Making hosts send data

[atwinix]

Hello All,

I am very new to Zabbix and I am setting up remote network monitoring for my networks.

I am still going through the documentation and so far I have managed to get the server (interface) up and running.

I was wondering what was the role of the zabbix agent and if it was absolutely necessary to configure them with static IPs?

Some of my servers are behind NAT and obtain their addresses from DHCP, how can I monitor them when I don't know the address?

Thanks,

atwinix

[zab_monkey]

The point of the Agent is to act as the point of communication between the relevant platform and the Zabbix server.
Allowing the server to talk through the agent to obtain statistical data, run remote commands/scripts... there's a lot you can do. The manual will tell you more. You can also do agent-less monitoring if that's relevant to the data you want to collect. Or just hook in to an SNMP trap or similar. The worlds your mollusc.

If you are using DHCP for servers (Not up on your rationale for not using static for a server, or at least reserving the address under your DHCP scope for that machine) then there is an option, when adding a host in Zabbix, to talk via DNS rather than IP.

Hope that helps,

JC