Zabbix-proxy questions

[hertell]

Hi all,

I already asked some help on irc, and got some good anvers, but it is still something that i dont really understand/get configured correct.

I'm monitoring succesfully several servers with zabbix from our serverfarm. We monitor eg. a client's server that is again in an other serverfarm.

The problem with this setup is that our client has every now and then performance-issuses with their server. Our zabbix again says that everything is ok.

To rule out for example network-problems, i would like to have an agent that is placed on our clients local office-server to check line-statuses etc from the office point of view. FOr this task i figured out that this would be best done by the zabbix-agent.

My problem now is that how should i configure this setup.

                  |------------------------------------------|
                  | Customer Local Server (NAT)              |
Zabbix-server --->| [B]Server A[/B] With zabbix-agent + zabbix-proxy|
     |            |------------------------------------------|
     |                     |
     |                     |
     |                     v (Proxy should also check server B)
     v                     |
     |            |--------------------------|
     |            |(Public ip)               |
     |----------->|[b]Server B[/b] with zabbix-agent|
                  |--------------------------|

This is for me currently a mystery:

• Where do i configure the proxy and it's port in zabbix-server? The only place to configure the proxy i found under Administartion->DM. The Configuration->Hosts is for configuring zabbix-agents..!? I found posts in the forum that say that proxys should be configured under Configuration->Hosts->Proxies.. I don't have such config-option in the zabbix-server UI (running zabbix 1.8.4)
• How do i tell that the proxy should monitor a different ip for the local agent as zabbix-server is seeing it from "outside"? Or do i have to route the prox
• Do i have to run two agents on server B, One for zabbix-server, and an other for the zabbiz-proxy

I hope that some kind person could give me a hint in how i should continue...

[tchjts1]

proxy configuration is relatively simple.

In Zabbix frontend, you are in the correct place at Administration --> DM --> Proxies. (Configuration->Hosts->Proxies was in an older version of Zabbix)

So in the Zabbix frontend, you only need to configure the Proxy Name and Mode. The rest of the proxy configuration will happen on the proxy istelf in zabbix_proxy.conf On my RHEL proxies, I have that file in /etc/zabbix

You'll have to focus your attention on some of these variables within the zabbix_proxy.conf file:

Server=xxxxxxx    <-- IP of your Zabbix app server
Hostname=xxxxx  <-- Must match exactly your entrty for Proxy name in frontend
DBName=xxxxxx   <-- Proxy DB name (We run MySql on our proxies)
DBUser=xxxxxx     <-- Proxy DB User
DBPassword=xxxxx <-- Proxy DB password

Go through the remaining parameters and set them to suit your needs, but that should get your proxy up and running. Important thing is that the Hostname= field matches what you put in the frontend, including case match.

[hertell]

Hi,

Thank you for checking out on my problem. I managed to get this to work, but there are still some open quiestions that i could not solve:

It looks to me that the proxy is the one that negotiates the connection to the server, so zabbix_server is not the one that initiates the connection. I also assume that all triggers and actions are saved by the proxy locally, and they will be fired locally when an issue takes place.

What about syncrhonization of checks? In my case i am monitoring the same server from two different directions. One thing i monitor is the response-time for a web-page to load. Is it possible to synchronize these calls with zabbix-server, so that they would be fired at the same time? Now the checks are most likely not happening in the same time, and because of this, i can't get a reliable value..