Distributed Monitoring Setup Howto

These are my system characteristics...  I presume that most of the things will work flawlessly, if you follow the logic in this howto.
* OS used:  Centos 5.
* Zabbix version 1.4.2
* Apache 2.2.4
* MySQL version 5.0.45-linux-i686-icc-glibc23 (with phpmyadmin)
Follow the installation steps for your OS, MySQL.

I made a mistake of upgrading the 1.4.1 system in place, without paying attention of where “make install” was placing files… Here is my configuration script that I use on my systems:

./configure –prefix=/home/zabbix/program/ –enable-server –enable-agent –with-mysql –with-net-snmp –with-libcurl

The 1.4.1 version of zabbix would install the program under /home/zabbix/program/bin, 1.4.2 now places things under /home/zabbix/program/sbin. Therefore, my scripts in /etc/init.d/ were not updated to this new location, therefore I was still running 1.4.1, while completely convinced of the complete opposite. Nevertheless, if you are upgrading, i suggest a complete wipe of all the zabbix files in /etc/zabbix, /etc/init.d/ /usr/local/apache/htdocs/… /home/zabbix/program (your install $prefix)… etc…
Of course this is not required, but its always nice to start clean… Run a “make clean” in the source tree when installing as well.

• From hereon I presume you have a clean system
• Follow the install directions for Zabbix. Do NOT start the zabbix services
• Follow the distributed setup howto in the documentation, it is very straight forward
• I have the following packed away in my home directory (dont blindly follow this):

cd /usr/local/zabbix/zabbix-1.4.2/create/schema/
cat mysql.sql | mysql -u zabbix -pyourzabbixpass zabbix
cd ../data
cat data.sql | mysql -u zabbix -pyourzabbixpass zabbix
cat images_mysql.sql | mysql -u zabbix -pyourzabbixpass zabbix
cd /home/zabbix/program/sbin/
./zabbix_server -n 1 -c /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf

• The last command you see converts the tables. Its just slightly different for the client.
• So once that is done, go to http://zabbix1/, configure the nodes as stated in the howto. I personally left the ports default… Just make it fit your environment.
• Once that is finished, start your master zabbix server…

• Steps do not differ by much… It only matters what your /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf says for NodeID and how you configure the web interface.
• Follow the install directions for Zabbix. Do NOT start the zabbix services
• Follow the distributed setup howto in the documentation, it is very straight forward
• I have the following packed away in my home directory (dont blindly follow this):

cd /usr/local/zabbix/zabbix-1.4.2/create/schema/
cat mysql.sql | mysql -u zabbix -pyourzabbixpass zabbix
cd ../data
cat data.sql | mysql -u zabbix -pyourzabbixpass zabbix
cat images_mysql.sql | mysql -u zabbix -pyourzabbixpass zabbix
cd /home/zabbix/program/sbin/
./zabbix_server -n 2 -c /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf

• The last command you see converts the tables. Its just slightly different for the client.
• So once that is done, go to http://zabbix2/, configure the nodes as stated in the howto. I personally left the ports default… Just make it fit your environment.
• Once that is finished, start your client zabbix server…

Well, now you should be able to watch your /tmp/zabbix_server.log for troubleshooting. I never really administer the child node directly, everything is done through the web interface on the Central Node. To really see if everything works, you click on Configuration, Hosts, switch the node from Central to Child, and you should be able to see the local zabbix host defined there… If you see that, everything works fine… Proceed with configuring your environment.