View Full Version : Call for discussion on ZABBIX 1.6
ZABBIX 1.4 has been released, 1.4.1 will be out soon. I think ZABBIX has made a very good progress since 1.1 and now it is time to start thinking about the future.
We have already composed a draft roadmap for 1.6, but I don't want to release it now, because I would like to get an unbiased response from you, ZABBIX users!
Please, give ZABBIX team some feedback on the following topics:
- general functionality you're missing
- things that can be improved
- critics, any weaknesses, etc.
- any other suggestions
I would appreciate any ideas and recommendations as well as criticizm very much! It is a great chance for you to be heard, to discuss and, most probably, to influence our plans :)
I would like a way to send a large number of items to Zabbix via the Zabbix sender interface. Currently, i use my own implementation of zabbix_sender (in Java) to be able to send items to Zabbix.
I need to send several hundred items per minute and each item requires me to create a tcp connection, send a bit of Xml and close the connection. It would be great if I could just keep the connection open between the bits of Xml, that would save a great deal of overhead.
The ability to write a partial agent would also work great for my purposes. That way I could just start a regular Zabbix agent and my own agent (within SonicMQ, the product I use) together. Zabbix would then need to be able to query multiple agents per host. This seems to be a more scaleable solution.
swaterhouse
13-06-2007, 14:28
For me escalations are the biggest missing piece right now. I would like to see that in 1.6 for sure.
The other major issue is documentation. The manual is better than it was for 1.1 but it is still lacking - especially for newbies. The installation portion has several issues with it including wrong paths to database scripts and a couple of missing steps. I wrote a step by step guide on the wiki for CentOS so I understand how hard it is to write documentation but its really important for the success of the project. I am a fairly new linux admin and no where near an expert but I have installed several server applications on linux and zabbix was one of the hardest I have done so far, mostly due to lack of documentation/wrong information. If this was the first server app on linux I ever used, I definately would have given up and looked for something else easier to install.
Another minor thing would be to use the results of snmpwalk (including the ability to link into an mib file) to load a template for monitoring a device via snmp.
Thanks for all your efforts, Zabbix has been great and I am looking forward to 1.4.1 so I can upgrade my 1.1.6 installation and take advantage of all the new features!
StanZoid
13-06-2007, 16:51
You asked for it! Here are some suggestions I have:
1. Slideshows should be able to show standard Zabbix pages in addition to screens defined by the administrator. I would love to show the Monitoring/Triggers page, for example. As an alternative, a gizmo for screen building could be made to show only true triggers.
2. Web testing should include the ability to take returned values and use them in subsequent steps. I can't test my web farm adequately without the ability to pass and use a session id.
3. More reports aimed at operations. Since the reports section is weak, why not give the ability to add SQL statements or scripts as custom reports via the interface?
4. Escalations, please. Pretty please.
5. Auto creation of triggers as items are created would be cool.
6. Documentation.
7. The configure hosts page lists the templates in the middle of the page. In my environment, some hosts have many templates, which pushes the balance of the columns off the screen. Maybe move the templates linked column to the right of the page?
8. Report formats for printing or export to other programs for analysis and presentation, as in spreadsheet-compatible formats.
9. A presentation mode suitable for a Network Operations Center. The slideshow is a start, but it needs more presence, easier diagnosis and more compact presentation of information.
10. The overview page in monitoring is useless when you have specialized machinery being monitored. I have several servers that have tens of triggers unique to those servers, making the overview an exercise in paging down. Can this be compressed , a la host groups and applications, so that a single screen can handle an overview?
11. How about a clone host function that builds a new host and all associated items/triggers and template connections?
12. Allow an agent to do the web testing if so configured. I need a remote web tester to validate that websites hosted internally are visible externally.
13. Allow maps to use the value of one item as a secondary label.
14. Actions should allow an action to specify a media type in addition to a group or person. A single action could then be used to target media as well as people.
15. Other graph formats?
16. Log monitoring where there are many logs on a server takes a lot of server resources. I have an environment where any of a group of binaries will be implemented many times, each generating an identical but separate log, and this is not easy with current zabbix monitoring without loading the server. I don't know how to fix this, or if it need fixing, but it is one spot I wrestle with.
OK, enough gripes. Things I like are:
1. Hurrah for export/import. I use it to quickly build new hosts and attach items and triggers, and to backup configurations.
2. Web testing is cool. Would be cooler with #2.
3. The whole interface feels tighter and better built. Not as polished as some, but it allows a certain flexibility that I like.
4. Screens are wonderful!
5. IT services rock! If they were just documented enough to use...
6. The forum is tremendous. Alexei, thanks for frequenting and responding, and thanks to those who have answered many of my questions. The user community is great.
Your competition in the free monitoring world is getting better. Presentation and documentation are the weak spot relative to others that I have seen. Your functionality and flexibility are strong points. I am aiming to get Zabbix ready to hand off to an Operations group that may not know how to use it, so the interface is increasingly important, both in ease of use and presentability.
Keep up the great work!
Stanzoid
James Wells
13-06-2007, 17:32
Greetings,
There are a number of things I would like to see i the next version;
Improved Agent / Server communication. At present when an agent collects it's list of items, it gets, the item key_ and periodicity. It then goes off on it's merry way and sends item updates as directed by the periodicity. When the agent sends the data to the server, it sends the key_ and the value, and a few other bits of information, such as hostname. The server then has to perform a lookup against the items table and the hosts table to find the right item to be updated.
What I would like to see is the agent and the server change this communication to instead send itemid, instead of key_, this will eliminate the need to perform the host lookup, and greatly reduce the number of rows that need to be queried on the item table lookup.
A complete rework of the UI. One of the biggest issues I have with the UI is that the bulk of the information is processed inline instead of in functions. This means that to fix the way some of the data is displayed, you need to edit multiple files.
What I would like to see instead, is move many of the repetitive display code chunks into more functions, This will make it much easier in the future to convert to Smarty, Drupal, Seagull, etc. Additionally, using more functions, would make things a great deal easier when extra features are added as you woild not have to go back and re-invent the wheel as often. A good example of this was the Severity Level code. In 1.1.x, prior to my bulk patches, this code was replicated 8 times, and each of the 8 was different from the others.
Repeating Messages / Escalation. I am unclear as to why both of these features were removed. In early 1.1 development, we had escalations, then they were removed without comment or explanation. In early 1.4 development, we had repeat notifications, as we had had throughout 1.1.x, and then near the end of 1.4 development, we were told that repeat notifications were being removed, but not why.
I would like to see both of these features returned to Zabbix, along with a mechanism, similar to my acknowledgments in place to control escalations and repeat notifications.
Better Communication. Since Ossimy became a developer, I have seen maybe 5 messages from him, and only a few dozen from Alexei, actually talking about the code and where it can be improved and how. Zabbix has a developers mailing list, that has received only a two emails in the last 24 months, and both of them were from me.
What I would like to see is better communication between the community and the developers. We need more timely responses to our patch submissions, we need Alexei and Eugene to critique the patches that we submit. At the same time, we, meaning the community, need to be able to provide feedback and critique of their code as well. Basically, we need to know that you are listening to us and our ideas.
Finally, we, meaning the community, need to be able to feel that we are wanted / needed. When I became a developer, I was the first person outside of SIA Zabbix to become one. Since then, over 24 months now, no other person has been allowed to join.
StanZoid
14-06-2007, 00:11
One more gripe--I would like to be able to acknowledge multiple triggers with one action. If there are 25 triggers true due to a single event, the same ack message should apply to all, so why not ack them all together? The paradigm of check all to acknowledge comes to mind here.
Stanzoid
bbrendon
14-06-2007, 02:29
I haven't used 1.4 yet but I can picture it clearly from reading the forums.
My ideas... please note that 99% of my Zabbix is based on active checks, so all this should work in that capacity.
1. Escalations/Repeats/Acknowledgments
2. A better method to deploy custom parameters to agents. Basically, I would like the agents to download the scripts (vbs, sh,pl,etc scripts) and stuff so I can manage everything from one computer/UI.
3. Reports. Pie graphs, easy to read reports, stuff managers would like. If this isn't included, maybe some tutorials on how to generate custom reports using a 3rd party reporting library or application?
4. Encrypted agent communication (similar to puppet maybe)
bobrivers
14-06-2007, 06:55
Hi,
My suggestions:
1) MAPS
It would be great if I could include "graphical" elements (such as lines, squares, clouds, labels, etc...) and not only "monitored" elements into maps. So I could use it to document my environment. It's great to show it to managers and buy-in sponsorship...
Today maps has a little "bug": if I have two(or more) links between two elements, they are overlayed. For instance: I have router A and router B. Between A and B I have one link from carrier X and another from carrier Y. Today, I can't map it correctly. So, it's necessary to check if users registered mode than one link.
I didn't found where to upload new images/icons, or where I can replace the default ones. An interface to upload it would be good.
2) INVENTORY/HOST PROFILE
I would like to use zabbix as my CMDB. So the profile must be improved. First it's necessary to add some basic fields, such as category, type, date of purchase, warranty period/type/expiration date. Ability to upload multiple files (manuals, contracts, procedures, etc) with descriptions. Or instead of just one url, multiple urls (with descriptions) so I could store the files into the server and then link then with the host. CMDB is much more complex, but it's necessary to start at some point.
3) EVENTS
Ability to report "voluntary" events. If I have a programmed maintenance, how do I report it to zabbix? I don't want to stop zabbix to monitor it during the maintenance (I like to know my total unavailability), but I would like to mark it as a programmed incident. So, I could exclude it (if I want) from my SLA. I know that I can write comments, but I'm going a little bit further.
And I would like to group events into problems. Let's say that was necessary to replace server's network card. Of course that zabbix will throw lots of events (and as I said, I want it to be registered). But instead of doing comments one by one, I could group it, give it a label and apply a common comment.
4) REPORTS
Every day (and I consolidate it monthly) I produce a "Operation Report" where I summarize the incidents/problems that occurred. If I could use zabbix to do it, it would be great. I need to report when, where, duration, why and solution. Zabbix is almost there, but it needs some adjustments to make it more usable (item 3).
I think a nice addition to 1.6 would be the use of 'OS Fingerprinting' in the discovery code. Something like nmap does, examining open ports and so forth to make an educated guess at the detected device OS. Zabbix could then apply an appropriate template automatically. Templates for various known device types could be included by default (and of course, more could be contributed by the community). Data gathered from items in the templates could be used to populate the Inventory, too.
The ability to do this could make it possible to create Zabbix 'appliances' that almost anyone could install and begin using right away, without the large amount of up-front time required to create a usable configuration.
I realize this is not a trivial addition, but it would certainly be a great enhancement. Perhaps some of this is already included in 1.4; I haven't been able to make my 1.1.6 to 1.4 upgrade function well enough to really check it out yet.
Thanks,
Ross
a minor feature idea : more possible states for links in maps.
currently a link can be associated to a single trigger and change colour depending on this trigger.
would be nice, if several (at least two) triggers could be added, with priorities.
for example, a link could have two triggers linked, one that detects link down, other - slow response. when ping time would exceed threshold (thet is, one trigger would go true), link would get yellow. when the seccond trigger goes on, link becomes red.
Better Communication.
...
What I would like to see is better communication between the community and the developers. We need more timely responses to our patch submissions, we need Alexei and Eugene to critique the patches that we submit. At the same time, we, meaning the community, need to be able to provide feedback and critique of their code as well. Basically, we need to know that you are listening to us and our ideas.
Finally, we, meaning the community, need to be able to feel that we are wanted / needed. When I became a developer, I was the first person outside of SIA Zabbix to become one. Since then, over 24 months now, no other person has been allowed to join.
this is getting more and more important.
irc channel is partially dead. wiki (which would be the frontline of community involvement) is not taking off. forum is used as a primary communications channel, bug tracker and whatnot...
i understand that implementing new infrastructure components is not easy or trivial, but - zabbix bugzilla would be really, really great. hunting forums for problems, patches and workarounds is not quite productive :)
also, this would give zabbix team more experience regarding zabbix-bugtracker integration ;)
here i've come to a feature request i saw - escalations and so on. i believe that most people who implement this in a monitoring solution would in some time outgrow it's capabilities and require decent bugtracker. and migration later is more painful.
so, integration with a decent tracker (ideally, as a pluggable solution so that moduls for other systems could be easily developed later, hopefully by the community, too) could be more fruitful.
an opensource project health is mostly determined by how vibrant, large and disparate the community is. the more closed it is, the larger are associated risks, which can turn away new users,
sspyrison
15-06-2007, 15:50
For me escalations are the biggest missing piece right now. I would like to see that in 1.6 for sure.
Heck, I'd like to see "escalations" in 1.4.1.
imo it is core functionality in a monitoring package. This missing piece keeps zabbix out of our environment and in eval stage.
The other big one for me in 1.1 was not being able to assign multiple templates to a host, but that seems to be possible now in 1.4.
Other than that, thanks for your work on a good product, hopefully I'll have more time soon to eval 1.4 and post more detailed comments.
Hi,
In addition:
- Graphs in emails notifications
- Custom reports by email (can be screens)
Thanks
Screen Options - Allowing more custom screen data when trying to build screens would be very helpful. Allow you to staticically define a field and then insert a value after it. A better interface for positioning and build the screen. Also customized items like grabbing the last 25 events that happened to a certain host would be very helpful.
Reporting - It would be nice to have reports mailed out in PDF format of custome timelines for graphs each day. There is a lot of people that ask for daily reporting in upper management and for archive use.
Graphing - Having a better graphing interface to manipulate the timeline would be great. I have to say that Cacti does have a better way to maipulate the graphs where you can drag a square over the area you want to zoom in on. SVG I have seen to be a great interface for this.
Escalations - I think this has been addressed enough by everyone else.
knarfling
18-06-2007, 16:32
Escalations - I think this has been addressed enough by everyone else.
Actually, I don't think it has. I was REALLY hoping that this would be addressed by 1.4. Zabbix cannot really be and enterprise monitoring system until it has 3 things.
1. Distributed monitoring. Until 1.4 this was lacking. While many small businesses have only one location, some small businesses and many large businesses have multiple locations that need to be monitored.
2. Secure communications between nodes. Although it is possible to set up SSH tunnels and VPN's, this is Zabbix NEEDS to have a built in feature to provide secure communication.
3. Escalations. The only reason I am still allowed to use Zabbix is because I have created multiple triggers to simulate escalation, and promised that it would be included in a future release. In EVERY organization that I have worked with, management does not want to leave it to the tech to keep things running. They want to be paged when there is a serious problem, but only if the problem is serious. They want to know that a tech or admin has been paged, that that person has responded and that the problem is being fixed. But they do not want to be bothered by little things.
I cannot stress enough the importance of escalations or the need for it to be included in Zabbix. I think that a LOT of people wanted it in 1.4, but only a few really asked for it. Most of us (me included) thought that it would be included, and since a few had already asked for it, we didn't speak up. Perhaps if we has communicated just how important escalations are, we might have had them included in the 1.4 release.
In EVERY organization that I have worked with, management does not want to leave it to the tech to keep things running. They want to be paged when there is a serious problem, but only if the problem is serious. They want to know that a tech or admin has been paged, that that person has responded and that the problem is being fixed. But they do not want to be bothered by little things.
well, i would guess that most organisations where this would matter have a decent (or at least some) helpdesk system. so a normal use case would be monitoring system opening an issue at the helpdesk system, which would handle different advanced notifications, escalations and whatnot (keeping some reserve notification channel inside monitoring system for things like helpdesk system not working ;) )
so far integrating zabbix with these systems has not been trivial (part of this is to blame on helpdesk systems, too).
it would seem more logical to work towards improving integration with helpdesk systems/bug trackers, instead of bolting helpdesk functionality on top of a monitoring solution.
i find it hard to believe that any decently sized organisation would keep two different escalation schemes, one in helpdesk system, other - in monitoring system.
in any case, it seems that this topic deserves a separate thread to avoid polluting this one.
though i hope feature request list eventually makes it into the wiki ;)
StanZoid
18-06-2007, 18:42
Another thing I would like to see addressed is log monitoring. As I see it today, the logs are loaded into the database, then the triggers are applied. In my case, where I am monitoring tens of logs on a single server, this creates a lot of unnecessary database action.
This leads me to two types of log monitoring. The first type is only interested in finding defined strings and alerting if they are present. I see this as an agent-level activity, with only results returning to the database. It would be much easier than generating a script and using sender, or defining a custom variable and hoping the delay is under 1/2 second...
The second type is interested in the contents of the log, such as a cron history. The current log functionality works in this case.
One other thought on log monitoring. Many of my logs use naming that includes date stamping, making log checking impossible to configure as currently implemented. I would like to see an option for log monitoring that considered variables in file names.
Great work on 1.4!
StanZoid
Two things I noticed in Zabbix that are incomplete that make operations cumbersome:
1. The backup system doesn't backup everything necessary to have a working system on restore. I'd like to press backup and have everything except possibly logs. When I take this backup to another machine (or a freshly reinstalled machine) I'd like to be able to press restore and have my zabbix running again. The last version I tried for this was 1.3.8.
2. Editing creating a map is cumbersome when setting it up because the coords have to be typed in to move an item. Here it would be much more user friendly to enable drag and drop with the mouse to adjust locations on the map.
Another user friendly option would be to add a button perhaps to the acknowledgments area to increase or decrease checking time for individual triggers. This would allow to quickly fine tune if triggers are happening to fast.
Andreas Bollhalder
18-06-2007, 22:16
Auto {HOSTNAME}
My great wish is that ZABBIX is automaticaly adding the hostnames to the triggers, maps and other location where needed, removing the need to prefix every trigger with it.
Selection for media type in actions
It would be nice to define different actions depending on the media type of the user. With this, it would be easy to setup the message text different for example for sms and email.
Andreas
ghislain
19-06-2007, 11:02
Here is a few things:
Device discovery:
- disk discovery : We want to monitor disk inode, and free space on all server. Right now you must know each server's mount table to monitor it and create triggers, item and action to suits the partition schema of each server.
It should be easy to zabbix to have rule like :
vfs.fs.inode[/,pfree,all]
that does the monitoring on all disk. Same for all disk related functions.
- ethernet card discovery : same as disk discovery but for ethernet cards.
LDAP user authentification:
Enterprise size have allready a user directory so plugins like LDAP auth or Mysql auth should really make the thing easier.
API :
API is also very usefull when you have an enterprise system, how could you manage all those servers if they are in 5 different applications. The monitoring should be easy to plug into the schema and so provide API for adding/removing servers at least equal to autodiscovery possibilities.
see zenoss for all those features. Seeing them in zabbix would be great.
Automatic type for items:
Nothing frustrate me more than realizing a zabbix item was not working because i let an item type default to integer when it should be 'float' or other.
This should not be possible for zabbix agent and for internal check. Those type should be hardcoded in the gui to prevent any errors and frustrations :)
Distributed monitoring:
One thing to manage is false alarm. A great way to have this remove is to have checks like this:
do the check from server 1, if all is ok then proceed
if this triggers an alert then do the same from server2, if this also trigger then validate the trigger.
It means the alerts has to be confirmed by a second server :)
thanks for zabbix. Hope that these sugestions will help :)
regards,
Ghislain.
My suggestions for next version of zabbix:
Concerning DB architecture:
* first, i think data integrity with foreign key is very important.
* Second, all database don't have the same level of support (oracle not supported in 1.4, not transaction support for postgresql, watchdog only for mysql....). perhaps with odbc, it should be more easy to have the same support and to not spend time with different database driver.
Concerning fonctionnality:
* it should be fine to have a test bouton when creating a new media type
* negative graph
* move snmp info to an host level or enterprise level (not in item)
* the possibility to add a trigger in graph (not only in latest data screen)
* in screen, the ability to add trigger overwiev for only one host
* in screen, if there is a lot of graph, it is difficult to find the right graph in the select menu. splitting this select into multiple select ??
* AJAX / WEB 2.0 ????
* and the most important thing, a wizard or equivalent to create new item:
when i create item, only item avalaible for the host OS should appear in select; and for a selected item, only avalaible counter should appear (for example: sda and sdb if vfs.dev.read is selected) and the corresponding unit should be set automatically (integer, float, log....)
Concerning doc:
* IT Services is not clear: an example should be great.
* Log monitoring for windows is missing
* the winpopup chapter should include code and not the hyprelink to forum.
else, the zenoss web site is interesting. http://www.zenoss.org/
Thanks
I just found out one that very much needs to be added.
Protection from removing the admin superuser account.
Yes, every once in a while it is nice to have a backup.
I would suggest spending some time to stabilize ZABBIX code: using automatic testing discipline to have the whole zabbix code (php frontend and daemon/agent code) under automatic tests. This would helps you in the future. In fact, Zabbix as achieved a lot of new features since 2K5, but suffers from bugs that could be detected by a stronger testing discipline.
I would suggest too implementing an API for smoother integration with third parties softwares. The kind of API a other application, php or not perform actions that can be done by the user interface (crude-ing hosts,groups,users, and later enabling/disabling items/triggers/actions, crude-ing maps...).
Working on SLA based on "real life" SLA schemes could be something not too bad too. For that, perhaps calling for participation for SLA sample submiting could helps.
monsieurcanard
20-06-2007, 02:47
Could the 'stable' version be updated to say 1.3 or 1.4, and then maintained as a bug-fixes-only branch?
Also, I've been thinking of making a patch to plot servers (and their status) in a Google maps mash-up. Would anyone be interested?
Most of all I'd like to congratulate Alexei for such a brilliant product. Zabbix really has come on leaps and bounds since v1.1.
Matt
monsieurcanard
20-06-2007, 02:50
PS I'd like to second the built-in SSL/authentication idea. I'm currently running Zabbix agents in active mode and have them report back to the server over OpenVPN, but it's not ideal (I can't use it for client dedicated servers) and I currently wouldn't dream of allowing remote commands in Zabbix agent because of the lack of built-in SSL/authentication.
StanZoid
20-06-2007, 17:00
Since I now have my monitoring completely defined in templates, I now need to configure actions that (A) alert to specified media (B) based on the template containing the trigger that fired.
Stanzoid
PS I'd like to second the built-in SSL/authentication idea. I'm currently running Zabbix agents in active mode and have them report back to the server over OpenVPN, but it's not ideal (I can't use it for client dedicated servers) and I currently wouldn't dream of allowing remote commands in Zabbix agent because of the lack of built-in SSL/authentication.
I also think it's should be a good thing to have strong authentication for zabbix agents/servers scince active mode is probably widely used (and damn, really usefull :).
Sure SSL is somewhat visible... so could be a 'marketing compliant' solution too.
Thanks for all suggestions! Please keep going. I will come up with my comments just after release of 1.4.1.
dratliff
21-06-2007, 16:04
Could there be a way using the trapper to also process a push of a timestamp with the data? Or does that already exist and I am ignorant of it?
If you could push historical data into zabbix based on a timestamp, as well as data, that would greatly improve some of my monitoring needs. Specifically, asynchronous database statistics based on start-end date criteria from multiple database platforms or remote units.
If you could push historical data into zabbix based on a timestamp, as well as data, that would greatly improve some of my monitoring needs. Specifically, asynchronous database statistics based on start-end date criteria from multiple database platforms or remote units.I assume that the historical data should not trigger any events, it is just for logging, right?
dratliff
21-06-2007, 16:58
I assume that the historical data should not trigger any events, it is just for logging, right?
Initially, the data is just to display in a graph on a screen. Sort of broad troubleshooting scenario. I am going to assume that after we get smarter on what we really want we are going to want to warn someone that the response time from a unit is unacceptable or something to that effect.
I am going to query a vendor database every so often and get new values. From that data I am going to extrapolate the communication rates (initially). I want to timestamp an initial unit query request, server query response to the unit, the time differential and then the unit data request, response, etc. until the end of the transaction to the unit. It is mainly a quality assurance and performance analysis.
I'd like to display this data with server (local and remote) data collection on a screen so that we can determine if there is a problem as well as log a variety of conditions for troubleshooting.
bobrivers
21-06-2007, 17:23
Screen Options - Allowing more custom screen data when trying to build screens would be very helpful. Allow you to staticically define a field and then insert a value after it...
I agree with rraver. Or a more simple feature: a table with host summary. Like the "Zabbix Server info" with basic information (items/triggers specific for the host, host uptime, host information, local time, etc. And, if could define the rows that I want to see inside it, it would be better.
Another improvement, is the ability to define screen templates and the ability to link it to host templates (the same functionality that is provided to graphs). For instance: I did one screen to each server that we are monitoring. In each screen I put 3 graphs: cpu utilization, network utilization and memory utilization. Nowadays I have to build one by one. If I could build a screen and then attach it to a template, it would be nice.
Greetings.
My contribution :p .
Zabbix is a very great product and if it continues by this way perhaps it will be able of killer other very extended monitoring alternatives (nagios, tivoli, ambertpoint…) and even others Business Service Management applications (managed objects, tango04,…).
I would first of all emphasize the great aid offered by zabbix forum and mainly always zabbix developers are arranged to solve in very just short time, errors, consultations, suggestions, inexperience… Congratulations.
In my company Tivoli checks 4000 events and there is other 8000 without monitoring. At the moment we see viable zabbix will be able for replace Tivoli soon.
Please, obviate repeated, erroneous or simply stupid suggestions:
Product behavior improved
- Add encryption to agent-server traffic: http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=625 .
- Incorporate to languages files all hardcoded messages
- Move translation files xx_xx.inc.php to database table/s.
- Add to vm.memory.size[<mode>] key modes pfree, used, pused , in the same way that system.swap.size[<device> <,mode>] key.
- Allow calculated items like “vm.memory.size[free]) / vm.memory.size[total] * 100”
- Allow $n wildcard in triggers name.
- Allow adding expression in triggers name. For example, it could be interesting make this trigger “Warning 3 days without backup”, where number 3 is obtained from calculated expression of one or more involved items.
- More and better log files information. Now it is not able know what group:host:item belong to each message.
- Add otherwise expressions in triggers: otherwise name, otherwise severity, otherwise comment, otherwise url, otherwise dependency…One only condition expression for two trigger situations
- Allow database maintenance and management from zabbix front-end.
- Add internal new smart features to zabbix agent for monitoring health hard disk http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/.
- Add internal new database features to zabbix agent for monitoring performance and health several database (oracle, mysql)
- Add internal new features to zabbix agent to perform more monitoring and informational functions.http://www.gedanken.demon.co.uk/procmeter3/#Screen%20Shots
- User defined trends reports.
- Allow zabbix_agentd.conf setting from front-end configuration menu.
- Allow zabbix_agentd.restartarting from front-end configuration menu and allow update also zabbix_agentd.conf changes (Userparameter, etc) without agent restarting (nagiostyle).
- Rename item zabbix concept for monitor. Item expression is more generic as long as monitor involve monitoring / checking idea. I’m translated to Spanish so it.
- Ocurrences and holes tivoli style to monitoring CPU, Memory, file systems, and other resources model: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/tividd/td/ITM/SH19-4570-04/en_US/HTML/dmrefmst02.htm#wq3 . Index here: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/tividd/td/ITM/SH19-4570-04/en_US/HTML/dmrefmst325.htm#wq1653
- Other good ideas about zabbix monitoring improved: http://www.lund.com/support_docs/metaview/MVLINUX%20D05d_aug05.pdf
Product UI inproved
- Add “Save an clone” button to saving at the same time cloning an item or trigger itself (already suggested http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6418)
- Add “Mass update” button to triggers
- Add “Apply” button to apply changes without exit current edition windows in contrast with save button do.
- Add dependency trigger after selecting one of available list without pressing down add button in next step.
- Afterwards save item / trigger return to initial page position in the navigator window where click was done. Now it is replaced at the beginning of the php page (it is very uncomfortable)
- When creating/editing triggers, expressions wizard should display current host. Now, it display latest selected in previous trigger operation.
- Allow arrange items by columns at least key and description
- Change focus item selection windows (simple/advanced) to button Search, so that start search when pressing down intro key (item external filter).
- Splitting ‘S_SELECT’ button because sometimes it perform selections and others exploring
- Add “Clone” button to TI services
- Arrange by name, or better still, allow arrange by any clicked column item list displayed by trigger expressions wizard.
- Allow replacing items / triggers / TI services names into configuration list directy. Complete edition is necessary now.
- Allow use control and shift keys to select ranges of items and triggers configuration lists. Clicking singly is now
- Add left buttom contextual menu in items and triggers alike IT services
- Some windows (Mass update, Copy selected to …) text appears displaced downwards with respect to selection box.
- Hierarchical maps where each element display its children by clicking itself., allowing IT link.
- Asign to every item IT one icon. Colour icon green, red, gray.. ) will indicate status hierarchical object same Formula Managed Objects style.
- Drag and drop objects in maps and TI services for the purpose of copy, move, clone organizations, hosts, items.
Potential bugs?
- In item selection windows (simple/advanced) when set status filter to Active, it does't work fine search, because all register are displayed.
- In item selection windows (simple/advanced) when mouse pointer keep over three select buttons shorcut keys (Alt+G, Alt+H, Alt+A) are displayed but it doesn't work.
- Enable/disable buttons in item list (status column) doesn't switch when are translated. Already reported at bottom http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5918
- Only triggers windows display register id left to trigger name.
- Enable/disable button doesn't work on triggers list windows.
- Ussing extended chars (áéó...) in name definitions, when import intented appear this error: # XML error: Invalid character at line nnn:. Already reported and diagnose in http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5876
- Unsupported items [zabbix agent (active)] never make active when it is possible. Set parameter “Refresh unsupported items (in sec)” to several values #0 and not working. It is necessary to do it manually.
From now to October they will be arising more.
(sorry for my disastrous english)
Regards
dratliff
22-06-2007, 14:38
A nice little addition,
I am playing with IT services to categorize my application operations. I have a trouble screen or start screen with the basic network topology and status information.
Can we have a drop selection for IT Services in the Screen display options?
I am using the URL right now. That works. But it would be nice to have that as a selection.
Thank you,
Dave
Hello,
Will be very helpful to set snmp port via host settings (port field) for servers that monitored via snmp or via host template. Cause make big templates and set for any server port per each item - pain in ass.
This will be very good improvement.
Best Regards,
Dmitry.
I've been using zabbix and I although it's probably a difficult thing to implement, I thought it would be cool to check zabbix via a read-only imap account.
Users would have to add a new account in the mua, that would point to the zabbix server.
There could be a directory structure like this :
INBOX
----> Triggers : showing active triggers
----> Events : history of recent events
----> Hosts : one mail per host, with last items
Of course, I guess there are other improvements that are far more important, this is just an idea that I had in mind...
Regards,
Artturi
More states for triggers... See http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6103
Maybe next usable status of trigger could be "acknowledged" . So this mean this trigger is acknowledged to be true. Can be usable for customers.
zabbix_cli support . It means commandline tool for controling zabbix. It is enaught to know only some commands in start.. (start server, stop server, refresh triggers, run housekeeper, rotate log, expand macros....) See http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6350
Maps and screens history. Would be nice to implement some way how to store more maps. I think it is possible by external script and macro expander in future. One of the action when some trigger goes on could be external script which will redraw map or screen and save it (or sends by email). You can see what happened with network step by step..
SVG support and SVG templates for maps. See http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5959
with regards,
Lukas
bbrendon
26-06-2007, 21:02
Let me add a vote for having remote command actions on active only agents.
AFAIK it currently does not work for active only agents.
4) REPORTS
Every day (and I consolidate it monthly) I produce a "Operation Report" where I summarize the incidents/problems that occurred. If I could use zabbix to do it, it would be great. I need to report when, where, duration, why and solution. Zabbix is almost there, but it needs some adjustments to make it more usable (item 3).
I agree with bobrivers here. It would be nice to have the ability to generate a report for what happened. I have been palying with putting one together, but haven't made it look nice enough yet for managers to look at.
How about a built in ping to replace finding and installing fping for ping only checks?
I could help you to make AIX support more complete.
Most of checks are done by using kmem like getloadavg_kmem
and some checks are totally missing.
AIX 5.x has nice library called libperfstat which can be used to
obtain information from operating system.
Reading /dev/kmem needs special permission,
libperfstat can be used without root authority.
To get load average, you just need:
int i = 0;
perfstat_cpu_total_t cpu_total;
perfstat_cpu_total(NULL, &cpu_total, sizeof(perfstat_cpu_total_t), 1);
for(i=0;i<3;i++)
{
loadavg[i] = (double) cpu_total.loadavg[i] / (double) (1<<SBITS);
}
Br,
Juha Moisio
starstream
28-06-2007, 19:08
My votes:
BETTER -FREEBSD SUPPORT:
Better freebsd support in agents.
AJAX:
Zabbix have made lots of improvements in the GUI from when i first started to use zabbix (very long time ago). But i still think we need improvements Many view contains long datalisting and are pretty heavy to draw/refresh. If we involved some AJAX i know we can make i faster to work with.
WEBSERVICE/API:
There would be great to have some simple form of and API to add/manage hosts and maybe retrieving reports and statuses from the various hosts.
TRAFFIC REPORTS:
Monitor bandwidth usage with 95-percentile support.
GENERATING/PRINTING -REPORTS:
A way of generating /printing availability reports for customers.
ENFORCE CHECK
Sometimes we have checks that run less freakvent and when you get a failure i the middle of the night, you can fix the problem in 2 minutes but then it will be no another check in about 30 min. So you have time to go to bed and fall a sleep before you get the OFF response. There fore i would like to enforce/make an instant test on a trigger to check if its working.
agehring
28-06-2007, 23:53
My biggest vote would be for better client support.
The BSD based unices (OpenBSD, FreeBSD, AIX, OS X) have very little, or very bad support.
Here is a few things:
Device discovery:
- disk discovery : We want to monitor disk inode, and free space on all server. Right now you must know each server's mount table to monitor it and create triggers, item and action to suits the partition schema of each server.
It should be easy to zabbix to have rule like :
vfs.fs.inode[/,pfree,all]
that does the monitoring on all disk. Same for all disk related functions.
This would be nice if limited to the disks you are interested in.
Who wants to know the free space in percent of a mounted CD-ROM ?
The same is valid for the /proc filesystem.
You see, it's not that easy - and it might change over time by mounting
NFS-filesystems, USB-sticks and installation media.
I agree with most of the other things proposed by you.
Regards,
Norbert.
Hi,
just my input for the next release of ZABBIX:
Better FreeBSD support
I second the "better FreeBSD support" request.
As I mentioned in another post, I'll try to get the ZABBIX FreeBSD
agent source replaced by netXMS agent source which seems
to be better.
Escalations
And the request for limiting escalations - this would be a bonus
for ZABBIX in our environment.
Logfile monitoring
What we use - in one of the big four in System Management - is
a very flexible way to monitor logfiles.
Something along the line logfilematch[filename,regexp].
Where regexp contains all the patterns of interest like Warning|Error|OK.
The line containing this pattern is send to ZABBIX whenever it shows
up in the file.
We are now using finite state machines to implement something
like
If the pattern Error occurs in the file, remember it, but do
nothing right now.
If there is no pattern OK in the file during the next 3 minutes, issue an alarm.
In this way we can eliminate false alarms nearly at the source and do not
flood ZABBIX with a lot of logfile entries nor the admins with a lot
of SMS during the night.
With the current flexible scheme for triggers in ZABBIX this should be possible
with just implementing this logfile monitoring feature in (all) agents.
Of course, this should not be limited to normal logfiles but should
be available for the Windows eventlogs, too.
This is one thing which will prevent ZABBIX from being used over here,
I think.
One sort of work-around on UNIX/Linux would be to use the logsurfer+
software for doing this kind of stuff and send the patterns to ZABBIX
or use the logsurfer to even implement the finite state machine.
command-line interface or API
As already mentioned in other posts an API to add hosts to ZABBIX and
linking (existing) templates to those would be nice.
Even better would be to have command-line tools to do it, instead
of every user has to implement it's own.
Of course, this could be a part dedicated to the ZABBIX community.
Migrating more than a few hosts manually from an existing
product is a nightmare.
Interface to trouble ticket systems
Not a particular one, but a generic interface with all informations
required for the TT system.
That would be another bonus for the use of ZABBIX in our environment.
In addition with limited escalations - who wants to resolve
10 trouble tickets for the same problem - this would be one of the
main points for ZABBIX. Now our TT System managers think that
a lof ot trouble tickets will bring down their system.
WMI support for ZABBIX
With Samba version 4 it seems to be possible to use WMI directly
from UNIX/Linux to gather informations about Windows systems,
e.g. hardware inventory.
This could be done with external scripts but it would be much nicer
to have it included.
The latest ZENOSS release does it, so the implementation in the
"technology preview" of Samba 4 is not that bad ...
Last not least - Thank you for ZABBIX
Thanks go to all ZABBIX developers for providing such a good product and
the speed of development and short time to fix bugs !
Keep up the good work.
Regards,
Norbert.
Greetings
In actions based on discovery it would be very interesting to be able choose the key would give name to host. Now the IP is used and soon it forces editing and changing host name. Similar to zabbix agent key when creating discovery rules.
Regards.
My list:
Ability to associate a web scenario with a template so it could be run against all the servers that are associated with that template - this is a great way to monitor web farms.
Be able to send meaningful alerts with the values that actually caused the failure. For example if a value goes above a certain threshold, I would like to get that value as part of the alert. I know that can be done today by creating a new action for each trigger and putting the values there, but it would be much better to be able to format the message in the trigger itself and have the action just send it.
WMI monitoring for windows (same idea as the perf counters only much stronger).
Improve DB performance and reduce DB load.
Collect the full response data of failed web tests (including all headers) so it can be analyzed later.
Loading of web tests in a browser environment (maybe mozilla) and not using LibCurl so AJAX applications can be tested.
Ability to run web tests from remote agents.
Automatic sending of daily (scheduled) summary reports and charts/screens by email.
That's it, other than that I love zabbix.
Dmitriy Kirhlarov
29-06-2007, 16:40
I would like to see new macros {PORT} (in ideal, I want possibilitie to make my own macros) and more active using macroses.
For examples:
- I want check freshness of ssl certificates for different services (https, ldaps, imaps, smtps) and get expiration notification 10 days before. Currently I'm doing this with external check_http (from nagios-plugins package) but I need create one Item per port in my template.
- Macros for SNMP community can be VERY useful, I think.
- Update intervals too.
WBR.
Logicwrath
01-07-2007, 04:06
WMI support for Windows monitoring.
Configuration Management. The ability to add config records to a monitored item. Multiple config records per item.
Agents that encrypt traffic and have the ability of sending the traffic over the internet without a VPN. I currently use a lot of IPsec VPNs but not all remote sites have one. This would be great!
A month end report that I can customize. Something I can auto-generate and send to customers giving them piece of mind. I could probably build something in crystal although a delivered report would be nice.
I would really like it if I was able to integrate zabbix into another open source CMS system like Joomla/Mambo or Drupal etc...
A complete backup feature set. The ability to backup everything but the logs and schedule an FTP upload to an offsite server.
Better FreeBSD support as this is my nix OS of choice.
This could be off topic but I have been looking for a free solution similar to splunk. The ability to pull data either by snare agents or zabbix agents and index it on the zabbix server with google or splunk like search capabilities. Yea, I know this is deep left field but hey its worth a shot. I still have some research to do regarding the existing event log functions of the zabbix agent.
bbrendon
01-07-2007, 05:08
A complete backup feature set. The ability to backup everything but the logs and schedule an FTP upload to an offsite server.
I've seen this request a few times now. A few lines in a script and you're done. Zabbix is super-duper-duper easy to backup. Just run a few commands like mysqldump,tar,scp.
Logicwrath
01-07-2007, 07:01
Yea, I guess I could figure out what tables I need to backup and use mysqldump to create a scheduled task on my server to handle it but this would also be cool feature to easily add and polish off the system.
Logicwrath
04-07-2007, 04:08
I wanted to add another vote for hard disk SMART tools integration I read earlier as well. This would be a cool feature for the agent.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/smartmontools/
Logicwrath
04-07-2007, 04:11
I wanted to add another vote for hard disk SMART tools integration I read earlier as well. This would be a cool feature for the agent.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/smartmontools/
Additionally, it would be nice if there was integration with one of the VNC flavors for 1 click VNC takeover on Windows machines. That would be awesome.
Escalations.... Escalations.... Escalations...
better navigation for graphs and/or include a zoom like feature that OpenNMS and Cacti have..
1.A Standardized API to handle active requests to add triggers, templates, hosts, etc to the configuration via the "Central Node". This would allow auto-discovery to work as well as handle the ability to make an automated provisioning action (new server) to notify the zabbix server to add/configure the system. While auto-discovery is nice in many cases, this would be beneficial under certain architectures.
I could also see this as simply a flexible (definable) interface to an action subset (so you'd have Discovery/Triggers/API-Action).
(I haven't seen any documentation of this feature in the current version(s)).
2. Enhanced "macro" support for notifications (ability to do pseudo scripts) that handle expressions when sending notifications.
3. Templated UI, allowing for a re-skinned (more easily) interface making callbacks to "core" functions to display the data.
4. API for data retrieval (live). Same as the above api, but retrieving information from the database in a more-useable format than hooking directly into the database and needing to then parse host-ids etc. While this can be done with a media-script and provide an "active" action when something happens, it would be nice to poll the data out into a custom defined location for presentation to a 3rd party.
5. Secured communication (SSL etc) for Agent->server and Server->server and server->agent.
I have more but these seem like the things that are most glaringly missing (from my "dream" monitoring system). This coupled with the Escalation module will make this tool much nicer.
Only wish for me at this time is:
High quality update packages with good documentation.
For me i it is very important that an update to a newer release works without loss of data or graphs or anything else.
swaterhouse
09-07-2007, 16:00
It would also be nice if agents could update themselves. This could either be an automatic upgrade (i.e. each agent looks for updates and pulls newer versions on its own) or pushed to the agents from the server.
Scott
swaterhouse
11-07-2007, 19:38
Just thought of another one.
I just added a template to the wiki that has some values in a Value Map. It would be nice if any linked value maps would also get included in the export.
Scott
globifrosch
16-07-2007, 09:58
for monitoring in distributed environments, i would like to have a "Zabbix proxy" that can be installed on windows. This Proxy forwards agent-data to the central server and holds check-informations.
At the moment i do this with active checks, but every server/wks has to be able to connect to the internet.
or even better, zabbix-server on windows. ;)
Triggers should have a NOT dependancy vs. an exclusive true dependancy.
IE:
I want to base all the triggers on ICMP PING (an icmpping) check. However, since the Value is a "1" for "OK" and "0" for "Failed" (and yes I like that, I know I could add a modifier to swap the two) I need two triggers:
1) Success (that is an "OK" state for all dependancies)
2) Failed State (for more severe state, I'm wanting to page a higher prio alert when this happens).
It would be easier if the Dependancy could be "!(ICMP FAILED)", requiring only a single trigger. This would greatly simplify a number of things.
-----
There should also be a "tuneable" sync timer allowing the node-to-node sync to happen at an arbitrary interval defined by the zabbix config (or within the database) vs. the Hard-Coded 120 second sync for configs, 10 seconds for events, and 5 seconds for the history.
-----
Perhaps move to an XML-RPC style (config) sync vs. the trapper doing the sync with it's own XML parser internally. This would allow for an API-like update and have the PHP utilize that vs. directly injecting into the db. This could also allow any other application to (when properly auth'd) add/remove/retrive data from the Zabbix servers. This would be more in line with ideal vs. the proprietary API or CLI interface.
The main thing lacking for me is more robust snmp support. I like the way cacti handles snmp, but it is very limited in scope of capability.
- SNMP base setting tied to template rather than items (port, community, version)
- Basic templates for graphing data from standard MIBs
- Easier handling of scaling graphical data values.
I don't know how hard it would be, but possibly even handing off some graphing functions to rrd. RRD does a awesome job of creating simple and scalable graphs. (long term)
Refresh rate should be configurable on a per screen basis : when a screen contains several items that are already refreshed, it doesn't need to refresh.
I hope this makes sense :)
We desperately need to be able to capture Event ID's from Windows event log. It's theoretically possible to get it with the source, severity, and a text match of the description, but that's too much work to be scalable.
It would be nice to mask certain triggers with other triggers for a period of time. For example, every time I see a log entry that Windows Update has run, I know the server will be reboot shortly and don't need to be notified of it.
Customizable reporting. I would like to receive all alerts in realtime, but e-mail management a list of currently active triggers at the end of the day. I would also like to receive an e-mail with less severe triggers at the end of the day (or week).
"All" should be listed in the "host" drop down wherever a Group dropdown exists. If I am able to choose a group, I would like to be able to see the data from all members of that group without switching between each one.
Alexei,
Perhaps it is already implemented in ZABBIX 1.4. If so, you can ignore this post. We are using 1.1.6 and it would be very helpfull that the zabbix_server.log could tell us the IP address of the host that has an "unsupported item" configured. We are monitoring about 1500 hosts, and using the bulkloader it is difficult to find that specific SNMP-host that has to be adjusted.
Alexei,
A couple of thoughts on improving zabbix.
Short version:
1. Find a way to group up actions or events so that the admin doesn't get 100 separate pages to the pager when 1 key interface fails.
2. More macro support, specifically {LOCATION} and other profile elements so that the location of a host can be placed inside of an email action.
3. Less database load. Find a way to group queries.
4. Actions that take 6-8 queries can probably gain lots of performance with database procedures.
Long version:
1. If I'm reading the code right we look for a trigger on every insert of the data causing several queries for every new recorded element. This takes a lot of time so perhaps if we backed this off to a process that runs every minute then the query load would be reduced but then we could also group of the triggers into a single action. In other words the look for tripped triggers would only happen every minute, and the action would handle every trigger for that minute.
2. Several of the items in the host profile are not available as macros for actions. It would be nice to be able to use some of this information in a notification email.
3. This is like the first suggestion. It seems the do everything every time approach causes zabbix to have insane query load with lots of elements.
4. I don't know how far along mysql proc support is, and I know most people use mysql, however my own testing (and many new benchmarks) show that psql 8.2.x on linux 2.6.20.x outperforms mysql 4.x and 5.x even in raw query volume. Because I'mat using a database system that has very good procedure support, many of the dabase operations that require several queries can be grouped into a single procedure which would really improve the performance. That said i realize that database independence is important and that it would make a lot of database independent code, however it may also simplify things as zabbix would call DB functions and leave the db specific code inside the DB. I'm not meaning to draw a mysql vs psql comparison, but my personal opinion is that using database systems that have good procedure support and using procedures to cut down the query load is the best way to add more scalability to the product as the database will be MUCH faster at managing it's data.
Thanks,
schu
Alexei,
A couple of thoughts on improving zabbix.
Short version:
1. Find a way to group up actions or events so that the admin doesn't get 100 separate pages to the pager when 1 key interface fails.
2. More macro support, specifically {LOCATION} and other profile elements so that the location of a host can be placed inside of an email action.
3. Less database load. Find a way to group queries.
4. Actions that take 6-8 queries can probably gain lots of performance with database procedures.
1,3,4 are already under development. I hope to increase ZABBIX performance 5x-10x times using a database cache module.
2. These macros are already supported in 1.4.x. {PROFILE.LOCATION}, ...
MartinZapa
24-07-2007, 12:23
Dear Alexei,
zabbix is very usefull tool for monitoring our network. A weak point for me is tricky configurations of Cisco boxes. I dont want zabbix equate to other products but for example cacti have a nice templates with easy interfaces octets,bcst,errors and more configuration. So if you think about this it will be great.
Second concept from me is about map. If you have link backup or for example ATM ima interface with two or more E1 lines and first created of them going down in map is connection line all along green because lines are crisscross.
Best regards,
Martin
Hello,
(1) if there's a way to stabilize the DB interface (use ODBC?) for some more databases (e.g. Oracle) would be nice, and
(2) while setup (PHP frontend), letting the user choose the DB connection type earlier would make a better requirement check possible (had a PHP with only Oracle support, but a Zabbix using sqlite3, finding out that php-sqlite3 is needed took me some time) - with a unified connection mechanism this would completly be obsolete.
Suggestions:
The scability of the UI would get very ugly if you had more than 100 hosts with 25 items being monitored.
Add support for negative numbers
Compliments:
Great forum and feedback from the community and developers!
mcarbonneaux
27-07-2007, 03:19
first it's very greet fine product... thank!
pub/prive ssl key authentification and encryption between server/agent
use simply openssl to do that.
i think is important feature to add to zabbix, to be abel to work on hostile environement, without hint like vpn.
screen template like graph template.
simply host variabilisation it's cool feature to add.
mass update in "host"
to be abel to modify host port , or group, template of group of host
database creation integrate in web install
why in web install interface they not create directly the database schema?
in "add host" snmp discovery action add the posibility to specify how to set hostname
like from reverse dns of the ip
from returned discovery value (regexp or full value?!)
from formula (based on ip!?)
from external script called
...
auto set dns name when reverse dns name is ok
and to define the default port of the host in the add host action.
embed php and/or perl interpreter, to used in item get in addition of zabbix agent/internal, snmp, external script...
to use also in differente location with complex formula...
to used also in discovery/trigger action...
tendancy based trigget
like if filesystem "/" has > 3% per hours and <30% free
no need to update screen who use graph when modify graph
bug??!!!
posibility to include external php script or web page in screen box
for exemple with php include.
or iframe
more posibility to work on the project (cvs/svn acces)
not only with patch submit...
i'm interessed to work with you on this project...
more communication with other developper
if open acces to the développements...
clear strategie of update (like linux kernel and many big other open source project)
for exemple : stable realease with only correction (defining one person to maintain this branch and accept patch) (use of bug tracker like bugzilla)
and dev release open to modification (also open to other developper)
php class to acces to the data model...
to developpe external intergration
plugable ui authentification
to add the possibility to integrate the ui in enterprise sso or ldap
plugable poller as so/dll
to add custom poller: like ldap poller, different sgbd poller...
mini snmp browser to permit to select element in target device
in add item to smplify item creation
snmptable support (in mini snmp browser also) and/or walk get
to get multiple data in one defined item.
it's very important feature beceause, when i have loadbalancer style of device... if i need to monitor all Virtual IP and it back end server status, actualy is very hard to manage... if i'have like 100 vip per device to transforme in 3 or more item per vip... it's large work to add in zabbix...
it's important to be abel to add item and associate trigger...
item template trigger or generic trigger
item template trigger: when i add item, automaticly add trigger
generic trigger: ability to add one trigger generic for many item simply on linking item to this trigger (ex: the alarm is fired with the name of the item in the trigger label). all item must me of the same type.
more import/export possibility
- import/export screen
- batch import/export (not from web, to automate from crontab device intergration)
batch import can made with simplified version of exp_imp.php who can be used from shell.
many more but steel enougth for the moment...
Best regards,
Mathieu
I would like to say simply, support for AIX...
The agent is not working (collecting values of 0), and the zabbix_sender is not working too...
I had to recreate my parameters with external script in perl and injecting vias socket the XML request to server...
The rest is fine...
I'm still running zabbix 1.1.4, so this may or may not be an issue with later versions.
But, we have only 4 external servers that monitored for standard stuff.
Looking at network utilization graphs, we are using 24% of our T1 (outgoing).
While only 5% incoming for the zabbix port.
If requests could be serialized toogether and maybe the protocol optimised that would be significant in my book.
mcarbonneaux
02-08-2007, 21:35
snmptable support (in mini snmp browser also) and/or walk get
to get multiple data in one defined item.
it's very important feature beceause, when i have loadbalancer style of device... if i need to monitor all Virtual IP and it back end server status, actualy is very hard to manage... if i'have like 100 vip per device to transforme in 3 or more item per vip... it's large work to add in zabbix...
it's important to be abel to add item and associate trigger...
in cacti they use xml file to define index polling like this...
<interface>
<name>Alteon Group Actives sessions</name>
<description>get Alteon Actives sessions for Group</description>
<oid_index>.1.3.6.1.4.1.1872.2.5.4.2.3.1.1</oid_index>
<index_order>ifName:ifIndex</index_order>
<index_order_type>numeric</index_order_type>
<index_title_format>|chosen_order_field|</index_title_format>
<fields>
<ifIndex>
<name>Index</name>
<method>walk</method>
<source>value</source>
<direction>input</direction>
<oid>.1.3.6.1.4.1.1872.2.5.4.2.3.1.1</oid>
</ifIndex>
<ifName>
<name>Group Name</name>
<method>walk</method>
<source>value</source>
<direction>input</direction>
<oid>.1.3.6.1.4.1.1872.2.5.4.1.1.3.4.1.10</oid>
</ifName>
<currSess>
<name>Actives Sessions</name>
<method>get</method>
<source>value</source>
<direction>output</direction>
<oid>.1.3.6.1.4.1.1872.2.5.4.2.3.1.2</oid>
</currSess>
</fields>
</interface>
i think can be in database in zabbix...
to poll the complete list of the Altheon VIP like that without to configure manualy...
http://www.cacti.net/downloads/docs/html/snmp_query_xml.html
and the same for external script...
http://www.cacti.net/downloads/docs/html/script_query_xml.html
in that way when on this equipement i add new VIP they are atomaticly add in monitoring...
best regards,
Mathieu
mcarbonneaux
02-08-2007, 22:08
embed php and/or perl interpreter, to used in item get in addition of zabbix agent/internal, snmp, external script...
to use also in differente location with complex formula...
to used also in discovery/trigger action...
on cacti:
http://www.cacti.net/downloads/docs/html/php_script_server.html
some link how to embede php un c programm...
http://circle.ch/blog/p786.html
http://www.the-asw.com/post/2005/05/02/7-mon-premier-programme-c-php (french...sorry!)
http://www.sklar.com/page/article/myphp
http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/22/233250
the Sara Golemon book!
http://safari.oreilly.com/067232704X
and excelent tutorial from sara: http://www.cluesheet.com/lectures/phptek-embedding.pdf
the idea are the compilation of php with --enable-embed sapi
in sapi/embed of php source tree... generate libphp that can be used un c programme...that make possible to call php code from zabbix server for exemple to poll item...
sample of code:
#include <php_embed.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
PHP_EMBED_START_BLOCK(argc, argv)
zval retval;
zend_eval_string(“return 1+1;”, &retval,
“Code returning a value” TSRMLS_CC);
convert_to_string(&retval);
printf(“The script code returned: %s\n”, Z_STRVAL(retval));
zval_dtor(&retval);
PHP_EMBED_END_BLOCK()
}
the same with perl...
http://circle.ch/blog/p788.html
http://search.cpan.org/dist/perl/pod/perlembed.pod
Zabbix tends to open 1 connection per item. Which is crazy. Here's the connection list, monitoring 4 servers:
I'm still running zabbix 1.1.4, so this may or may not be an issue with later versions.
But, we have only 4 external servers that monitored for standard stuff.
Looking at network utilization graphs, we are using 24% of our T1 (outgoing).
While only 5% incoming for the zabbix port.
If requests could be serialized toogether and maybe the protocol optimised that would be significant in my book.
Adjustable intervals for simple checks would be real nice. I implemented the pinger and it's out of control.
schu
in cacti they use xml file to define index polling like this...
<interface>
<name>Alteon Group Actives sessions</name>
<description>get Alteon Actives sessions for Group</description>
<oid_index>.1.3.6.1.4.1.1872.2.5.4.2.3.1.1</oid_index>
<index_order>ifName:ifIndex</index_order>
<index_order_type>numeric</index_order_type>
<index_title_format>|chosen_order_field|</index_title_format>
<fields>
<ifIndex>
<name>Index</name>
<method>walk</method>
<source>value</source>
<direction>input</direction>
<oid>.1.3.6.1.4.1.1872.2.5.4.2.3.1.1</oid>
</ifIndex>
<ifName>
<name>Group Name</name>
<method>walk</method>
<source>value</source>
<direction>input</direction>
<oid>.1.3.6.1.4.1.1872.2.5.4.1.1.3.4.1.10</oid>
</ifName>
<currSess>
<name>Actives Sessions</name>
<method>get</method>
<source>value</source>
<direction>output</direction>
<oid>.1.3.6.1.4.1.1872.2.5.4.2.3.1.2</oid>
</currSess>
</fields>
</interface>
i think can be in database in zabbix...
to poll the complete list of the Altheon VIP like that without to configure manualy...
http://www.cacti.net/downloads/docs/html/snmp_query_xml.html
and the same for external script...
http://www.cacti.net/downloads/docs/html/script_query_xml.html
in that way when on this equipement i add new VIP they are atomaticly add in monitoring...
best regards,
Mathieu
I can't agree with this more. I would love to see zabbix effectively take advantage of SNMP tables.
Here is a thread I started once on the subject: http://zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5726
GateKeeper
11-08-2007, 20:28
I want to vote for FreeBSD support.
I can't understand why net.if.in/out, system.uptime, system.users etc... aren't supported by agent while supported by Net-SNMP or OS-self utils.
Hi
In large bussines environments is essential to be able grouping host groups to 5 levels nesting, at least.
Regards
pabloadmin
17-08-2007, 20:49
I am working with zabbix since the version 1.0, and though is true that has had many improvements, it still has some weak points like:
Is difficult to trace items, generate reports and do maps. I has some ideas could be help:
- Embed the webui with any cms like mambo (http://www.mamboserver.com/)
- Drag&drop for maps, is a hard work put the object with x-y coordinates.
- Objects to use in the maps without monitoring, like racks, doors, square or any object.
for example: http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?p=967#post967
- Trace for a specify items with a centralized log data viewer.
- More templates examples for jboss/jeronimo/tomcat , active mq, apache web server.
Many contributions from forums can be centralized in a general repository with template format (such exported xml from zabbix).
- Quality about each custom item, a ranking with a mount time to get the value, time outs counts, values counts. This is to fix pour scripts, prevent cuts at graphs or lose data.
thank you.
Hello all,
Please first let me explain what our company does and where we use Zabbix for.
We are a application hosting (mostly SAP and Microsoft) company.
We have 2 data centers with machines from different clients that are seperated from each other with firewalls.
Every client has its own heterogeneous environment.
Furthermore we manage systems for clients that are located on the site of the client, so we need to remotely monitor these machines. For large environments we could maybe deploy a sepate distributed Zabbix server. However, this has not yet been done.
Finally we provide network couplings for clients ranging from VPN, MPLS and internet connectivity.
We can provide a fully redundant setup for the hosting of applications.
We can even dynamically failover a application that is primarily running in one data center to the other, including every incoming connection to the application (MPLS, VPN, etc).
As you can imagine this is a complex and dynamic environment with machines from different clients that cannot be allowed to communicate to each other.
We have been using Zabbix (currently 1.1.3) as our primary monitoring solution for about a year now.
We use the Zabbix groups to differentiate our clients in Zabbix (one group per client).
With this background I have the following list of improvements for the next release of Zabbix which would greatly improve the value of Zabbix in our environment.
Encryption of data traffic between server and client.
My preffered choice would be to have a shared secret key that is defined in the zabbix agent config file in combination with a preshared key that could be set as a group attribute. Alternatively this might also be set by means of an "application".
High Availabilty
Distributed monitoring in 1.4 seems very promising to resolve the "blackout" of monitoring during the failure of WAN links between our locations, but in case of a server (hardware) failure, monitoring will be lost.
I would like to see automatic failover for polling agents and devices from a secondary server once a hartbeat with a primary server has been lost. Load-balancing between the two would be the sprinkles on the topping ;)
Template based scheduled reports
For trends and reporting I require reports on our servers/components based on Disk/Mem/CPU/etc. usage for the past day/week/month/year all put on a nice page with graphs. I Would also really like to add tables with item values and availability percentages to these reports. Receiving them by mail on scheduled intervals would reduce a large amount of work we need to do now.
SNMP Community on host basis
SNMP community strings should be an host or (even better) a group parameter.
Everyone of our clients uses a different community string in their separate environment and now we need to build a template tree for every client and work from there, this can become very cumbersome with 50+ clients.
Maintenance windows
I would like to specify a planned maintenance on a group and on separate machines so I can disable triggers and actions for the specified host/group during a preset time/date range so planned maintenance doesn't result in SMS messages being send to the on-call officer during the nightly hours.
Event search for hosts and groups based on date/time range
One of my main aggravations in using Zabbix on a daily basis is that I can only browse through the events 100 events at a time. I would really, really like to be able to run a query on a date/time basis so I can see what triggers activated on a certain host on monday two weeks ago or last night.
History of events for specific host/group in a screen instead of generic
I make screens on a per client basis which rotate in a slide show styled manner. These show the hosts status in a map and several graphs as well.
I would like to show the last events for this client in this screen as well. (based on a group)
Use of flexible interval in case of no response
It would be really handy to use the flexible interval to adjust the poll interval if there is no initial response.
For example, we ping a host every 300 seconds to see if it is still reachable. When we don't receive echo-replies, the flexible interval kicks in setting the poll interval to 10 seconds. This will allow for a faster way of determining if a host is really down and when it comes back up again. (don't need to wait five minutes for the next poll)
Last(x) to work as a timeout value
Last time I checked ".last(0)" in a trigger just selected the last occurrence.
I would like a way to not activate a trigger until a certain period has passed.
For example, we test a server for reachability on a faulty line. This means that the server might be up, but we may have a short problem with packets traversing the network. If I could delay the trigger from activating for say 5 minutes, we have a chance that there will be a successful connection to the server in that time, thus the trigger doesn't become active.
We monitor several not so important servers on a faulty link at this moment that generate about 300 events a day while the trigger is reset within 2 minutes every time it becomes active. This results in a lot of false positives which means people are less likely to respond when the trigger becomes active for real (e.g. server died).
Escalations
I would like to see a system that sends out a message to an on-call officer that forces him to acknowledge a trigger when appropriate (for our 24/7 customers) within a specified time. When there is no acknowledgment, it needs to resend the message. After a defined number of retries the system needs to start sending messages to the 2nd on-call officer so he can acknowledge the trigger. Of course, it should also retry sending the message when no acknowledgment arrives.
Acknowledge a trigger by email.
If the above could be realized, it would be a plus if the on-call officer could acknowledge a trigger by replying to the message that he received so he doesn't have to log in to the Zabbix system first before taking a look into the problem.
Multiple labels in Maps
I would like to add multiple labels to nodes on the maps so I can show the hostname and the ip address or a custom label simultaneously.
SNMP Bulk get
Performance in our network could be greatly improved if Zabbix could fetch al SNMP items on a host in a SNMP bulk request. We have about 5000 open connections continuously on our firewall that separates the monitoring systems from the client systems. This number will increase as more switches and the like will be added to the Zabbix monitoring.
autodiscovery of interfaces via SNMP
Autodiscovery of interfaces with SNMP could be implemented.
After this, the interface numbers could be used to query inoctets, outoctets, inerrors, etc. (template/application based).
This would greatly simplify creating templates for the switch ports we need to monitor. We have switches ranging from the Cisco 6500 series Big-Boys to the small Cisco 2940 desktop switches we all need to monitor.
Possibility of a Screen template to use on a host
I would also be charmed about a screen template that uses items from a template so you can use this screen on any host that uses the template.
This could result in a uniform way of displaying host stats on a per host basis.
I hope you will look into the possibilities concerning my aforementioned "feature requests".
Thanks for the great product!
Regards,
Raymond
m.lembke
28-08-2007, 16:29
Hello all,
It would be nice to handle the Host as an entity.
It could have one or more networkinterfaces and one ore more ip addresses.
For example, If you have a multihomed server, and you would like to monitor both sides, you must create two different hosts.
One more feature would be nice to implement.
The discoveryprocess is reale good, but i use actions to autolink my templates to the discovered host.
So if it is possible to give an template some attributes for discoveryinformation like the discovery. It reduces the configuration of
actions for the discoveryprocess.
Multilanguages Trigger, Actions would be nice.
Pie Graphs for displaying disk usage would be nice.
With kind regards
Markus
mcarbonneaux
05-09-2007, 21:09
Encryption of data traffic between server and client.
My preffered choice would be to have a shared secret key that is defined in the zabbix agent config file in combination with a preshared key that could be set as a group attribute. Alternatively this might also be set by means of an "application".
yes like is made in bacula backup system (http://www.bacula.org/)
Best Regards,
Mathieu
http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showpost.php?p=26304&postcount=10
Thanks reading it @Alexei and as always... thanks for your great work.
when you ever come to munich, your beer bill is mine :)
I been using Zabbix for some time now, and its great. But this is my first in this forum though..
Here are my suggestions.
Node classes
I have used templates and all that, which do work fine.
But I have worked with another monitoring system, where all checks (items) was arranged in classes (group of predefined items). So when you put up a new host you simple select which classes should be enabled on the current host. Then each class had predefined items and triggers which automatically was enabled on the host.
Let's say you are about to put up a new server IBM x3550 server, which on the hardware level consist of a raid controller, some disks, CPUs and other stuff. Then you have a set of predefined items and triggers for monitoring the raid controller, and disks etc inside of the class, which you then just enable for this specific hosts, and all the items and triggers get automatically enabled.
The OS is Linux 2.6, so you would also need a Linux 2.6 class, and a class for the distribution like Debian sarge.
On the software level, we are using the server for Postfix, so we would also need a Postfix class, with items monitoring the mail queues, log files and so on.
I hope you get the picture, basically it is "just" putting predefined items and triggers in groups which you can allocate on a host. A bit like templates as it is now, but there should not be a limit of hov many classes that can be enabled on a host, I think it would give more flexibility, and perhaps easier to share classes between users, or the Zabbix developers could make predefined classes for generel items, like server vendors, applications etc.
UI
For the UI i think there is a bit of information overflow.. all I see is a lot of items returning 1 and 0.
I think it would be nice with a alert and warning page, where you could see triggers which are in alert and warning state, and not all the other information about items which is in OK state.
Also on the alert list, it should be possible to put an item or an entire host in "downtime". Let's say you get an alert middle of the night, and the alert is not severe enough for you to spend your night on it, but you would like to pick it up the following day - then you simple put 12 hours of downtime on the item/trigger, and it will be off the alert list. And when the downtime expire it will pop up on the alert list again if the trigger still is true.
API
It would be nice to have some sort of API to call from other applications. So other applications can "login" and check if something is wrong. Or as in my case, I would like to have a public status webpage, for my customers to see if something is not working correctly.
Just my 2 cents, let me know if you want me to elaborate.
Cheers
Morfar
i have listed features we might be interested in pursuing after zabbix 1.6 is released (which is somewhat different topic).
nevertheless, it is connected to 1.6 improvements - if somethnig gets implemented in 1.6, it can be removed from future requirements :)
i would appreciate any comments at http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?p=26533
(...)
It could have one or more networkinterfaces and one ore more ip addresses.
(...)
Exactly! All my servers have multiple IP's, at least two: one WAN IP (firewalled, accessible for everyone) and one VPN IP (not firewalled, port 10050 is accessible through this IP).
The safest way of checking would be using the agent (via the VPN IP) to check local issues and use a WAN connection to test service ports like HTTP, POP and IMAP. This check will implicitly check the firewall configuration (things like port forwarding), which cannot be checked by the local agent.
For this to work, multiple IP's per host should be supported. Furthermore, the user must be able to specify an IP per item. It would be absolutely great if this IP can be overridden using templating:
Host 'hermes' is connected to template 'Template_Mailservers'.
Host 'hermes' has three IP addresses configured
Item 'IMAP server is running' (simple check) is configured inside 'Template_Mailservers'
The IP-address for item 'IMAP server is running' can be configured separately for host 'Hermes' with a dropdown box with hermes' three IP addresses
I hope this is feasible!
Would be great if 1.6 could have some internal item or trigger for alerting interface.
- Maybe periodicaly check if GSM modem is responding (yes, could be external)
- Same for jabber, email, ...
- Or it can be simple that when alert was not sent, let it put into some internal item.
- If there is error, we could make trigger and send message by another channel
- Incoming sms or jabber messages could be saved into another internal item.
- It would be easy to make trigger, for example, I will send SMS from my mobile phone, saying I want to restart some service. It is up to mi to make trigger and action to do it when sms regexp is ok.
- But it is needed to insert FROM address into this item to be able to authenticate me
I do not know exact way how to make it , but would be great if alerting is both way and we are able to see alert errors and incoming messages somewhere in internal items.
Thanx!
Lukas
This is probably my first post although i'm using zabbix for a long time, i haven't been around these parts until recently.
I used 1.1 but last week made an upgrade to 1.4.3.
Very good improvements, really excelent new features.
Oh, by the way, on my new setup with postgresql database i came up with a problem with the creation of the database(it seems that someone forgot to remove some backticks from table and or field names) just to discover later in the forum that it was solved on a nightly build but not corrected in the stable version ready for download. That is really *bad*. I just extremelly hate broken *stable* versions.
On my behalf the most wanted feature is proper documentation. Without it the great new features are plain useless. The forum has covered part of that gap but if you use the context help(this was really great if it worked) it just hit's a dead link or even worst: the page for the pdf dowload of the manual that does not contain the proper info. I can provide hosting for the html manual if that's the issue...
I read an interesting post (http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showpost.php?p=22184&postcount=5) by James Wells and i really support the way he views an open source development community.
Why do i care if i'm not submitting anything? Well, i might just put some effort into zabbix :)
andreminelli
25-09-2007, 16:00
I just started using Zabbix into a Windows network using perf_counter keys.
But since we use a lot of message queues from MS and the performance objects have the name of the server on it (for instance, \MSMQ Queue(<myservername>\private$\<myqueuename>)\Messages In Queue]), we can not use templates for these items, and we have to add server by server, queue by queue on Item and Trigger configuration :(
So will be very usefull if Item keys could accept some macros, so we can write the key like this:
\MSMQ Queue({HOSTNAME}\private$\<myqueuename>)\Messages In Queue]
Thanks :D
Alexei, It would be nice when viewing a graph if there was a link that you could click on and it would return the data in that graph in csv or xls format (think prompt to save as spreadsheet), I often need this type of data for trending and planning where I need to massage the data..
Rob
swaterhouse
27-09-2007, 14:12
Alexei, It would be nice when viewing a graph if there was a link that you could click on and it would return the data in that graph in csv or xls format (think prompt to save as spreadsheet), I often need this type of data for trending and planning where I need to massage the data..
Rob
You can get a listing of the values that you can copy and paste into excel by choosing "Values of Specified Period" from the dropdown in the upper right corner. That will spit the values out in an HTML table. Not exactly the same but its still possible.
I agree though it would be nice to have an export values button (to xml, and csv would be my choices).
I hope it's not too late to put my wish here...
My biggest vote would be for better client support.
The BSD based unices (OpenBSD, FreeBSD, AIX, OS X) have very little, or very bad support.
Similar like what agehring's comment, i wish in next release of zabbix could have better support for BSD family, especially for old release of FreeBSd such as FreeBSD 4.11.
The other thing, i wish zabbix will have capability to retrieve or monitor windows server performance agentlessly thru WMI.
Thanks for all efforts....thank you....thank you...thank you...
Regards,
BEE
mcarbonneaux
29-09-2007, 01:48
Zabbix tends to open 1 connection per item. Which is crazy. Here's the connection list, monitoring 4 servers:
is one the main reason what the snmp use udp...
other reason : are if the target machine is full in file handle...
the snmp deamon continue to many of the time...
with tcp protocole the agent cannot open new handle...
nelsonab
02-10-2007, 22:09
I don't know if this has been said before, but it would be nice to have a custom title for graphs within screens. For instance I've got a bunch of switches. Each port has a graph for in/out from the switch template. When I create a network overview I would like to say something like "VPN connection" rather than the title be "Switch1:if05" on one graph and on another I'd like to say "Switch5 -> Switch1" rather than it be "Switch5:if05".
Hi all,
As additional comment for zabbix's documentation, it will be great if in next release of zabbix documentation have a "complete" sample of triggers expression, especially when your monitored host is SNMP based.
Thanks,
BEE
crashdummyMCH
04-10-2007, 14:19
I don't know if this suggestion is too late but here goes.
1. Could we have a page to upload/manage sounds on a per user basis. It would also be nice to have sounds for EVERY level of severity instead of just the 3 currently in 1.1.
2. As a function last(#) and previous(#) seem pretty darn silly. There should only be one function last(#). the function should be able to take that number parameter and use it to retrieve the last entry, 2nd to last entry, 3rd to last entry, etc. based on the number given. I had suggested this a long time ago and guess it was never adopted.
3. A standard API for accessing information would be nice so that we can start to tie in 3rd party tools more easily.
4. flap detection.
I think we need a much better manual. The software itself is amazingly powerful and great for what it does, but it's simply impossible to use due to the lack of documentation on many features - we're left guessing on how to use things, which is made worse due to the complexity of the software.
Hi There,
I think this should be an easy one. oculd u "extend" windows Monitoring with the possibility of using wmic-queries (even maybe instead of Perfmon data, which are included in wmi anyway). This would give a enormous and easy way of monitoring whatever in Windows. At the momment I'm using this item, to check if all Windows services are running:
system.run[wmic /output:wmic.out service where "Startmode='Auto' and state!='Running'" get DisplayName /Format:csv | type wmic.out]. This looks a bit clumsy, with a "real" item this could be much easier.
Thanx & Greets
Patrick
Please, give ZABBIX team some feedback on the following topics:
- general functionality you're missing
Templates for graphs, slide shows and SLAs.
Originally Posted by Alexei
Please, give ZABBIX team some feedback on the following topics:
- general functionality you're missing
in addition to the last post : escalation module, high aviability mode
mfg
welkin
Hi Zabbix Team,
As addition of my last posting in this thread:
1. Function for export the value mapping.
This will be "must have" category when you have many of value mapping.
In my case i have nearly 30 value mapping, and there is one value mapping consist of over 15 item. So this function will make us able to share the value mapping created, especially for snmpv2 host, to other users.
2. Function to fill/read description of each monitored item in latest data page.
This will be "nice to have" category. So if you boss have a lot of question regarding every item monitored, it will answer that question.
Thanks,
BEE
Forgive me if this has come up previously, but where the current applications/application item arrangement works well for hosts, it falls a little short on network equipment in my possibly uninformed opinion.
For example, if I'm looking at the latest data on a linux or windows host, I have neatly organized and logical groupings of Processes or CPU items. If I'm looking at a beefy Cisco router with multiple 48 port cards, I can have hundreds of interfaces and probably multiple items per interface (traffic in/out, errors in/out, etc.) - pushing my total number of items per single network device on the 'latest data' page into the stratosphere.
I have decreased the number of items displayed on the monitoring page with an 'application' per interface. So for each interface, I monitor traffic, errors, link speed and the like and each one of those items is associated with it's interface 'application.' However, even this makes trying to get a birds eye view of multiple switches and routers cumbersome to say the least.
I've only been working with Zabbix for a week and am growing to appreciate it in some regard over our current cacti and nagios systems. Since I'm new to it and I have yet to dive down into the code to see if my request is even feasible. So if I'm missing the obvious, please bonk me on the head and let me know the proper way to organize things. Or if there are any network admins that have come up with a solution for their infrastructure, I'd love to hear it.
Otherwise, love to see network device features like the aforementioned snmpwalk/cacti style population of hosts and my own wishes for a heads-up display implemented in the next major release.
Thanks
eli.stair
31-10-2007, 03:52
I run a large environment (~3000 devices) and in the time I've been evaluating Zabbix over the years (never have run it in production), there have been varying states of ability to automate the batch addition/modification of entities (hosts). Currently, it's in a bad state relative to where it's been in the past... and despite having more than enough hardware to monitor this fully, it's unwieldy (unfathomable) to consider the number of clicks and hours necessary to link all the hosts to appropriate templates even after import.
Specifically in 1.4.2, I'm finding issues with:
1) Inability to define template/group memberships via XML import, even though this is present when using the UI _AND_ was added as a user-generated feature later added by LEM + James Wells to the core distribution in 2005. See: "http://zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=242&highlight=batch+populate"
Consider this a request for full replication of GUI options in the XML import _AND_ export functions.
2) Due to use of Javascript in the GUI, I'm finding it difficult (impossible?) to automate UI actions via any scripts... i.e., I can't work around the lack of XML template support by scripting HTTP GET URI's crafted to create/update items in the database. This is really just an artifact of the languages chosen to write the frontend in, but unfortunately makes it really difficult to use it in a large-scale environment where tools need to be written to do many things. This immediately limits scripted and API-like interaction to PHP, unless I want to re-write (and maintain) modules for specific languages.
Consider this a request for an XML-RPC/SOAP/REST interface to the GUI features, as that would enable interaction in whatever fashion users can conceive.
Regardless of these issues however, I'm currently seeing Zabbix in a favorable light. The improvements over the last few years have been astounding, with few design/implementation decisions made that dilute the "purpose", and I feel that the project has an edge over its competitors now... even though there are even MORE than there were and are more sophisticated than anything available when Zabbix started!
Great work, and I'm hoping these issues work out so I can start to contribute and use it in production.
Cheers,
/eli
PS - Yes, production likely means a support contract ;)
Just want to start of by saying how great the Zabbix product is and that our IT team here uses it to monitor just about every aspect of our network. Recently we added two large LCD screens to the IT department that displays trigger data on one screen and a network map on the other. For us it is great to be able a a moments notice look at the screens and see if there is a problem. It also has some definite wow factor for the bosses :D.
Since we use the maps feature extensively I have one item I would like added. On the triggers screen when a trigger is tripped it displays the corresponding color of the triggers severity, light green for information, yellow for warnings, and various shades of red for more severe problems.
On the maps however there are only three choices for icons, ON, OFF or unknown. Currently we have two variations of icons one for off/unknown which has the default transparent background and then a second icon with a red background for showing when a trigger has been tripped.
It would be nice if there were a choice of icon for each trigger severity. So in our case there would be a green colored icon for items with an info trigger tripped and yellow for a warning trigger etc...
Thanks for all your hard work!
...
On the maps however there are only three choices for icons, ON, OFF or unknown. Currently we have two variations of icons one for off/unknown which has the default transparent background and then a second icon with a red background for showing when a trigger has been tripped.
It would be nice if there were a choice of icon for each trigger severity. So in our case there would be a green colored icon for items with an info trigger tripped and yellow for a warning trigger etc...
Thanks for all your hard work!
it is supposed to be even better - you will be able to assign several triggers to single link, and link would be coloured accordingly
Like others I would like to add my gratitude to the Zabbix developers.
Now to the features:
Functional Items - items based upon the function of two or more other items
Better Jabber Support - Although we don't get errors shown in the event log (IO errors) we still only ever get Jabber notifications just after Zabbix server has started, they soon stop appearing and never return.
Improved IT Services - As many have asked and queried about, this is a winning feature but seems very difficult to use
Improved Web Monitoring - In desperate need of more functional and state control in web exchanges. i.e. the ability to access and return state returned from one web call to another.
New Template: Java/JMX Monitoring - These should be pulled into the core by now.
New Template: Application Servers - A set of common application server monitoring templates should be in the core.
Hi,
I've just started exploring zabbix and I'm very pleased with the cloning function of hosts and triggers. Also the use of templates for grouping of graphs, triggers etc. is very nice. Something I'm missing is a similar function within the screen section.
It would be nice to have a screen layout cloned with just the hostname of graphs changed. (or even better, add the screen to a template and enable host selection)
When this would be possible I at least would be very pleased. :D
Federico Ceratto
14-11-2007, 11:32
The agent could reply to a "list" command by providing the full listing of the configured User Parameters and wich of them are working well (giving out a value)
Then, the Zabbix server could easly notify the user if there are some User Parameters installed on an host that are not used in any Item.
Eventually the server could automatically re-enable Items that were marked as "Not supported", or add new Items as well.
I'm implementing Zabbix at our site to monitor about 40 systems.
Several of our systems are located in a remote datacenter, so I cannot do autodiscovery without making the datacenter's netadmins go wild.
Suggestion:
Add an option to the auto-discovery configuration to make the rule "passive". i.e. don't automatically scan the whole subnet, but instead only trigger discovery for a single IP whenever that host tries to contact the zabbix server (i.e. when the agent is started for the first time)
I'd like to improve the integration between zabbix and our configuration management, but I'm missing an API, CallBacks and Plugin-Interfaces.
Suggestion:
- provide an API to do what the web-interface currently does and move the web-interface to use the API.
- add Callbacks/Actions/Events (you name it) to specific events (like add/del/change of a host, item, trigger, etc so we can actually inform other systems that something in zabbix changed
- add a simple way to add stuff to the web-interface - a "drop-php-file-here"-Plugin system would really help to extend zabbix
I'd really like to use the host profiles, but they don't actually provide the fields I need
Suggestion:
remove all the value stuff from the host_profile table. Provide a simple key - value table instead where everybody can define his own set of keys.
Maybe also add a way to provide a datasource (i.e. item) for each of these keys, so you could actually have current inventory-data collected by zabbix (stuff like "vm.memory.size / 1048576" comes to my mind).
Sometimes some of our custom checks go to "unsupported" state after something weird on the monitored system happens that confuses the script, we'd like a notice in these cases
Suggestion:
add an event to make it possible to write a trigger that notifies if an item switches to "unsupported"
We use vfs.fs.size to monitor filesystem utilization. Because not all of our systems have the same filesystem layout, we sometimes have issues with that. I think the behaviour could be easily improved.
Suggestion:
make vfs.fs.size return "unsupported" if the directory specified is not a mount-point, so if I monitor /var, /usr and /home and all of these directories are simply on the / filesystem, I'd get 4 notifications instead of 1, because I monitor the same filesystem four times (as /, as /var, as /usr and as /home).
Together with the above suggestion (notify if item switches to unsupported), you'd even notice if a monitored filesystem was unmounted.
We make heavy use of templates and encountered the following issue:
say you have the templates mysql_t and httpd_t to monitor mysql and httpd. Then you create a template zabbixserver_t that is linked to mysql_t and httpd_t and another template like mediawiki_t, that is also linked to mysql_t and httpd_t.
Now if you try to assign zabbixserver_t and mediawiki_t to a single host, you'll get a message that the templates are incompatible.
Suggestion:
I guess the linking needs a bit of work. Maybe this scheme would help:
for each template that needs to be linked:
- recusively collect templates that are already linked
- recusively collect templates to link now
- calculate difference
- only add the items/triggers/stuff that are linked directly (i.e. not through another template) to the templates that weren't added so far
Ah, and btw. I see many people who demand you do write weird auto-update and check-distribution stuff for the agent.
Short answer: don't do it
Loger answer:
Updating the agent, its configuration and its scripts that's the job of the system's patch and configuration management. If you want configuration management implement one, but zabbix is for monitoring, not configuration management.
mcarbonneaux
26-11-2007, 15:51
how to embede php in c programm...
and
embed php and/or perl interpreter, to used in item get in addition of zabbix agent/internal, snmp, external script...
to use also in differente location with complex formula...
to used also in discovery/trigger action...
i've posted a patch to add php support natively in zabbix server....
http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8305
that enable zabbix to call php code directly without forking...
for the moment only added in item poller... but can be added to discovery/trigger in the same way...
Hi
we are trying ZABBIX in an environment with a large number of servers we operate for several customers.
Although we have not installed it (1.4.2) "everywhere", yet, we are pleased with
the stability of the agents (Windows and Solaris 8/9) and the server
(PostgreSQL, FreeBSD 6.2, etc.).
We need distributed monitoring, of course.
That means:
- agent configuration is done on one central server and this is propagated via ZABBIX server slaves to the agents
- triggers are forwarded from the slaves to the master(s)
We don't need all the data on the central server, but it is still
necessary to configure the slaves to send the data to a certain master.
In some cases we will have more than one ZABBIX-Server per customer,
so we need a sort-of tree of Servers.
That means, some slaves need to propagate the data from the agents
to a master while others need not to do it.
Summary:
- configuration information goes "down" via all slaves to the agents
- triggers go "up" from all slaves up to the root of the ZABBIX-Server tree
- data go "up" from a slave to a certain master, but only if configured
I guess this will allow a better scaling of the ZABBIX distributed monitoring
than the current (1.4.2) version.
Another important point is the filtering of the Windows event log.
We don't need all eventlog entries of all monitored Windows servers on our
central server.
First of all, just the ones we are interested in (to calculate the triggers) and
second, as with the data mentioned above, just up to a certain master in
the tree of ZABBIX Servers.
If this sounds confusing, just reply or send a PM for more detailed discussion.
I hope, this will be included in 1.6 !
Regards,
Norbert.
Hello!
We wants /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf.d/ directory for store custom configuration files, for example with UserParameter-s.
The purpose of this is that some packages may place own's files in this directory, such as for their own monitoring.
crashdummyMCH
05-12-2007, 15:48
SNMP support needs to be vastly improved.
Should be able to make use of SNMP indexes.
automatically discover mounted partitions (with the ability to update in future)
automatically discover ethernet interfaces (with the ability to update in future)
SNMP walks
Present a web page that would allow one to check of which snmp walk data to add to host/template
SNMP per host community string override and port override
- Ability to overlay non-stacked items as lines on top of a stacked graph of filled items. One use of this would be to graph free memory, buffer memory, cached memory as stacked and then draw a line across the top of the graph (unstacked) for total memory.
- Ability to stack downwards from a fixed point or an item value. That way you could start at total memory and stack downwards for free, buffer and cached memory.
- Set the Y axis to an item value rather than a fixed value. Again, set the scale of the graph to total memory as actually read rather than having to have different templates for 4G, 8G, 12G, 16G boxes, etc...
- And I'd like to be able to associate charts with templates and create one-page views of single hosts as well, with a single administrative point to manage them.
Munin does all of this and the whole point is to try to kill munin use cases.
...
- Set the Y axis to an item value rather than a fixed value. Again, set the scale of the graph to total memory as actually read rather than having to have different templates for 4G, 8G, 12G, 16G boxes, etc...
- And I'd like to be able to associate charts with templates and create one-page views of single hosts as well, with a single administrative point to manage them.
i like the first idea (counting quoted ones :) ), but i'm not sure what you mean with the second one.
if by charts you mean graphs, you can assign graphs to templates for quite some time now.
as for the second part, if you mean something similar in functionality to "screen templates", that should appear soon :)
i like the first idea (counting quoted ones :) ), but i'm not sure what you mean with the second one.
if by charts you mean graphs, you can assign graphs to templates for quite some time now.
as for the second part, if you mean something similar in functionality to "screen templates", that should appear soon :)
I believe I mean "screen templates"...
Right now you can associate graphs and items and triggers with a template and have those graphs and items and triggers show up on associated hosts. I'd like the same for screens. That way I setup a template and give it a screen containing graphs for cpu, memory, disk, etc and I wind up with individual per-host screens for all my associated hosts getting automagically created...
i've got another request:
i'd like to be able to request that polling intervals (aka item 'delays') be able to be capped so that they occur no more often than every 60 seconds. ideally i'd like this enforced both in the API so that users couldn't attempt to set more aggressive polling intervals, and in the server so that database entries that were more aggressive were 'rounded up' to 60 seconds.
similarly, i'd like to be able to globally cap history to no more than 7 days.
eli.stair
12-12-2007, 22:54
A suggestions/feature-requests on zabbix_agentd and server status/queue improvements:
Monitoring queue tracking information. We need the ability to detect when the queue is "behind schedule", i.e. passively monitored resources via agentd or SNMP have a missed polling schedule, or actively-sent agentd metrics are not received. Currently, tuning the number of threads for trapper/poller processes is hard to do, since no data exists on WHEN any metrics are missed as it is, I know there's a problem and I have too many or too few threads when browsing graphs I see periodic data points missing.
If monitored systems are missed, because not enough poller threads are running to keep the queue satisfied, or not enough trapper threads are running to satisfy incoming packet rates/clients, it needs to be manifested somewhere. As it is, I'm trying to debug issues across a thousand nodes by setting up 'nodata' triggers on metrics to see if they're being missed! Not feasible in production.
BTW, excellent progress in 1.4.3, this just fixed two bugs I was reporting today!
Cheers,
/eli
I don't know if this a 1.6 request, or a 2.0 feature request...
It'd be nice to have a my.zabbix functionality so that users could login and setup their own custom graphs and charts without polluting other users views, but be able to bookmark and share the information that they find most useful.
eli.stair
13-12-2007, 22:50
1) It's surely been said many times, and probably desired by every multi-user install: per-user dashboards! Screens are awesome, and having the ability for a sub-tab displaying a user's "preferred screens/slideshows" as their dashboard would be excellent. And/or just integrate with the existing permissions system for hosts/items.
2) Configurable mouse-over for graphs. I've got some very detailed, complex, multi-item graphs that /I/ may understand... but throw that at someone who's not familiar with the intricacies of low-level CPU/IO details, MySQL qcache/innodb/query, whatever... and having a simple column for each graph as varchar optionally containing mouse-over text would be killer.
Cheers,
/eli
forlinuxsupport
27-12-2007, 13:41
using version 1.4.2
The hosts status item lists the date it was last true / false.
e.g. On the latest values page.
Description Last check Last value
------------------------------------------------
Host status 26 Dec 23:17:09 Up (0)
It still checks the status every 60 seconds, but that value for "Last check" is old.
Suggestion
--------------
Would be nice if zabbix could auto detect the partitions on a server.
E.g. if by default it monitors "/" "/home" and "/var" and my server only has "/"
It will list the 3 partitions as showing the same space.
Another
----------
The format of the "Latest values" page.
When viewing latest data the 2nd column (Last check) is sometimes far across the screen.
It is because I have a long string in the 1st column (Description)
E.g. Download speed for step 'Check site Monitor' of scenario 'site Monitor Page Check'
Can the first column not word wrap so the other columns arn't far across the page ?
Regards
Andy
P.S. I apologize if these have already been asked / submitted.
I'm sorry this may already be included somewhere but I really want to make sure that this minor improvement gets included!
Quite simply an option when creating a graph to disable/customise the legend. We have graphs with 50 or so items and most of that is taken up by the legend!
Many thanks :)
A page that list just the specific trigger alert levels (i.e. "What are my Disaster level triggers?")
Which nodes are marked down and why. For the “why” test, maybe utilize the comments section?
The ability to mark a node down for a few hours/days/weeks etc. There is nothing like the sinking feeling when you discover that a critical system has been marked down since last weeks downtime.
The ability to mass add several hundred systems to a Template(s).
And of course better/complete documentation.
being able to mix graph types like stacked and line would be useful, saving graph data to csv,
Hello all,
I think it will be interesting that the new functionality script like ping or traceroute is available in case of the monitoring for a host is disable or when the host don't have any trigger.
Now, when a host is enable and the host have triggers, traceroute or ping is available to test the host.
I explain why. Example, if a host will be down for technical reason, the better solution in zabbix is to disable the monitoring of this host to not receive alerts, but it will be interesting to test the host before activating the monitoring.
What do you think of my proposition ?
Hi,
Not sure if someone already post about this, but it will be good if we able to put the bandwidth size on link indicator.
so, example in the realworld, if i have link from cisco1 to cisco2 i can define how big the link is on Kbps/Mbps unit. for example 512Kbps or 1Mbps. And at the end , in the graph display i can have much more information about that link. Imagine if you have over than 10 WAN links with different size on each, it will difficult to remember right? And with this enhancement, many network administrator will be helped :D
Thanks
BEE
pdwalker
13-02-2008, 10:10
At the moment, when you set the Y axis as "fixed" and you have a graph with two Y Axis, then both the left and right axis are set as fixed.
What would be very handy is the ability to set the scale/fixed axis settings for the left and right hand Y axis independantly of each other.
E.g. say I have a graph showing cpu usage and load average. My axis showing cpu usage would be fixed at 100 while the load average axis would be set to calculated.
This is currently impossible to do with the system as it is now.
Not sure if someone already post about this, but it will be good if we able to put the bandwidth size on link indicator.
...
as a workaround in current version you can create a trigger for that item. trigger size would be shown as a line on the graph.
alternatively, if those graphs are not part of a template, you can set fixed y axis. this would not work if the graph is attached to the template, as usually is the case.
mactfines
13-02-2008, 15:46
Hi,
Octal SNMP Data support
A number of values queryable on HP Laserjet printers and JetDirect cards are stored in Octal. Zabbix 1.4.4 doesn't appear to support the storage/display of Octal values in 'normal' text/hex/dec values. Please add this.
Conversion channels
I'd like conversion channels added, which would allow for a value returned from a Zabbix Agent to be modified before being stored, measured, compared, etc. The conversion channels could be something simple within Zabbix, such as running the value through a regex search/replace, or could call a script.
Examples:
Octal value conversion
SNMP query of hardware address on HP JetDirect printers returns an Octal value. Would like to store it as its normal readable value. The conversion channel for this item could call a simple perl script that would convert this:
#!/usr/bin/perl
$ARGV[0] || die;
print unpack('H*',$ARGV[0]);
Remove quotes if they exist in a return value
{0} =~ s/\"//g
Thank you,
Ted
fcdfreitas
03-03-2008, 15:22
Hi,
Using version1.4.4...
If this can be done, I don´t know how. When one of my triggers is fired the action associated sends me an email. That works well. But if the item is examined each 30 seconds, I receive two emails per minute.
I would like something like "send me ONLY ONE email for this item until the trigger status change" or "keep sending emails only if the event was not acknowledged" or "send me an email each 5 minutes even if the item has a 30s period".
Hi,
If this can be done, I don´t know how. When one of my triggers is fired the action associated sends me an email. That works well. But if the item is examined each 30 seconds, I receive two emails per minute.
ZABBIX does send emails ONLY on status trigger change!
But if the item is examined each 30 seconds, I receive two emails per minute.
I would like something like "send me ONLY ONE email for this item until the trigger status change" or ...
maybe you trigger expression makes it go off before the next check ?
check the triggers provided by default, those should give some hints.
if you can't solve this, start a new thread in help section of the forum, and give full trigger and action configuration details.
ps. is this thread still relevant ? :)
ps. is this thread still relevant ? :)
Yes, it is ;)
fcdfreitas
03-03-2008, 17:45
ZABBIX does send emails ONLY on status trigger change!
:confused:
So, I think either I expressed myself badly or I made a mistake in the configuration.:D
I´ll open another thread for this.
Thanks!
managenet
04-03-2008, 23:18
Hi All,
Great job with 1.4.4 - looking forward to 1.6!
A very useful addition to web scenario monitoring would be the ability to capture the URL of the returned page in a variable that could be used for subsequent steps - even better if it were parsed or parable. I would like to monitor a site that generates a unique variable in the URI and requires it for subsequent requests. If I could access a variable, I could construct subsequent steps for that session.
Thanks!
Request for 1.6 or 1.6.x :)
The following scenarios (and possibly more) will not negate a trigger via the actions (i.e. mail or other alertscript interface). Correct me if im wrong, i didnt test it really well.
- Deleting a trigger
- Unlinking a trigger (basically same as deleting, yes i know)
- disabling a trigger or child item
- Disabling a true trigger which trigger depends on (dont know if this works now tho)
- more?
In some distributed nodes we have integrated HP OpenView for ticketing and such via alert scripts. In the above cases, no alertscript is triggered for a trigger off message and thus the 'issue remains in hp openview'.
Again, correct me if im wrong, i could possibly (very likely ;) ) made the interface script wrong.
Hi,
Would it be possible to create a trigger option which, if the trigger is true, disables all other triggers for that host.
Depending on the type of system and its reachability, agent.ping,snmp check or icmpping wont cut it.
It would be nice if trigger creation got an extra flag which could put the entire server in unavailable state.
This would also be nice for i.e. reboots. When reboot detected (uptime) have the trigger remain up for 10min so simple checks (different template, not dependant) wont fire off triggers because the host is booting slowly
Hope you understand my ramblings, just an feature idea which i think would be great to have :)
Hi Alexei
I am impressed with the progress of development and the new features
already implemented or on the list for 1.6.
I watch the roadmap for 1.6 closely (once per week to not miss an
update) because we want to start with 1.6 as soon as possible.
I am happy about the publication of this roadmap.
Although the percentage of the implementation is sometimes
difficult to guess, it gives a rough indication what has been done
and what is left to do.
This week there is a new feature mentioned on the list:
ZABBIX Proxy
Looking at the source I see that this will be available for Linux/UNIX
and Windows (DB access via ODBC).
On Windows this will run as a service.
Do we need a cygwin environment for this -> /usr/sbin/fping is
mentioned in the source ?
So it is no longer quite true what I told my colleagues last
week about ZABBIX -> Server only on Linux/UNIX.
Last week another new feature showed up:
Buffering data on agent side but it is already completely
implemented and tested.
These features are nice and we might need those sometime in the
future. But I think the completion of the tasks
better distributed monitoring and database cache module
is much more important for us.
Regards
Norbert.
These features are nice and we might need those sometime in thefuture. But I think the completion of the tasks
better distributed monitoring and database cache module
is much more important for us.
Obviously you are interested in a better performance. The combination of the new communication protocol with ZABBIX Proxy plus agent buffering and the database cache module will be extremely efficient for large setups. I wish we had more time for detailed performance tests...
We may continue the discussion elsewhere to avoid offtopics...
andreminelli
12-03-2008, 22:04
It will be very helpfull for Windows monitoring if an Item expression could have Macros so we could define templates for counters as MSMQ Queue ({HOSTNAME} macro in this case) .
Regards!
hello,
I use zabbix 1.4.2, it is a powerful tool, thank for your work.
I have some memory trouble with my multithread cpu server(8 CPU, 8 Go of RAM and 15Go of swap)
The proc.mem[,user,] functionality show me the memory's sum of all the tread of a process, as you can see in the top
example:
for the user toto in top we can see:
PID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM TIME CPU COMMAND
1744 toto 25 0 625M 625M 5132 S 0.0 8.0 1:59 4 launch
1759 toto 25 0 625M 625M 5132 S 0.0 8.0 0:00 4 launch
1760 toto 25 0 625M 625M 5132 S 0.0 8.0 0:00 4 launch
1761 toto 25 0 625M 625M 5132 S 0.0 8.0 0:00 4 launch
1762 toto 25 0 625M 625M 5132 S 0.0 8.0 0:00 4 launch
1763 toto 25 0 625M 625M 5132 S 0.0 8.0 0:00 4 launch
1764 toto 25 0 625M 625M 5132 S 0.0 8.0 0:00 4 launch
1765 toto 25 0 625M 625M 5132 S 0.0 8.0 0:00 4 launch
1766 toto 25 0 625M 625M 5132 S 0.0 8.0 0:00 4 launch
the process "launch" really used only 625M but not 625M*9= 5625M
The proc.mem[,user,] and so the the graph too return 5625M instead of 625M .
can you fix this problem?
tank for your help
Checked the Roadmap that is updated weekly, and for some reason it STILL says "most likely in March of 2008". Looking at the table, I think it's pretty obvious this isn't coming out in March of 2008. By the looks of this table since January, most likely not in April or May of 2008 either. There has been serious progress made on these items, but the percentages aren't really helpful to me as I TRY to plan for Zabbix 1.6. Can we get a adjusted expected release date again please? I don't know if there being 0 testing done on Escalations, Encryption, XML Backup, and database cache means that this isn't coming out until December of this year. If it's not going to be released until 2009, fine. Just someone please tell me, and take the "March 2008" piece off that page.
Suggestion:
Quite simple. Port the server to windows. We get rid of old Unix & Linux servers. With medical device the costs for certification and maintenance of the certification was much to high, so we took the step to switch medical servers fully to windows. Also costs for heterogeneous networks were to high, so we will not use Unix or Linux in future. To use Zabbix we would need it as native windows software. Otherwise we are not even able to test the software. (Cygwin or vm is a no-go for us).
Suggestion:
....
LLOOOOLLLLLL :D:D
Suggestion:
Quite simple. Port the server to windows. We get rid of old Unix & Linux servers. With medical device the costs for certification and maintenance of the certification was much to high, so we took the step to switch medical servers fully to windows. Also costs for heterogeneous networks were to high, so we will not use Unix or Linux in future. To use Zabbix we would need it as native windows software. Otherwise we are not even able to test the software. (Cygwin or vm is a no-go for us).
"Sorry sir we could not revive him, there.... there was a bsod :("
Hello!
We wants /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf.d/ directory for store custom configuration files, for example with UserParameter-s.
The purpose of this is that some packages may place own's files in this directory, such as for their own monitoring.
Hi,
we also have this requirement. Any plans for this making it into ZABBIX? I cannot see it in the roadmap for 1.6 or any other versions.
Cheers,
Petter
Hi,
we also have this requirement. Any plans for this making it into ZABBIX? I cannot see it in the roadmap for 1.6 or any other versions.
On my wish list as wall actually.
we also have this requirement. Any plans for this making it into ZABBIX? I cannot see it in the roadmap for 1.6 or any other versions.
I do not quite understand what you are talking about. There is Include directive supported by zabbix_agentd.conf, which is probably what you need.
@noxxis this is more serious than it sounds. If you need to get a medical certification in germany you need to certify every part of the system. If you build systems like a linux from multiple sources, you need to spend a hell lot of money for certification of each subsystem, you must make a risk analysis for each subsystem, each possible patch path and so one. This is easier, if you only build a small system (like airbus does with aeroplanes), but if you need something like a PACS-system (with dbs, loadbalancing etc.) with multiple servers which needs more than a small coresystem, you can only do it if the core system has only one vendor. That means : either windows or a unix which has only patches from one vendor, and not many small possible sources of problems (do you know how many programms have some strange dependencies? You can't therefore make a risk analysis for a normal Linux System by e.g. RedHat.) If you use a system like solaris the probability is extremly high, that the server hardware is not supported by drivers 5 years later. We even got problems with a linux from 2007 to support the storage systems of an ibm system from 2005 which was shipped from ibm with linux. The older linux could no longer be used because of security reasons. So we had some ibm experts with fixed drivers after 48 hours. Can you imaging what that service costs? Have you ever seen cinical tablets with linux? Also many terminals in hostels like Igel use Windows because of this issues. It is just to damn expensive to use a free system.
...
Also many terminals in hostels like Igel use Windows because of this issues. It is just to damn expensive to use a free system.
hotel terminals need medical certification ?
It is just to damn expensive to use a free system.
Then you should probably look around for a commercial monitoring system. It sounds like you already use a lot of money on hardware and software, so this shouldn't be a big concern for you.
To hope for an open-source project to port the entire thing to Windows, just for one "customer", is a bit naive I think. I at least haven't heard anyone else request that, from what I remember.
To hope for an open-source project to port the entire thing to Windows, just for one "customer", is a bit naive I think. I at least haven't heard anyone else request that, from what I remember.
You are right. Anyway I see no technical problems of creating Windows port, it can be sponsored functionality if anyone is interested. I am not sure how many ZABBIX users may need this...
Please let's stay on topic.
my last words to this:
@tenzer: the problem is something else: if we don't use unix or linux any longer for customers, why bother with expensive administration with own systems?
@richlv that culd hapen if you watch a movie while posting and if you are not a native speaker ;-)
@alexei maybe you can ask, how many possible users are interested in windows and did not install because of the native unix/linux client? as mentioned: at the moment we don't even need to evaluate because of the os issue. If you ask for suggestions, you get suggestions. If you don't want suggestions why e.g. we don't use zabbix just say so.
@alexei maybe you can ask, how many possible users are interested in windows and did not install because of the native unix/linux client? as mentioned: at the moment we don't even need to evaluate because of the os issue. If you ask for suggestions, you get suggestions. If you don't want suggestions why e.g. we don't use zabbix just say so.
It seems I wasn't clear enough in my previous message. I didn't say I am not interested in suggestions, just the opposite, I am interested in any! That's why I opened the whole discussion here.
The suggestion regarding Windows port is absolutely OK to me.
The message regarding staying on topic was addressed to everyone here, if you mean this.
pesadilla
07-04-2008, 17:16
suggestion:
possibility attach graphs on email when a trigger is launched
maruscya
14-04-2008, 15:07
Hello Guys...
I'm start play with remote command, but i found one big problem :(
When remote command is execute, server try reach remote agent. But all my agents are behind a firewall, and server can't contact they.
IMHO, when remote command is fired up... agent must download command from server and execute command localy.
What do you thing ?
NB: sorry about english.
james2012
15-04-2008, 16:39
The most important feature I want to see:
Currently templates are great for making changes to lots of hosts at the same time. The problem is that template linkage must be done through clicking many things on the GUI. If I want to add 1000 hosts to a new template, I need to hire a full-time button clicker. If Template linkage was exportable, I could script the creation of XML and import it just as I do for adding any non-template stuff.
In general, Zabbix seems somewhat hard to scale because of the clunky web interface. Having to script XML creation is a pain, but makes it at least usable (just not with templates in their current state).
cstackpole
15-04-2008, 22:24
Hello Alexei and forum!
So I have been playing around with the 1.5 beta and so far I really like it. I am still scared to hook anything even remotly related to production to it but I have dropped a couple of desktops on it for testing.
I have not run into many bugs and the few I have are already mentioned and acknowledged in the forum elsewhere so I am very pleased and excited about this release.
One thing I was disappointed in is the inventory. I love the ability to sort by the different columns but there is a bit more I would like to see.
My company runs many small projects and when a project is complete, we shift resources to another project. Zabbix has helped us keep track of these systems as they move about and as a result my company uses the inventory /ALOT/. I end up spending at least a couple hours a week making sure that the inventory is uptodate and correct.
The two things I personally would like to see is:
1) A customizable inventory screen. It doesn't matter to me if only the admin can customize it or eveyone can customize their own screen, but I would like to pick what columns we see. Right now the defaults are: Host, Name, OS, SerialNo, Tag, MAC Address. Seeing the Host, Name, and OS are great but we never need the SerialNo or Tag unless we are doing warranty calls (which evey admin hopes they don't have to do often:D). The MAC Address is good information to have for the network guys but they only use the information every once in a while. Besides most of these servers have 2 network cards at least and a good chunk of them have up to 6. Being able to pick what you see would be a good thing to have. I am sure others would use this as well. I personally would like to have Host, Device Type, OS, Hardware Info, Contact, Notes. Especially the Hardware Info.
We end up using the Hardware box to hold information like: how many processors? What kind of processors? How many cores? Hyperthreaded? How much memory and of what type? (example from one of our systems: 2GB total, 1x1GB, 2x512MB, PC3200 ECC Registered) How many hard drives? Speed and size of the hard drives? Warranty information on the hard drives? Primary MAC goes into the field, others go here.
As you can see, we cram a lot of data into the hardware field.
I do not expect to have all of that split up in the 1.6 release. I kinda doubt too many people want as much detail as we use so it would be unrealistic for me to expect all of that. The hardware field works well for all of that information but it would be nice to have at least fields for processor and memory split off. Even still, I will be very happy with just being able to say "I want these fields displayed on the inventory list in this order". Changing the fields displayed in the primary inventory page would be very nice.
2) This may be more difficult then it sounds like in my head but if it isn't too difficult to do I would REALLY like to see some of the information in the inventory auto updated.
Things like processor pretty much stay the same and it might be difficult to determine how many processors you actually have when you have multiple hyperthreaded cores. So those I don't mind filling in.
However, I do need to be able to determine what OS, distro, and kernel are on a system. A software project we have has known issues with Debian 2.6.20 and another has issues with CentOS 2.6.9-50 so I have to track what kernels are running on what systems and make sure everything is OK. Therefore I have in the OS entry something like: Linux Debian 2.6.22-2-686, Linux CentOS 2.6.9-67.0.1.ELsmp, Windows Server 2003 Std Ed SP1 (Build 3790). This information is already captured by the standard templates as are things like total memory. If it is already being captured, would it be difficult to link into?
It is just one of those things where I may forget to update or someone else will run an update and the kernel version changes so then I have to not only see what it is in Zabbix but I have to verify the kernel manually. So if I am always having to verify the data manually, what is the point in having the data in Zabbix?
Anyway, I know I wrote a lot but I hope I got my point and information across. At least this round:D. I have already gotten a list of requests from my users of "can the new version do this?" so I may be posting more later after I run a few tests. :p
Thanks Zabbix team!
cstackpole
It would be nice to provide exceptions for triggers. For instance, I don't know all the possible errors that will come up in a Windows event log so I would like to be alerted any time one comes up. However I get a dozen errors that I know are harmless and meaningless and would like to prevent those from setting the trigger.
FreeTheMallocs
08-05-2008, 18:58
Unlike a lot of people, I care much less about shiny new features than I care about ensuring that the current features work. I've been using 1.4.5 for awhile now and I'm absolutely shocked at how inconsistent and downright broken so much of it is. Further, I'm disappointed by the lack of interest that anyone has given to the amount of broken-ness. Half of the items in the templates for FreeBSD and Solaris don't work. Even something as simple as the net.if.* functions for FreeBSD don't work even despite a user providing a patch for them. So my suggestion for 1.5 or 1.6 is stop working on new features and fix what you have, then take some time and do documentation that people can actually use.
Userparameters are an awesome thing, but when you have 100+ hosts it's difficult to distribuite them to the hosts. I think that should be a way to write a userparameter and select the hosts that it applies.
This is a feature request or an how-to question in case i missed an already existing feature.
P.S. To improve my english, would be good if you reply this post correcting me. Thanks
Like other people, I'm monitoring windows event logs. It may be used in two ways:
1) monitor every log.
When an error come up, the trigger blinks in red for a while until an info event happens. So, if i open zabbix on the morning maybe i'm going to ignore an error because of the green square.
2) monitor only error logs.
The trigger blinks or stays red ever. So i have to check every time if new events are happened.
Starting with the proposition that green is better than red-acknowledged, would be a good idea to check a "red until acknowledge" thing.
It works in this way:
Step1 Error - Red blink
Step2 Info - Orange|Red blink
Step3 Acknowledge - Green quite
wlshanquan
21-05-2008, 07:34
1:Top n reports will give us clear overview of my IT system;
2:Make it to be a CMDB(ITIL keywords);
loophole
24-05-2008, 18:58
Just one thing. Improved installation. You don't do it often but would make life for people easier who just want to try. Either this could be done through a bash script or through the install.php.
nightstrike.lalith
30-05-2008, 18:09
I'm not really sure if this isn't there or not, but I think it'd be nice if the user could make define his own macros. It'll add to the flexibility.
What happened to escalations in version 1.6? It disappeared in the latest news when releasing 1.5.3.
Will it not be in 1.6? Just repeated alarms? Of will not even that be in there?
What happened to escalations in version 1.6? It disappeared in the latest news when releasing 1.5.3.
Will it not be in 1.6? Just repeated alarms? Of will not even that be in there?
While this is off-topic, please, read release notes carefully. Support of escalation is already there, in 1.5.3!
While this is off-topic, please, read release notes carefully. Support of escalation is already there, in 1.5.3!
I'll go and die for a while. Sorry. I've kept an eye on next.php and haven't seen any changes there so I.. well, sorry again and VERY VERY nice work then! ;)
Edit: please delete my msgs, I'm ashamed. :)
Sorry,
Whene could they see the 1.6??
In the site It has released for the March 2008... :confused:
Dominic.David
15-06-2008, 14:37
Hi,
it would be very good, if I can send a Traceroute from the Zabbix Server to the host IP, when the Trigger comes Active.
And send the result of the traceroute with an E-Mail to the Groupmembers for these host.
I have write down a post in the Zabbix-Forum:
http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9766
Perhaps it is posible to integrate it in the new Zabbix Version.
MfG
Dominic
just2blue4u
17-06-2008, 10:30
The max value for "Refresh unsupported items (in sec)" is "65535".
I set it that high because my zabbix logfile is full of entries caused by items that are not supported and refreshed.
Perhaps it could be possible to let the zabbix server write 2 logs:
One for critical errors like DB problems or unreachable hosts and the other for informational stuff like unsupported items.
Yes, one can simply set DebugLevel to 0 or 1, but that would mean if there is a problem with an item, you must change DebugLevel and restart the server just to get more information about that.
just2blue4u
24-06-2008, 11:44
I find the state labels for connections in maps very confusing:
OFF means "The connection is ok", ON means "it isn't".
I guess this is because of the triggers, where true means "something bad is happening". But i don't think it is the correct labeling for connections.
I made my first map a few days ago and assigned the thick, red line to OFF and the thin, green one to ON without doing any research which could mean what.
I was quite sure, ON means "The connection is ON", and OFF means "The connection is OFF". Then i was wondering why all lines kept red though all triggers were false.
I am really sure i'm not the only one who instinctivly assigned the colors and lines wrong. Maybe you can label them more precisely:
Change "OFF" to "UP" and "ON" to "DOWN". That would be less confusing, i think.
just2blue4u
24-06-2008, 11:50
Yes, i know, the latest data tab is just for checking the latest values of a host.
But we monitor many items for each host and don't need graphs for each.
Sometimes, when a host goes down, we'd like to see its latest values. Unfortunately, that host isn't listed in "latest data", because it's down.
How about the possibility to list hosts that are down but not "disabled" in the dropdown host list in "latest data"?
just2blue4u
02-07-2008, 10:15
hi, it's me again...
Just thought about how nice it would be if there was a update-button/link for each trigger listed on the tr_status page, which forces the trigger and all its items to update immediately.
just2blue4u
15-07-2008, 11:33
Mmh... am i the only one reading this thread?
Hope my suggestions are seen... :confused:
Well, today our NFS Server was shut down without unmounting it on all NFS Clients. We have a Zabbix UserParameter "files.open", that contains #UserParameter=files.open,/usr/sbin/lsof|grep -v lsof|grep -v grep|wc -l|sed s/" "//g to count all open files on the Client.
This Command hung on the mounted (and unreachable) NFS dir. That caused our agents to hang, too. After killing the lsof procs and restarting the agents, everything was fine again (deactivated the UserParameter line in config).
I'd really like to see Zabbix killing alle UserParameters that time out or at least being more immune/resistent/independent to hanging UserParameters.
(Issue seen on Server 1.4.4, agent 1.4.2)
swaterhouse
15-07-2008, 14:11
Mmh... am i the only one reading this thread?
Hope my suggestions are seen...
I would actually qualify this as a bug as much as a feature request. Maybe it would be better submitted to the bug tracker?
first, no, you are not the only one :)
second, that's a hard nfs mount. that's just how they behave.
you could use softmounts, but things can break badly if you do.
i'm not sure how much would some timeouts help in case of zabbix agent - there are very few, if any, applications that behave really well with stalled nfs mounts. on the positive note, all apps resume nicely when nfs connection is resumed :)
just2blue4u
15-07-2008, 14:16
My "bug" moved here: http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?p=35391
vinhthach
23-07-2008, 00:58
1. Template:
-To be able to Clone Applications
- When updating Items Template, Enable/Disable should not overwrite the current setting of host; like the Triggers Template keeps the Enable/Disable setting of host.
2. Screen:
- To be able to create a screen with a Resource similar to "Trigger Overview" but showing ONLY Triggers which go OFF, not the whole long list of Triggers which are OK.
- Another Resource similar to the "System Status" on the main page
3. Graph:
- The display of Trigger does not work well with "Calculated" or "Calculated [Min=0]". Low threshold is not shown with "Calculated [Min=0]"; High threshold is not shown with "Calculated". Only "Fixed" works fine.
- The display of Trigger does not work when the Threshold is an expression.
4. Actions:
- To be able to configure alert message be sent to different Person or Group according to working hour.
I would like to see my arpwatch discovery in the next version : http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10173
Onslo
hi, it's me again...
Just thought about how nice it would be if there was a update-button/link for each trigger listed on the tr_status page, which forces the trigger and all its items to update immediately.
My sign too!
jsabater
01-09-2008, 08:41
Hello!
I'd like to see Zabbix using the services as defined in /etc/services when defining keys of the type net.tcp.service. So, if I add an entry like clamd 3310/tcp in the /etc/services file (both where the agent and the server are located), I should be able to use something like net.tcp.service[clamd].
Thanks and keep up the good work. I love Zabbix! The more I use it, the more I like it!
ChristianLinden
09-09-2008, 14:20
Hallo,
it would be nice to see this in a future release of Zabbix:
Show only triggers without acknowledges.
http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10450
Thanks in advance
pabloadmin
09-09-2008, 15:45
Hello, in our company we want that zabbix permit to do autodiscovery of the interconnections among components (servers, storage, applications, etc).
That is to say, serious very interesting if zabbix support the wbem protocol.
protocol wbem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WBEM
some interesting projects:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/storageim/
http://openwbem.sourceforge.net/
http://sblim.wiki.sourceforge.net/
thank you.
disgruntleddutch
11-09-2008, 05:23
I'd love to see CIDR notation support for auto discovery and under the IP section in actions.
So instead of this:
192.168.1.0-255 it'd be:
192.168.1.0/24
This will make things such as 10.10.120.1 through 10.10.123.255 turn into:
10.10.120.0/22
nelsonab
05-10-2008, 04:44
Can we get the stickey for this thread removed? No point in having the 1.6 discussion stickied when it's out.
Can we get the stickey for this thread removed? No point in having the 1.6 discussion stickied when it's out.
It's done!
Thanks for your active participation in the discussion!
In order to make all feature requests logged and well maintained, we introduced a new project in Zabbix Support System at https://support.zabbix.com/browse/ZBXNEXT
Please spend some time registering your ideas there. Do not forget to vote for your favourites! ;)
My biggest problem with Zabbix is that the server doesn't run on windows.
I have tried to make a port. But my effort failed. Sought help, but didn't get me further either: Even_made_a_forum_topic_here (http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11654&highlight=cygwin).
So my ultimate request is:
Please make either a Cygwin port available, or make it run natively on Windows.
I have the exact same problem as offler. We can only use Windows servers. Using it in a VM was a no-go either.
Evan.Anderson
23-07-2009, 16:29
This may have already been suggested, but I would like to see the added ability to export the discovery rules & the users & groups. I find this system very useful, but I'm new to linux, so I find that I might break it accidently and have to rebuild. Being able to export these options would save time for recovery. Unless there are other options I'm not thinking of. I'm not a system administrator, I'm a network engineer, so I'm using this system to monitor the network hardware and a few servers that I'm responsible for. DNS, DHCP, Firewalls...the big hitters for connectivity. I suppose I could back up the database...but I don't know where to find it...lol.
Hello,
this would be also nice to see as feature in Zabbix:
{TRIGGER.THRESHOLD}
http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8675
nelsonab
17-02-2010, 18:34
Can we remove the sticky for this thread?
Hello I installed(settled) zabbix and thrown(launched) the sevice zabbix-server but I always have on interfacing zabbix Web in function(office) not.
If somebody can help me.
And here is what I have when I try to démarer zabbix waiter(server) [root@svrcosama GORA] * service zabbix-server start Starting ZABBIX server: [OK] [root@svrcosama GORA] * service to zabbix-server status zabbix_server_mysql is stopped(arrested)
please help me
Hello I installed(settled) zabbix and thrown(launched) the sevice zabbix-server but I always have on interfacing zabbix Web in function(office) not.
If somebody can help me.
And here is what I have when I try to démarer zabbix waiter(server)
[root@svrcosama GORA] * service zabbix-server start
Starting ZABBIX server: [OK]
[root@svrcosama GORA] * service zabbix-server status
zabbix_server_mysql is stopped(arrested)
please help me