How to make agent work in active and passive both?

[insanelee]

How to make agent work in active and passive both?
Should I make some changes in zabbix_agentd.conf?
Please, help

[James Wells]

Greetings,

How to make agent work in active and passive both?

Not much to it really. There are two configuration options to change in the agent configuration and from there it is all up to the server;

• DisablePassive=0 -- This will tell the agent to allow passive checks, AKA Zabbix Agent checks from the server.
• DisableActive=0 -- This will tell the agent to allow active checks, AKA Zabbix Agent (Active) checks.

From there, you will need to configure the items themselves on the Zabbix UI. The sample items that come with the normal Zabbix download are mostly passive checks, but any passive Zabbix check can be converted to an active check by simply changing the item type from Zabbix Agent to Zabbix Agent (Active).

[insanelee]

Greetings,

Not much to it really. There are two configuration options to change in the agent configuration and from there it is all up to the server;

• DisablePassive=0 -- This will tell the agent to allow passive checks, AKA Zabbix Agent checks from the server.
• DisableActive=0 -- This will tell the agent to allow active checks, AKA Zabbix Agent (Active) checks.

From there, you will need to configure the items themselves on the Zabbix UI. The sample items that come with the normal Zabbix download are mostly passive checks, but any passive Zabbix check can be converted to an active check by simply changing the item type from Zabbix Agent to Zabbix Agent (Active).

Well, thanks anyway.
For example, if I configure some items with the item type, zabbix agent(active), some items with zabbix agent, in zabbix frontend,
and change some parameters in the zabbix_agentd.conf as follow:
DisableActive=0
DisablePassive=0

will the agent get the poll from the server for the passive items, and the agent report the new data to the server actively for the active items?

I saw the description from the book "zabbix1.8 Network Monitoring" on page 85, which quoted below:
While you have the configuration file open, notice another parameter
just below—DisablePassive. As the name indicates, this parameter
will prevent the agent from listening on incoming connections from the
server, so you can customize your agents to support either one or both of
the methods.

I feel a little confused about that.

[James Wells]

if I configure some items with the item type, zabbix agent(active), some items with zabbix agent, in zabbix frontend,
and change some parameters in the zabbix_agentd.conf as follow:
DisableActive=0
DisablePassive=0

will the agent get the poll from the server for the passive items, and the agent report the new data to the server actively for the active items?

If all of those conditions are met, then yes. This is actually how I run most systems. I will have one or two passive items and set the bulk of the remaining items to active.

so you can customize your agents to support either one or both of the methods.

One of my favorite features of Zabbix is that it supports multiple operating modes. Personally, I have long had issues with passive only monitoring, and other issues with active only, and still other issues with agent less monitoring. With Zabbix, I can mix and match based on my needs.