External Check(bot)

[Alphasoldier]

Hey, I came here simply because I need help, I'm working for a software company and I'm just a simple stagaire(someone who works there for school without getting paid), I'm there to learn and to help. But seeing I'm stuck I'd like to have help from you guys.
I've been assigned to make a sort of checkbot, with help of Dogtail, a GUI test tool and automation framework, or a program similar to that, but it needs to work with Zabbix. The checkbot needs to test through logging into the client (through the GUI) and see if it can connect, that's part that Dogtail does. What I want Zabbix to do is just take the information that dogtail gets and do its job by sending a message to a mail address or just a SMS.
So, after reading the manual thoroughly I found that the only way that seemed to be possible would be the External Check, starting up a script that would start up Dogtail, who checks if it works and passes back the information if it worked or not, from there the script should pass it back to Zabbix and does its job.
So from here I got a few questions:
First, of course, is this possible at all?
Am I right to use External Check, or is there another way?
If I indeed need to use External check, how do I use it? The Manual doesn't have all the information that is needed. I don't know how to put up the input or receive and use the output.
For the info, I was told to use Zabbix, I barely know anything about it, I read most of the manual and I've installed and played around a bit. I nearly don't know as much as you guys do, please help.

If anymore info is needed, please ask, I'll give as much as info as needed, I'd really like to get this job done quickly.

[Alphasoldier]

I'd be happy if anyone would reply, please?

[cstackpole]

First, of course, is this possible at all?
Am I right to use External Check, or is there another way?
If I indeed need to use External check, how do I use it?

First, if you can retrieve the value then yes it is possible. The flexibility of Zabbix is certainly one of its many strong points.

As for the external check, I dont think I would do it that way.

If your program already does the gathering and parsing of the information and runs automatically, then I personally would just setup a trapper event and send the information to zabbix with zabbix_sender. (This is EASY! I do this all of the time but you do need to make sure you have proper trapper listeners and all of that set up and configured right)

If your program needs to be run by zabbix, then I would set up a User Parameter.

However, those are just the two ways I would do it based off of what you posted in your message. If you decide to go one of those routes then both of those methods are well documented, however, I will do my best to help if you need it. Just give me some time as I get busy and only check the forums every couple of days.