Make Zabbix easier to intall and configure

[gen2linuxdude]

I work for financial company and we currently use Solarwinds to monitor
Windows, solaris and Linux servers. I heard great review about Zabbix so
I decided to give it a try.

I installed a fresh Fedora Core 7 server in the lab and tried to install
Zabbix version 1.6.1 on it. After spending 48 hours on it, I gave up.
The instruction is terrible, I couldn't get ./configure to work properly.
It tells me that "mysqlclient" is missing among other things.

Why can Zabbix build a bootable CD with Zabbix pre-compile and ready
to go so that I can install it on any Intel Server. Checkpoint firewalls
does that for Secureplatform (Firewall running on top of Linux) but
everything is compiled into an ISO image. Zabbix would get a lot of
customer like myself to use this product.

I am suprised that Alexi did not think about this approach.

[Hauke]

Search for a VMWare Image with Linux&Zabbix preinstalled, that should be good enough to test it.

[Tenzer]

Regarding the issue you are experiencing, did you search the forums for solutions? I found these threads which both point to the correct solution:

http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6490

http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9689

I would also think that it's normal procedure when compiling software to have the development packages installed.

[davidtranusa]

Search for a VMWare Image with Linux&Zabbix preinstalled, that should be good enough to test it.

Can you tell me where to find these VMware image? I don't think the vmware
image running the latest 1.6.1 version of zabbix? Is that right?

[Tenzer]

I don't think the vmware image running the latest 1.6.1 version of zabbix? Is that right?

That is probably correct since version 1.6.1 was released less than a week ago.

[davidtranusa]

Regarding the issue you are experiencing, did you search the forums for solutions? I found these threads which both point to the correct solution:

http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6490

http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9689

I would also think that it's normal procedure when compiling software to have the development packages installed.

Thank you I am going to give it a try.

I still standby what I said earlier. Zabbix is a great tool but it is very complicate
to install if you are not extremely good with Linux. I think Zabbix should follow
the lead of http://www.caligare.com/ or Checkpoint SPLAT where the ISO
includes everything (OS and the application itself). The installation takes less
than 10 minutes to complete. At this point, customers just need to worry
about how to use the product.

The way Zabbix is today, I dont' think it will be given a positive review
by customers in the enterprise environment.

[Tenzer]

I do think that Zabbix has a steep learning curve, but I can only urge you to keep working with it. If you encounter errors then try searching here on the forums, I think that at least 90% of all errors already has been posted here on the forums.

Also, since you are using Fedora you can maybe use the packages found here: http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/p...packageID=4278
Since I don't use Fedora myself, I don't know if they are of any use to you.

[davidtranusa]

I do think that Zabbix has a steep learning curve, but I can only urge you to keep working with it. If you encounter errors then try searching here on the forums, I think that at least 90% of all errors already has been posted here on the forums.

Also, since you are using Fedora you can maybe use the packages found here: http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/p...packageID=4278
Since I don't use Fedora myself, I don't know if they are of any use to you.

Thank you for the link. I download the rpm and install it on my system:

[root@fedora10 tmp]# rpm -Uvh zabbix-1.6-1.1.fc10.i386.rpm
Preparing... ########################################### [100%]
1:zabbix ########################################### [100%]
[root@fedora10 tmp]#

Now can you tell me how to go ahead and get started. when I try
https://localhost/zabbix I got nothing. https://localhost works so my apache
is up and running.

[Alexei]

What do you think would be the best option - VMWare image or a live CD? Please all tell me what you think.

[davidtranusa]

What do you think would be the best option - VMWare image or a live CD? Please all tell me what you think.

Hi Alexei,

I am more of a network person, not a server person and there are a lot of
people in the networking world who also share the same frustration as I am.
Zabbix is an excellent tool. The more I read about it, the more I am impressed
with it. But installing it is a pain. I am almost 72 hours into this project and
I am getting no-where.

here is my suggestion:

1- LiveCD. Good Approach. The down-side is that for some environments,
the lab is NOT connected to the Internet. Therefore, you may have some
issues with this.

2- FullCD. Excellent approach. You can install the whole thing without
Internet access. Gentoo linux uses both method #1 and #2.

3- VMware. I am ok with it;

I would prefer method #2. Then if you need to update, you just send out
a patch and people cann just install it.

Checkpoint, Caligare and lot of serious vendors use method #2. Zabbix should
do the same thing.

Thank you.

[Tenzer]

[root@fedora10 tmp]# rpm -Uvh zabbix-1.6-1.1.fc10.i386.rpm
Preparing... ########################################### [100%]
1:zabbix ########################################### [100%]
[root@fedora10 tmp]#

Now can you tell me how to go ahead and get started. when I try
https://localhost/zabbix I got nothing. https://localhost works so my apache is up and running.

Did you only install the "zabbix" rpm? In that case you are missing both one of the "zabbix-server-*" and "zabbix-web-*" packages.
A tip: Click the "info" link next to the package names in order to see a list of which files are included in the package.

What do you think would be the best option - VMWare image or a live CD? Please all tell me what you think.

Well, a VMware image has the downside of having limited performance due to be running virtually, but I guess that isn't much of a concern if it's just meant as a "trial package" in order for people to see what it's all about.
However, people could use for small installations where they don't have a dedicated Zabbix server.

A live CD will have the downside of being much more hardware specific, depending on what platform it runs on. Besides, what's to do with the database? All changes are lost when rebooting, which is a major downside compared to the performance loss of VMware. However, you are also able of running live CDs in VMware.

I think a VMware image would be the easiest way to go, since you don't have to think about hardware support, and people are able to stop and start the VM in order to build a little more on the setup when people have time.

1- LiveCD. Good Approach. The down-side is that for some environments, the lab is NOT connected to the Internet. Therefore, you may have some issues with this.

I think he means a live CD that doesn't install anything on the server, but runs with a ramdisk as HDD, like Knoppix, DSL, etc. It doesn't have anything to do with an internet connection or not.

[davidtranusa]

Did you only install the "zabbix" rpm? In that case you are missing both one of the "zabbix-server-*" and "zabbix-web-*" packages.
A tip: Click the "info" link next to the package names in order to see a list of which files are included in the package.


Well, a VMware image has the downside of having limited performance due to be running virtually, but I guess that isn't much of a concern if it's just meant as a "trial package" in order for people to see what it's all about.
However, people could use for small installations where they don't have a dedicated Zabbix server.

A live CD will have the downside of being much more hardware specific, depending on what platform it runs on. Besides, what's to do with the database? All changes are lost when rebooting, which is a major downside compared to the performance loss of VMware. However, you are also able of running live CDs in VMware.

I think a VMware image would be the easiest way to go, since you don't have to think about hardware support, and people are able to stop and start the VM in order to build a little more on the setup when people have time.


I think he means a live CD that doesn't install anything on the server, but runs with a ramdisk as HDD, like Knoppix, DSL, etc. It doesn't have anything to do with an internet connection or not.

Thank you very much. I finally get Zabbix version 1.4.6 up and running with
CentOS 5.2 with the instructions: http://www.muck.net/?p=16

many thanks to folks in this forum.

[nibb]

I also agree on this. I had a very hard time to install it on CentOS.

Now that I bought a dedicated hardware just for Zabbix I dont want to even start with install because im remember the trouble it gave. I just wish there was not only a VMware but also a XenServer iso image we could just deploy with OS and Zabbix running already.

[Tenzer]

You could go for another distribution which has Zabbix in it's repositories

http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=zabbix

http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=zabbix

https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/packages/name/zabbix

http://software.opensuse.org/search?q=zabbix

[nibb]

You could go for another distribution which has Zabbix in it's repositories

http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=zabbix

http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=zabbix

https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/packages/name/zabbix

http://software.opensuse.org/search?q=zabbix

So I heard and I was recommended to use debian for easy install. But how in the world there is not a good guide for CentOS i will never understand. Most enterprises use CentOS or Red Hat. We have a policy to only use CentOS so I cant use Zabbix on Ubuntu or Fedora or anything else. It has to be CentOS or Red Hat because of management. CentOS is probably the most popular Linux distribution after Ubuntu. And Ubuntu is mainly for home users and desktops so for business i could say CentOS is the 1 Linux distribution.

A good install guide or instruction should be made. I also used the link that someone posted before, but that is very old and its not updated, it leaves you with broken init files and you have to do some customization. I would like to see official instructions from Zabbix for a correct CentOS installation.
Just search this forum or Google it and you will see how much people have tried Zabbix and just gave up. You will always find the same questions and is about CentOs and Zabbix.