Distributed monitoring with proxies

[wpervaiz]

So I've been playing around with Zabbix for a while, but I'm not sure if I'm doing things right. Heres our scenario:

We have one central server running Zabbix server. Now we have a number of clients (with their own networks) and we want to monitor the devices on each such network.

I was thinking of putting a Zabbix proxy on each clients server which would poll all the devices on the network and forward the results to our central server.

I've gone over the manual and that is how I think proxies work. Is that correct?

If so, how would the proxy know what to monitor/ping. Does it auto-discover devices ??

(Placing agents on each individual device will not be practical and some devices won't even support them, e.g. iphones/smartphones, etc)

Thanks !

[ataylo13]

When you add the devices for you clients network to the central zabbix server you specify that the device will be monitored by proxy X.

As far as auto-discovery, you should be able to setup a discovery rule for each of your clients subnets.

[wpervaiz]

so what do i install on the "proxy" server ? the same thing i installed on the central server ???

[ataylo13]

the zabbix_proxy process

[wpervaiz]

ok, so i installed zabix proxy and configured it...

now on my central server i can detect the hosts on the proxy. however, the availability remains "unknown" and i can't actually get the status of those hosts.

My server logs gives me this:
"sending configuration data to proxy. Datalen 3143"

now my proxy is behind a firewall and 10050 is not given forwarding access. I thought that only the proxy reported to the server (i added 10051 to exceptions) - do i necessarily have to open port 10050 as well ? Does the server have to have two-way communication with the proxy to ping hosts on there ????

thanks!

[exkg]

Hi,

The communication betwen ZBX_proxy and ZBX_server is one way .... i mean:

- ZBX_proxy ask ZBX_server to hosts that ZBX_proxy need act;
- ZBX_server reply to ZBX_proxy;
- ZBX_proxy put hosts in ZBX_proxy database and starts to collect data;
- ZBX_proxy get data from monitored hosts;
- ZBX_proxy send collected data to ZBX_server;

All procces are done in one way:

ZBX_proxy -> ZBX_server:10051

You only need permit ZBX_proxy access ZBX_server in 10051 port.



[]s,
Luciano