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1 Zabbix Server

Zabbix server is the central process of Zabbix software. Zabbix server can be started by executing:

shell> cd sbin
       shell> ./zabbix_server

Zabbix server runs as a daemon process.

Zabbix server accepts the following command line parameters:

-c --config <file>              absolute path to the configuration file (default is /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf)
       -n --new-nodeid <nodeid>        convert database data to new nodeid
       -R --runtime-control <option>   perform administrative functions
       -h --help                       give this help
       -V --version                    display version number

-R or --runtime-control option is supported since Zabbix 1.8.6.
Runtime control is not supported on OpenBSD and NetBSD.

In order to get more help run:

shell> zabbix_server -h

Example of command line parameters:

shell> zabbix_server -c /usr/local/etc/zabbix_server.conf
       shell> zabbix_server --help
       shell> zabbix_server -V

Runtime control

Runtime control options:

Option Description
config_cache_reload Reload configuration cache. Ignored if cache is being currently loaded.

Example of using runtime control to reload the server configuration cache:

shell> zabbix_server -c /usr/local/etc/zabbix_server.conf -R config_cache_reload

Configuration file

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

Parameter Mandatory Range Default Description
AlertScriptsPath no /home/zabbix/bin/ Location of custom alert scripts
CacheSize no 128K-1G 8M Size of configuration cache, in bytes.
Shared memory size for storing hosts and items data.
CacheUpdateFrequency no 1-3600 60 How often Zabbix will perform update of configuration cache, in seconds.
DBHost no Based on the underlying library implementation used. Database host name.
If set to localhost, socket is used for MySQL.
DBName yes Database name.
For SQLite3 path to database file must be provided. DBUser and DBPassword are ignored.
DBPassword no Database password. Ignored for SQLite.
Comment this line if no password is used.
DBPort no 1024-65535 3306 Database port when not using local socket. Ignored for SQLite.
DBSocket no /tmp/mysql.sock Path to MySQL socket.
DBUser no Database user. Ignored for SQLite.
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)
DisableHousekeeping no 0-1 0 If set to 1, disables housekeeping.
ExternalScripts no /etc/zabbix/externalscripts Location of external scripts
Fping6Location no /usr/sbin/fping6 Location of fping6.
Make sure that fping6 binary has root ownership and SUID flag set.
Make empty ("Fping6Location=") if your fping utility is capable to process IPv6 addresses.
FpingLocation no /usr/sbin/fping Location of fping.
Make sure that fping binary has root ownership and SUID flag set!
HistoryCacheSize no 128K-1G 8M Size of history cache, in bytes.
Shared memory size for storing history data.
HistoryTextCacheSize no 128K-1G 16M Size of text history cache, in bytes.
Shared memory size for storing character, text or log history data.
HousekeepingFrequency no 1-24 1 How often Zabbix will perform housekeeping procedure (in hours).
Housekeeping is removing unnecessary information from history, alert, and alarms tables.
Note: To prevent housekeeper from being overloaded (for example, when history and trend periods are greatly reduced), no more than 4xHousekeepingFrequency hours of outdated history are deleted in one housekeeping cycle, for each item. Thus, if HousekeepingFrequency is 1, no more than 4 hours of outdated history (starting from the oldest entry) will be deleted per cycle.
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 trapper should listen on.
Trapper will listen on all network interfaces if this parameter is missing.
Multiple IP addresses are supported in version 1.8.3 and higher.
ListenPort no 1024-32767 10051 Listen port for trapper.
LogFileSize no 0-1024 1 Maximum size of log file in MB.
0 - disable automatic log rotation.
LogFile no Name of log file.
LogSlowQueries no 0-3600000 0 How long a database query may take before being logged (in milliseconds).
0 - don't log slow queries.
This option becomes enabled starting with DebugLevel=3.
This option is supported in version 1.8.2 and higher.
MaxHousekeeperDelete no 0-1000000 500 No more than 'MaxHousekeeperDelete' rows (corresponding to [tablename], [field], [value]) will be deleted per one task in one housekeeping cycle.
SQLite3 does not use this parameter, deletes all corresponding rows without a limit.
If set to 0 then no limit is used at all. In this case you must know what you are doing!
This parameter is supported since Zabbix 1.8.2 and applies only to deleting history and trends of already deleted items.
NodeID no 0-999 0 Unique NodeID in distributed setup.
0 - standalone server
NodeNoEvents no 0-1 0 If set to '1' local events won't be sent to master node.
This won't impact ability of this node to propagate events from its child nodes.
NodeNoHistory no 0-1 0 If set to '1' local history won't be sent to master node.
This won't impact ability of this node to propagate history from its child nodes.
PidFile no /tmp/zabbix_server.pid Name of PID file.
ProxyConfigFrequency no 1-604800 3600 How often Zabbix Server sends configuration data to a Zabbix Proxy in seconds. Used only for proxies in a passive mode.
This option is supported in version 1.8.3 and higher.
ProxyDataFrequency no 1-3600 1 How often Zabbix Server requests history data from a Zabbix Proxy in seconds. Used only for proxies in a passive mode.
This option is supported in version 1.8.3 and higher.
SSHKeyLocation no Location of public and private keys for SSH checks
SenderFrequency no 5-3600 30 How often Zabbix will try to send unsent alerts (in seconds).
SourceIP no Source IP address for outgoing connections.
StartDBSyncers no 1-100 4 Number of pre-forked instances of DB Syncers.
The upper limit used to be 64 before version 1.8.5.
This option is supported in version 1.8.3 and higher.
StartDiscoverers no 0-250 1 Number of pre-forked instances of discoverers.
The upper limit used to be 255 before version 1.8.5.
StartHTTPPollers no 0-1000 1 Number of pre-forked instances of HTTP pollers.
The upper limit used to be 255 before version 1.8.5.
StartIPMIPollers no 0-1000 0 Number of pre-forked instances of IPMI pollers.
The upper limit used to be 255 before version 1.8.5.
StartPingers no 0-1000 1 Number of pre-forked instances of ICMP pingers.
The upper limit used to be 255 before version 1.8.5.
StartPollersUnreachable no 0-1000 1 Number of pre-forked instances of pollers for unreachable hosts (including IPMI).
The upper limit used to be 255 before version 1.8.5.
This option is missing in version 1.8.3.
StartPollers no 0-1000 5 Number of pre-forked instances of pollers.
The upper limit used to be 255 before version 1.8.5.
StartProxyPollers no 0-250 1 Number of pre-forked instances of pollers for passive proxies.
The upper limit used to be 255 before version 1.8.5.
This option is supported in version 1.8.3 and higher.
StartTrappers no 0-1000 5 Number of pre-forked instances of trappers.
The upper limit used to be 255 before version 1.8.5.
Timeout no 1-30 3 Specifies how long we wait for agent, SNMP device or external check (in seconds).
TmpDir no /tmp Temporary directory.
TrapperTimeout no 1-300 300 Specifies how many seconds trapper may spend processing new data.
TrendCacheSize no 128K-1G 4M Size of trend cache, in bytes.
Shared memory size for storing trends data.
UnavailableDelay no 1-3600 60 How often host is checked for availability during the unavailability period, in seconds.
UnreachableDelay no 1-3600 15 How often host is checked for availability during the unreachability period, in seconds.
UnreachablePeriod no 1-3600 45 After how many seconds of unreachability treat a host as unavailable.

Starting from version 1.8.6 Zabbix Server 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.