User groups and distributed monitoring (Zabbix 1.8.2)

[aturriff]

I am running a small distributed monitoring network using Zabbix 1.8.2, with one master and 4 child nodes. All user administration is intended to happen on the master. The servers are communicating and exchanging information.

Now, I am at the stage of defining users and user groups, and find that when attempting to assign permissions to user groups, no matter what node I select in the dropdown menu, I can only assign permissions to host groups existing on the master node. I cannot alter the menu to display anything but host groups, nor does the dropdown for nodes work to let me select host groups on other nodes. What am I missing? What am I doing wrong?

[aturriff]

Any help on this? This problem is currently blocking a Zabbix deployment at my org.

[walterheck]

Have you tried just using the web interface for the child nodes directly? I'm not sure about the structure of user rights for node based setups. I personally am not a big fan of the distrubuted node stuff, it has too many awkward problems. I prefer the proxy style, although that has awkward stuff as well, like the default config update interval of an hour (you end up waiting for changes to become visible)

[aturriff]

Have you tried just using the web interface for the child nodes directly? I'm not sure about the structure of user rights for node based setups. I personally am not a big fan of the distrubuted node stuff, it has too many awkward problems. I prefer the proxy style, although that has awkward stuff as well, like the default config update interval of an hour (you end up waiting for changes to become visible)

I considered it. If I am not misunderstanding what you are suggesting, however, that would require me to define users (and actions) directly on the child nodes, and doing that (especially actions) is not an option. Thinking about it in those terms, maybe proxies is what I really wanted, not distributed nodes.

[walterheck]

Thinking about it in those terms, maybe proxies is what I really wanted, not distributed nodes.

Then do yourself a favor and switch while you still can. If you possibly can, regenerate the database so you can get rid of the ridiculous primary keys you get when you switch to a node based setup. They're causing me daily problems on a customer's zabbix install that used to be node-based.