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3 Zabbix Agent (UNIX, Standalone daemon)

Zabbix UNIX agent daemon runs on a host being monitored. The agent provides host's performance and availability information for Zabbix Server. Zabbix agent processes items of type 'Zabbix agent' or 'Zabbix agent (active)'.

Zabbix agent can be started by executing:

shell> cd sbin
       shell> ./zabbix_agentd

Zabbix agent runs as a daemon process.

Zabbix agent accepts the following command line parameters:

  -c --config <file>   specify configuration file, default is /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf
         -h --help            give this help
         -V --version         display version number
         -p --print           print known items and exit
         -t --test <item key> test specified item and exit

In order to get this help run:

shell> zabbix_agentd -h

Example of command line parameters:

shell> zabbix_agentd -c /usr/local/etc/zabbix_agentd.conf
       shell> zabbix_agentd --help
       shell> zabbix_agentd --print
       shell> zabbix_agentd -t "system.cpu.load[all,avg1]"

Configuration file

The configuration file contains configuration parameters for zabbix_agentd. The file must exist and it should have read permissions for user 'zabbix'. Supported parameters:

Parameter Mandatory Range Default Description
Alias no Sets an alias for parameter. It can be useful to substitute long and complex parameter name with a smaller and simpler one.

Starting from version 1.8.6 Zabbix Agent will not start up in case incorrectly formatted Alias entry or duplicate Alias key is present in configuration file.
AllowRoot no 0 Allow the agent to run as 'root'. If disabled and the agent is started by 'root', the agent will try to switch to user 'zabbix' instead. Has no effect if started under a regular user.
0 - do not allow
1 - allow
BufferSend no 1-3600 5 Do not keep data longer than N seconds in buffer.
BufferSize no 2-65535 100 Maximum number of values in a memory buffer. The agent will send
all collected data to Zabbix Server or Proxy if the buffer is full.
DebugLevel no 0-4 3 Specifies debug level
0 - no debug
1 - critical information
2 - error information
3 - warnings
4 - for debugging (produces lots of information)
DisableActive no 0 Disable active checks. The agent will work in passive mode listening for server.
DisablePassive no 0 Disable passive checks. The agent will not listen on any TCP port.
Only active checks will be processed.
0 - do not disable
1 - disable
EnableRemoteCommands no 0 Whether remote commands from Zabbix server are allowed.
0 - not allowed
1 - allowed
Hostname no Set by HostnameItem Unique, case sensitive hostname.
Required for active checks and must match hostname as configured on the server.
Allowed characters: alphanumeric, '.', ' ', '_' and '-'.
Maximum length: 64
HostnameItem no system.hostname Item used for setting Hostname if it is undefined.
Does not support UserParameters, performance counters or aliases, but does support system.run[] regardless of EnableRemoteCommands value.

Ignored if Hostname is set.

This option is supported in version 1.8.6 and higher.
Include no You may include individual files or all files in a directory in the configuration file. See special notes about limitations.
ListenIP no 0.0.0.0 List of comma delimited IP addresses that the agent should listen on.
Multiple IP addresses are supported in version 1.8.3 and higher.
ListenPort no 1024-32767 10050 Agent will listen on this port for connections from the server.
LogFileSize no 0-1024 1 Maximum size of log file in MB.
0 - disable automatic log rotation.
LogFile no Name of log file.
If not set, syslog is used.
LogRemoteCommands no 0 Enable logging of executed shell commands as warnings.
0 - disabled
1 - enabled
MaxLinesPerSecond no 1-1000 100 Maximum number of new lines the agent will send per second to Zabbix server
or proxy processing 'log' and 'eventlog' active checks.
The provided value will be overridden by the parameter 'maxlines',
provided in 'log' or 'eventlog' item key.
Note: Zabbix will process 4 times more new lines than set in MaxLinesPerSecond to seek the required string in log items.
PidFile no /tmp/zabbix_agentd.pid Name of PID file.
RefreshActiveChecks no 60-3600 120 How often list of active checks is refreshed, in seconds.
Server yes List of comma delimited IP addresses (or hostnames) of Zabbix servers. No spaces allowed.
If ServerActive is not specified, the first entry is used for receiving list of and sending active checks.
Note that hostnames must resolve hostname→IP address and IP address→hostname.
If IPv6 support is enabled then '127.0.0.1', '::127.0.0.1', '::ffff:127.0.0.1' are treated equally.
ServerActive no List of comma delimited IP:port (or hostname:port) pairs of Zabbix servers for active checks. No spaces allowed.
If ServerActive is specified, first host in the Server option is not used for active checks, only for passive checks.
If the port is not specified, ServerPort port is used for that host. If ServerPort is not specified, default port is used.
IPv6 addresses must be enclosed in square brackets if port for that host is specified. If port is not specified, square brackets for IPv6 addresses are optional.
This option is supported in version 1.8.12 and higher.
ServerPort no 10051 Server port for retrieving list of and sending active checks.
SourceIP no Source IP address for outgoing connections.
StartAgents no 1-100 3 Number of pre-forked instances of zabbix_agentd that process passive checks.
The upper limit used to be 16 before version 1.8.5.
Timeout no 1-30 3 Spend no more than Timeout seconds on processing
UnsafeUserParameters no 0,1 0 Allow all characters to be passed in arguments to user-defined parameters. Supported since Zabbix 1.8.2.
UserParameter no User-defined parameter to monitor. There can be several user-defined parameters.
Format: UserParameter=<key>,<shell command>
Note that shell command must not return empty string or EOL only.
Example: UserParameter=system.test,who|wc -l

Starting from version 1.8.6 Zabbix Agent will not start up in case incorrectly formatted UserParameter entry or duplicate UserParameter key is present in configuration file.

Starting from version 1.8.6 Zabbix agent daemon will not start up if invalid (not following parameter=value notation) or unknown parameter entry is present in configuration file.

Zabbix supports configuration files only in UTF-8 encoding without BOM.