Multiple agents on a host

[varrocs]

Hello!

I'm using multiple agents on the host (zabbix, zapcat, own agent., ...). It multiples the host entries in the zabbix server's configuration because each agent needs an own enrty.

I'm experimenting with modifying the zapcat agent ( monitors JMX ) to be able to pass the queries to other agents running on the same host.

Is there a usual technique to aggregate multiple agents?

[nelsonab]

What are you trying to aggregate? There are aggregation functions that add keys across hosts into a new key, on a new host. I'm thinking you want something similar to the Union query in SQL, where you "Union" multiple hosts into one host for viewing. If that's the case, sorry no bueno, no can do.

[varrocs]

A have many agents on a single physical host, if I want to see all informations about one physical host then I have to switch between the configured zabbix hosts. I'd like to view the informations in one place, as it would be one host. The zabbix aggregate function do something else.

[Kees Jan Koster]

Dear Varrocs,

Interesting idea to have zapcat delegate to a local Zabbix agent.

My reasoning with Zapcat was to make the Java virtual machine visible as though it was a real machine, so the fact that Zapcat-monitored applications appear as regular hosts is by design.

In many environments you find several JVM instances running on the same machine. I routinely have a few Tomcat instances and and lately also an OC4J instance running on my laptop. I have worked in environments where we had 20 Tomcat instances on a test machine and four or so per production machine.

Finally, I wanted my Zabbix server to be able to quickly follow a JVM instance as it is moved to a more powerful machine. An integrated view of the server and the JVM would make that harder.

That's not to say my design is good. Just showing my train of thought. ;-)

If you want to change Zapcat to be able to delegate to a local Zabbix agent, you can find the source code on SourceForge. Just submit your patch there, or mail it to me and I merge it into the main tree for everyone to enjoy.

[Kees Jan Koster]

Oh, and one more thing: you could also make your own Zabbix screens to integrate the views.