Monitoring NTP

[ctang]

Hi,

I'm running Zabbix 1.8.4 on Linux. I would like to monitor the NTP daemon, which is listening on UDP port 123, and for that I created a simple check item with the key ntp (which is a standard item that comes with Zabbix). However, it just keeps saying NTP server is down even though the NTP daemon ntpd is running. Does anyone know why?

Thanks,

Calvin

[da_oli]

HI,

you should replace the key ntp with ntpd.

Cheers

Oliver

[ctang]

Thanks Oliver. I've replaced the key with ntpd but it doesn't seem to work. I'm getting this error (from the Zabbix server log):

29888:20110127:085837.326 Item [Zabbix server:ntpd] error: Simple check is not supported
29888:20110127:085837.326 Parameter [Zabbix server:ntpd] is not supported, old status [0]

It looks like Zabbix doesn't know what ntpd is. My item is of type Simple check and has the key ntpd.

Thanks,
Calvin

[DaveLevy]

Monitoring NTP

I too have this problem. I am using Zabbix 1.8.4 the agent & server are both running Fedora 8.

ps shows that ntpd is running as do ntpq and ntpstat.

[zabbix@server1-ec2 bin]$ /apps/zabbix/bin/zabbix_get -s localhost -k net.tcp.service[,,123]
ZBX_NOTSUPPORTED
[zabbix@server1-ec2 bin]$ /apps/zabbix/bin/zabbix_get -s localhost -k net.tcp.service[ntp,,123]
0
[zabbix@server1-ec2 bin]$ /apps/zabbix/bin/zabbix_get -s localhost -k net.tcp.service[ntp]
0
[zabbix@server1-ec2 bin]$ ps -ef | grep ntp
ntp       1084     1  0 Feb13 ?        00:00:00 ntpd -u ntp:ntp -p /var/run/ntpd.pid -g 
zabbix    9436  8899  0 11:22 pts/2    00:00:00 grep ntp
[zabbix@server1-ec2 bin]$ /apps/zabbix/bin/zabbix_get -s localhost -k net.tcp.port[,123]
0
[zabbix@server1-ec2 bin]$ /apps/zabbix/bin/zabbix_get -s localhost -k net.tcp.service[ntpd]
ZBX_NOTSUPPORTED

When using the ..service method with ntp keyword, I get a 0 reply which Zabbix Server and GUI interprets as service down.
When using the ..service method with no keyword, and an explicit port reference, I get unsupported reply
When using the ..port method I get a 0 reply
When I use the ..service method with the ntpd keyword I get an unsupported reply.

What am I doing wrong?

[richlv]

that seems to be https://support.zabbix.com/browse/ZBXNEXT-786 ...

[DaveLevy]

Is this really a protocol problem?

I had found the bug in JIRA.

I wasn't sure that this was the problem since net.tcp.service is just a name to me. If the method was net.service, then it wouldn't matter. I suppose I am saying that if the method called net.tcp.service only uses tcp and not udp then it's a problem. Only knowledge of the source code, which I suppose I could read, will confirm if it's the same issue, but I am not a C person. Also, even if the protocol is not the issue, it may disguise what's happening.

I will try stopping the ntpd and see if the result is the same, or the opposite.

[richlv]

i suspect that the result will be the same, at least judging by the comments on that issue