Discovery of discovery?

[clevelas]

Here's what I'm trying to do (zabbix 4.4.4):

I have a directory on the zabbix server (though it could be any host potentially). In it are a bunch of flexlm license.dat files (basically just pointers to the actual running license servers).

What I want to do is:

1. Have a discover that finds all of these license files
2. For each license file, run a script that gets the raw output of 'lmutil lmstat -c license.dat -a'. Actually for this, I've massaged the output into an array of 'feature' => [ 'used' => 10, 'total' => 100]
3. For each feature, I want an item created for 'used' and 'total'

So I'm thinking I need a discovery of a discovery. Is that possible? I was playing with a host prototype. Maybe create a pseudo host out of each license and that would then pull the raw data and then do a discovery of that inside that new host. But I didn't know if I could pass a macro from the previous discovery. Early attempts at this have not been successful. Is there another route entirely for monitoring a bunch of flexlm licenses aside from manually entering them? That would be maybe a generic template and then one template per license file, each with a macro set for which license file to use?

Any help is appreciated.

[clevelas]

I tried the method of using a generic "FlexLM license" template and linking "FlexLM matlab" and "Flexlm autocad" to it with different macro variables. But I apparently can't attach a template more than once, even if it's through another linked template. So that idea won't work.

[clevelas]

I went back to trying the Host Prototype approach. I can create a host for each "License" I find in that directory. While it doesn't appear Host Macros are a thing yet (ZBXNEXT-2297) and would be the 'proper' solution, one of the suggestions I found in the comments (https://support.zabbix.com/browse/ZB...comment-241907) lead me to a solution that mostly works:

On the zabbix server (could be any host), I have a script that returns of list of available license files. Output looks like this:

[
  {
    "{#LICENSE}": "matlab"
  }
]

I created a template that attaches to the zabbix server with a discovery that runs that script (could be agent key or external script). That discovery includes a Host Prototype. It sets the Host name to "FlexLM.{#LICENSE}" and attaches another template.

The second template has an item called "License details" that has the key: flexlm.getlicensedetail["{HOST.HOST}"]

That key runs another script (actually the same script with a different argument) that looks at the passed argument and strips out the "FlexLM." part and returns all of the data for that license. Output looks like this:

{
  "lld": [
    {
      "{#FEATURE}": "MATLAB"
    },
    {
      "{#FEATURE}": "SIMULINK"
    }
  ],
  "values": {
    "MATLAB": {
      "total": "10000",
      "used": "109"
    },
    "SIMULINK": {
      "total": "10000",
      "used": "6"
    }
  }
}

So every 5 minutes, it pulls all of the data for that license.

I then created a discovery rule for the features. It is a 'depenedent item' that uses that main item as the master. It then uses a Preprocessing rule of JSONPath with a parameter of "$.lld". I got that trick from how Block Devices Discovery works in the default linux template.

Then there are item prototypes for "FlexLM Features {#FEATURE} " total and used. They use Preprocessing JSONPath with a parameter of $['values']["{#FEATURE}"]['total'] and $['values']["{#FEATURE}"]['used']

The solution seems a little convoluted, but gets me the data that I want without having to create a bunch of stuff by hand for each license.