How to ping an agentless host

[zabbixuser85]

Hi folks!

I seem to be having a problem pinging an agentless host.

The ping from the dashboard works fine for hosts running an agent but when I try to configure items for those hosts or other devices I get a value of 0 in response or no value whatsoever.

So far I tried a number of variations of icmpping (type: "simple check") like:

icmppingsec[192.168.168.6,5,100,50,300,avg] or
icmppingsec[ , , , , , ] or simply
icmppingsec

but to no avail...

Can someone please point me in the right direction?

[alixen]

Hi folks!

I seem to be having a problem pinging an agentless host.

The ping from the dashboard works fine for hosts running an agent but when I try to configure items for those hosts or other devices I get a value of 0 in response or no value whatsoever.

The dashboard won't do anything by itself.
You have probably configured your hosts with a template that does an 'agent.ping' and defines a trigger.

So far I tried a number of variations of icmpping (type: "simple check") like:

icmppingsec[192.168.168.6,5,100,50,300,avg] or
icmppingsec[ , , , , , ] or simply
icmppingsec

but to no avail...

Can someone please point me in the right direction?

icmppingsec and also icmpping, without arguments, are OK.
You have to define your item and also set a trigger on it if you want to see something on dashboard.

Regards,
Alixen

[zabbixuser85]

You have to define your item and also set a trigger on it if you want to see something on dashboard.

That I did not know. Pings are coming through now in the dashboard. There is one more issue however. Ping latency is not visible in my graphs - it's basically a flat line with 0 value. I added an item to a host; went into 'latest data' tab and opened the the plot which shows this flat 0 value. It;s the same item I set a trigger on that allows me to ping through the dashboard. Also I fiddled with multiplier (1000) type of information (Numeric(float)) for icmpping...

Thanks Alixen for your help but still what could be done to fix the graph problem?

[alixen]

There is one more issue however. Ping latency is not visible in my graphs - it's basically a flat line with 0 value.

icmpping is basically a logical value 0 = Not OK, 1 = OK
If you want to measure latency, you have to use icmppingsec.
You can define an item for icmpping and another for icmppingsec.

They are described in the manual (http://www.zabbix.com/documentation/...#simple_checks)

Regards,
Alixen

[zabbixuser85]

icmpping is basically a logical value 0 = Not OK, 1 = OK
If you want to measure latency, you have to use icmppingsec.
You can define an item for icmpping and another for icmppingsec.

They are described in the manual (http://www.zabbix.com/documentation/...#simple_checks)

Regards,
Alixen

Alixen, I agree it;s all true. And I mixed them up. Nevertheless, I am still getting a 0 value for icmpping or 100% loss for icmppingloss when trying to reach a host via item creation. Surprisingly, I get proper ping response when I use the dashboard for the same host.

What is causing this error?

Here's an example conf for simple ping item:


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[alixen]

Hi,

You can use icmpping as key. No need of [,,,].
Also, 1 second update interval seems too aggressive.

I have attached a screenshot of my icmpping setup.
I use a 60 s. period and it is working fine.

If you want smaller update interval, I suggest that you don't go below 5 s.

Regards,
Alixen

[zabbixuser85]

Thank you for your quick reply.

I copied your configuration but still I get nothing; no connectivity (0 value for plain ping or 100% loss for icmppingloss).

Any other ideas ?

[alixen]

Hi,

Thank you for your quick reply.

I copied your configuration but still I get nothing; no connectivity (0 value for plain ping or 100% loss for icmppingloss).

Any other ideas ?

If it is your first use of icmpping, you may have an installation or configuration problem.

Basically, Zabbix uses fping command for icmpping checks as described in manual (http://www.zabbix.com/documentation/.../zabbix_server).

Make sure that

• fping is installed
• FpingLocation is correct

If you still have problems, you can search the forum about fping problems, it has been discussed several times.

Regards,
Alixen

[zabbixuser85]

Thanks for replying.

I looked up up the fping location:

./usr/bin/fping
./usr/sbin/fping

Did the following:

shell> chown root:zabbix /usr/sbin/fping
shell> chmod 710 /usr/sbin/fping
shell> chmod ug+s /usr/sbin/fping

Went into zabbix_server.conf and check fping location. Reads:

FpingLocation=/usr/sbin/fping


Still, can;t do any the pinging. What else could be misconfigured/missing that I can't ping my hosts? Please help...

[zabbixuser85]

Problem still remains. I can't seem to get it working. Would appreciate any help/suggestions that anybody might have.

[marcel]

What does the server log file say? Make it highly verbose.

[zabbixuser85]

I set a higher sensitivity in debug mode and don't see much that tells anything about failing pings. I am getting a whole bunch of errors relating to snmp like:

1272:20101026:085228.088 Item [<name of my host>:ifOutOctets.10013] error: Timeout while connecting to [<ip of my host>:161]
1272:20101026:085228.153 SNMP Host [<name of my host>]: first network error, wait for 15 seconds

and this:

1284:20101026:085104.758 Item [<name of my host>:agent.ping] error: Get value from agent failed: *** Cannot connect to [<ip of my host>]:10050 [Connection refused]

Although, this is to be expected since I am not running an agent on that host. I am still uncertain what to do. The fping does work when executed via dashboard but fails when done with items. I've read somewhere the fping has a -s option missing but doubt that's the culprit...

[marcel]

Hmm, try to set the key to icmppingsec and Type of information is Float.

Also make sure of this:

chmod +s /usr/sbin/fping
ls -al /usr/sbin/fping
-rwsr-sr-x 1 root root 61887 Oct 8 17:11 /usr/sbin/fping

This is the way I have installed fping;

http://fping.sourceforge.net/ - 2.4b2

./configure --prefix=/usr
make
make install

vi /etc/opt/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf
(line FpingLocation=/usr/sbin/fping

[zabbixuser85]

Hey, thanks for replying.

Hmm, try to set the key to icmppingsec and Type of information is Float.

Done.

chmod +s /usr/sbin/fping
ls -al /usr/sbin/fping
-rwsr-sr-x 1 root root 61887 Oct 8 17:11 /usr/sbin/fping

Mine looks like this (went a step ahead and set a full access):

-rwsrwsrwx 1 root root 31528 2010-02-02 08:06 /usr/bin/fping

Location of fping is:

whereis fping
fping: /usr/bin/fping /usr/sbin/fping.js /usr/sbin/fping

So the location of fping in zabix_server.conf is set to /usr/bin/fping.

Went into error log and the response from ping triggered with dashboard shows the results:

<IP of my host >: xmt/rcv/%loss = 3/3/0%, min/avg/max = 11.3/14.0/15.7

But still nothing from icmpping item...

[marcel]

try

cat /var/opt/zabbix/zabbix_server.log | grep fping

you shoud get smthng like this:


25561:20101026:154427.448 /usr/sbin/fping -q -C3 2>&1 </var/opt/zabbix/tmp/zabbix_server_25561.pinger
25561:20101026:154437.698 /usr/sbin/fping -q -C3 2>&1 </var/opt/zabbix/tmp/zabbix_server_25561.pinger

try to run that command like this:

sudo -u zabbix /usr/sbin/fping -q -C3 2>&1 </var/opt/zabbix/tmp/zabbix_server_25561.pinger

check the results.

Marcel