Zabbix Documentation 2.4

Zabbix uses common functionality to execute user parameters, remote commands, system.run[] items without the “nowait” flag, scripts (alert, external and global) and some internal commands.

The command/script is executed similarly on both Unix and Windows platforms:

1. Zabbix (the parent process) creates a pipe for communication
2. Zabbix sets the pipe as the output for the to-be-created child process
3. Zabbix creates the child process (runs the command/script)
4. A new process group (in Unix) or a job (in Windows) is created for the child process
5. Zabbix reads from the pipe until timeout occurs or no one is writing to the other end (ALL handles/file descriptors have been closed). Note that the child process can create more processes and exit before they exit or close the handle/file descriptor.
6. If the timeout has not been reached, Zabbix waits until the initial child process exits or timeout occurs
7. At this point it is assumed that everything is done and the whole process tree (i.e. the process group or the job) is terminated

All double quotes and backslashes in the command are escaped with backslashes and the command is enclosed in double quotes.

Read more about user parameters, remote commands, alert scripts.