[How to] dependencies in zabbix?

[gadget]

I've been using zabbix for about a month, currently using 1.1beta5. Yesterday I've had a core switch failure, resulting in many alerts. I've seen that triggers do have a depencency field - which is always empty. The documentation says [to be finished]... Is there a howto or is this functionality not yet implemented?

Thanks!

[Alexei]

It works since 1.0. It is not properly documented yet.

[gadget]

Thanks, Alexei... but: What am I supposed to do in order do make it work? Could you or anybody else here give me a brief howto?
I see in trigger configuration two pulldown menus [trigger depends on] and [new dependency]. Well... both pulldown menus are always empty, and without selecting a value und choosing [add dependency] I get an error: "Query: insert into trigger_depends (triggerid_down, triggerid_up) values (12234,)".
Could anybody help please?

[gadget]

[Solved] 1.1beta5 add dependency pulldown menu always empty

I've found why the [add depencency] pulldown menu never has had any values to select from: There's a wrong variable name in /include/forms.inc.php. Line 1052 should read:

while($row1=DBfetch($result))

instead of

while($row1=DBfetch($result1))

Guess this is a bug, isn't it?

[Alexei]

Yes, it is a bug and it has already been fixed. Thanks for reporting this.

[edeus]

Alexei,

Can I find out if the dependencies are stable? I.e. they will work, be removable, updatable etc.

Happy to wait until a newer release before going down this feature tree.

[gadget]

As far as I see dependencies do work: I've set up 5 levels of dependencies, starting at the core switch, the firewall, a DMZ switch, all web servers and finally the different services on each server.
Now if for example a single server fails, I get informed that this server has died but zabbix does not bother me sending alerts for each service that failed too. Tested this feature yesterday and did what it was supposed to.

[cameronsto]

So when you setup a dependancy, does this mean that it doesn't activate a trigger unless the dependancy is also true? Meaning also you wouldn't get an alert unless bother triggers are true?

-cameron

[Alexei]

Whe you setup a dependency actions will not be generated for a dependent trigger and the trigger will not be shown in Status of Triggers screen.

[mconigliaro]

ok, i have a question.

i have a scenerio where im monitoring several remote machines over the internet. if our internet connection goes down, i want to get one alert about that, instead of alerts from all those other machines. so i set up my isp's default gateway as a new host with a simple icmp ping item/trigger (because if i cant ping the isp's default gateway, the internet must be down). this was going to be a dependency for all my remote machines. my expression for that trigger is something like this:

{_Host.NoAgent:icmpping.avg(300)}=0

this means if the internet is down for 5 minutes, the trigger will be true. now if i understand zabbix's dependencies correctly, the dependenant triggers must be TRUE before an alert is sent out. if this is the case, then my trigger is the opposite of what i want. i guess i need to do something like this?

{_Host.NoAgent:icmpping.avg(300)}=1

now this trigger will be true when the internet is up. this is a little confusing to me, because im used to using triggers to look for 'bad' things. unfortunately, now i'll always have this trigger listed under monitoring->triggers where im used to seeing the current 'bad' things.

i guess my point is that it would be nice to be able to negate the dependencies. then i can use my first trigger expression as the dependency, and i can configure my remote hosts to only send alerts when the trigger status is FALSE. im also hoping that someone will correct me if my thinking is wrong on this.

[Zabbixazzer]

I got a problem on Zabbix 1.1.1

on Host1: trigger that sends an alarm if dns is down
on Host2: trigger that sends an alarm if dns is down, BUT depends on Host1 dns trigger.

Situation:
Host1 --> dns up --> trigger is FALSE --> no alarms
Host2 --> dns down --> trigger should be FALSE because depends on trigger of Host1, but instead it's TRUE --> sends alarm

Is this a bug or maybe I didn't understand how dependency works?