Simple checks vs check_service

[jack]

Hello fellow Zabbix users,

Can someone tell me what's the different between the simple checks http/ftp/etc and check_service[http/ftp/etc...]?

From reading the description, I think simple checks uses the zabbix server to connect directly to the remote http port. Check_service, on the other hand, connect to the remote zabbix_agent first and asks the agent to check the http port of its own host, and this defaults to ip 127.0.0.1.

Can someone tell me if my understanding is correct and also which one is better? It seems not very useful to ask agent to check 127.0.0.1 because we want to know if http is accepting connection on the public IP. Also does simple checks put more load on the zabbix server? I would not think so because connecting to agent and connecting to http is still both one connection, and we have to wait for agent to make another connection too so probably check_service is slower.

So am I missing the point for check_service? And why is it used in the default templates instead of simple checks?

Thanks a lot!

Jack

[elkor]

sometimes becuase of various reasons, not limited to security, firewalls, or architecture; it's not always possible to create a remote connection to the server on port X. Under these circumstances check_service can be used to tunnel the request and have it perfomed locally. you can specify an ipaddress to check in the item.