  8. Navigate to Configuration → Hosts and make sure that the host has been created
  9. Navigate to Monitoring → Latest Data and make sure that the host is receiving metrics

Tips and best practices:
  • Host name and host metadata values are case-sensitive
  • Agent restart is required to apply host name and host metadata changes
  • HostnameItem can be used to populate the host name with a Zabbix agent item value
  • HostMetadataItem can be used to populate the host metadata with a Zabbix agent item value

Handy Tips #15: Deploying Zabbix passive and active agents

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-15-deploying-zabbix-passive-and-active-agents/17696/

Deploy Zabbix Agent to collect OS-level metrics.

There are multiple approaches to collecting OS-level metrics – from collecting only simple ping statistics to deploying an SNMP agent or using custom scripts. In many cases, this is either not sufficient or too time-consuming and not flexible enough. By deploying the Zabbix Agent you can enable a quick and easy way to collect OS-level metrics.

Deploy Zabbix Agent and collect metrics by polling the agent or autonomously sending data to your Zabbix Server:

  • Zabbix Agent supports polling (passive) and trapping (active)
  • Negligible performance overhead
  • Can be installed from packages on Linux or the MSI installer on Windows

  • Supports the most popular Unix-like operating systems
  • Zabbix Agent can be extended with custom User Parameters

Check out the video to learn how to deploy the Zabbix Agent in passive and active modes

How to configure and deploy Zabbix passive and active agents:

  1. Install the Zabbix repository and the Zabbix Agent on your host
  2. Open the zabbix_agentd.conf configuration file
  3. Specify your Zabbix Server address in the Server and ServerActive parameters
  4. Define the name of your host in the Hostname parameter
  5. Restart the Zabbix Agent
  6. Navigate to Configuration →  Hosts
  7. Create two hosts in Zabbix frontend – one for passive and one for active checks
  8. For passive Agent host – define an Agent interface containing the address of your Zabbix Server
  9. The active agent Host name should match the Hostname parameter value in the Agent configuration file
  10. Apply the corresponding Linux by Zabbix Agent/Linux by Zabbix Agent active template
  11. Navigate to Monitoring →  Latest data and check if you have received metrics from the hosts

Tips and best practices:
  • A single Zabbix Agent can collect metrics in both passive and active modes
  • Zabbix Agent is backward compatible
  • The frontend ZBX interface icon is related only to passive checks 
  • Active Zabbix Agent doesn’t require an interface configuration in Zabbix frontend
  • For active checks, the Zabbix Agent Hostname in the configuration file must match the Host name in the frontend

Handy Tips #14: Gain new insights into your metrics with the Graph widget

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-13-gain-new-insights-into-your-metrics-with-the-graph-widget/17416/

Group, aggregate, and visualize your collected metrics with the Graph widget to obtain additional insights.

Sometimes simple graphs may not be sufficient – we may need to visualize data trends, display all metrics matching a pattern, or define custom draw styles for specific metrics.

The Graph widget allows you to visualize your metrics in an advanced fashion:

  • Customize your graph draw styles
  • Select between displaying History or Trend values
  • Calculate and display aggregated metric values on the fly

  • Define custom aggregation intervals
  • Define flexible problem display logic
  • Visually group metrics by defining item and host data sets

Check out the video to learn how to visualize your metrics by using the Graph widget.

How to visualize data with the Graph widget:

  1. Navigate to Monitoring → Dashboards – All Dashboards
  2. Click Create Dashboard to create a new Dashboard
  3. Left-click on an empty space and select Add Widget
  4. Select Widget type – Graph
  5. Type in the data set host and item patterns
  6. Use wildcard symbol ‘*‘ to match multiple hosts/items
  7. Click Add new data set to add a second data set
  8. Fill in the host pattern and item pattern to match a different set of metrics
  9. For both data sets, select an Aggregation function, Aggregation interval, and Aggregate – Data set
  10. Observe how metrics get aggregated in the graph on the fly

Tips and best practices:
  • Wildcards can be used in host and item pattern matching
  • The Overrides section can be used to further customize a particular set of items
  • Items within a single data set will use the same base color
  • Up to 50 items may be displayed in the graph

Handy Tips #13: Automate inventory information collection with Zabbix

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-13-automate-inventory-information-collection-with-zabbix/17367/

Metrics collected by Zabbix can be used not only for historic data analysis and problem detection but they can also be utilized to populate your host inventory.

Keeping track of your host inventory is a necessity in organizations of every size. Using another tool to do that can be costly and cause software bloat and sometimes we may have to resort to populating inventory data manually.

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Handy Tips #12: Optimizing Zabbix database size with custom data storage periods

Post Syndicated from Arturs Lontons original https://blog.zabbix.com/handy-tips-12-optimizing-zabbix-database-size-with-custom-data-storage-periods/17396/

Zabbix allows its users to configure custom data retention periods for different types of data – from history and trend storage periods to user session storage periods.

Data retention requirements can vary a lot between different environments. With considerations to data storage footprint and company policies, some environments might require storing months of historical data, while others are fine with storing mostly trends.

Use housekeeping settings to define custom data storage periods:

  • Storage periods can be defined for history, trends, events, and more
  • Unique storage periods can be defined for each individual item

  • TimescaleDB backends support native data partitioning and compression
  • Housekeeping for individual data types can be disabled – not recommended in production environments

Check out the video to learn how to define data storage periods on your Zabbix instance.

How to define data storage periods on your Zabbix instance:

  1. Navigate to Configuration → Hosts and click on the Items button next to an existing host
  2. Select any integer or float item
  3. Set the History storage period to 30d, Trend storage period to 180d
  4. Save the item
  5. Navigate to Administration → General → Housekeeping
  6. Set the Trigger data storage period to 90d
  7. Tick the checkbox next to the Override item history period option
  8. Set the History storage period to 90d
  9. Navigate back to Configuration → Hosts and click on your host
  10. Click on the Items next to your host and find the previously modified item
  11. Click on the green i next to the History storage period
  12. Read the override notification

Tips and best practices::
  • Usually, long term storage of internal, network discovery, and autoregistration events is not required
  • Item and trend storage periods can be overridden by global settings
  • Storage period will not be overridden for items that have Do not keep history or Do not keep trends enabled
  • An event will not be removed until the associated problem is resolved