Dear Zabbix developers,
first of all, thanks for this great software. I tried Zabbix some time ago but couldn't use it because it didn't fit our demands. Last week however I looked into it again and almost fell into love while using it (I'm trying the 1.3.8 beta currently) :-)
However I came across some isses which I want to tell you below; in the hope that my feedback can be useful to you for improving Zabbix even more.
# Agent communication
At the beginning, I had a hard time figuring out how agents do communicate with the server. Monitoring only the Zabbix server itself (localhost) was no problem, but when it came to monitor other servers, it didn't work because the monitored servers are located behind a firewall and cannot be connected directly from outside. After all that wasn't a problem after I switched them to be active agents. However, there's little to none documentation about the difference of passive and active agents, what those agents exactly do and how they communicate to the server (who does connect where? where's data collected and stored for what type of item? what happens if an agent loses connection to the server? is data cached and retransmitted later?). A bit more documentation about this in the manual would definitely be helpful to Zabbix beginners like me.
# Item types
There are several item types (active and passive agentt among them), but there's not many documentation about what each type does. An explanation of item types and what they do and where it is done would be nice (e.g. simple, trapper, internal and aggregate are not clear to me at the moment)
# Items lost applications when mass updating their type
When you mass-update items, they're losing their application. I mass-updated all Template_Linux items from type agent to type agent(active). After that, all items of that template had their applications cleared.
# Items lost applications when assigning additional templates to a host
I created a new template (for postfix mail monitoring) and assigned it (additionally to the already assigned Template_Linux) to one of my hosts. After that, all items for that host had their applications cleared.
# Sensors and 2.6 kernels
Monitoring sensors does not work. At least not natively by an agent. sensor[tempX] does always return "unsupported" (also via zabbix_get). Probably this problem occurs, because zabbix_agentd tries to read /proc/sys/dev/sensors, which does not exist on 2.6 kernels. It seems that it was replaced by something like /sys/bus/i2c/drivers/*/*/temp?_input. Sure a UserParameter still works, but it'd be really nice (and less overhead) if zabbix_agentd would read sensors natively.
# Jabber messages contain {HOSTNAME}
Notification via Jabber is great! However, it looks like variables from triggers aren't resolved when sending out a Jabber message. I.e. I'm getting messages in Jabber like: Low free disk space on {HOSTNAME} volume /: ON
# Graph access denied in screens if a templated graph is changed
Templates are great
. I defined all my graphs in templates (e.g. Template_Linux) and they're automatically assigned to all hosts using that template. Naturally, they don't display any values in the preview when editing them (because the template has no values), but that's something one can live with. However, if you have defined screens that uses such a graph, the graphs in the screen don't work anymore (permission denied).
How to reproduce: Create a graph in Template_Linux. The graph is autmatically put into all hosts assigned to Template_Linux. Create a screen and put the templated graph of a host into it. The graph you defined in Template_Linux appears and shows the graph of the selected host. Now go back to graphs and edit the graph in Template_Linux (e.g. changing the color). Save it and go back to the screen: It shows "permission denied" for that graph now.
If you have many screens, it's getting a lot of work to fix everyone whenever you change a graph
My apologies for writing such a lengthy post. Hopefully my feedback can be useful to improve Zabbix even more. I'm already looking forward to the next release. Thanks again for making this great software.
Zargony
first of all, thanks for this great software. I tried Zabbix some time ago but couldn't use it because it didn't fit our demands. Last week however I looked into it again and almost fell into love while using it (I'm trying the 1.3.8 beta currently) :-)
However I came across some isses which I want to tell you below; in the hope that my feedback can be useful to you for improving Zabbix even more.
# Agent communication
At the beginning, I had a hard time figuring out how agents do communicate with the server. Monitoring only the Zabbix server itself (localhost) was no problem, but when it came to monitor other servers, it didn't work because the monitored servers are located behind a firewall and cannot be connected directly from outside. After all that wasn't a problem after I switched them to be active agents. However, there's little to none documentation about the difference of passive and active agents, what those agents exactly do and how they communicate to the server (who does connect where? where's data collected and stored for what type of item? what happens if an agent loses connection to the server? is data cached and retransmitted later?). A bit more documentation about this in the manual would definitely be helpful to Zabbix beginners like me.
# Item types
There are several item types (active and passive agentt among them), but there's not many documentation about what each type does. An explanation of item types and what they do and where it is done would be nice (e.g. simple, trapper, internal and aggregate are not clear to me at the moment)
# Items lost applications when mass updating their type
When you mass-update items, they're losing their application. I mass-updated all Template_Linux items from type agent to type agent(active). After that, all items of that template had their applications cleared.
# Items lost applications when assigning additional templates to a host
I created a new template (for postfix mail monitoring) and assigned it (additionally to the already assigned Template_Linux) to one of my hosts. After that, all items for that host had their applications cleared.
# Sensors and 2.6 kernels
Monitoring sensors does not work. At least not natively by an agent. sensor[tempX] does always return "unsupported" (also via zabbix_get). Probably this problem occurs, because zabbix_agentd tries to read /proc/sys/dev/sensors, which does not exist on 2.6 kernels. It seems that it was replaced by something like /sys/bus/i2c/drivers/*/*/temp?_input. Sure a UserParameter still works, but it'd be really nice (and less overhead) if zabbix_agentd would read sensors natively.
# Jabber messages contain {HOSTNAME}
Notification via Jabber is great! However, it looks like variables from triggers aren't resolved when sending out a Jabber message. I.e. I'm getting messages in Jabber like: Low free disk space on {HOSTNAME} volume /: ON
# Graph access denied in screens if a templated graph is changed
Templates are great
. I defined all my graphs in templates (e.g. Template_Linux) and they're automatically assigned to all hosts using that template. Naturally, they don't display any values in the preview when editing them (because the template has no values), but that's something one can live with. However, if you have defined screens that uses such a graph, the graphs in the screen don't work anymore (permission denied).How to reproduce: Create a graph in Template_Linux. The graph is autmatically put into all hosts assigned to Template_Linux. Create a screen and put the templated graph of a host into it. The graph you defined in Template_Linux appears and shows the graph of the selected host. Now go back to graphs and edit the graph in Template_Linux (e.g. changing the color). Save it and go back to the screen: It shows "permission denied" for that graph now.
If you have many screens, it's getting a lot of work to fix everyone whenever you change a graph
My apologies for writing such a lengthy post. Hopefully my feedback can be useful to improve Zabbix even more. I'm already looking forward to the next release
. Thanks again for making this great software.Zargony
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