Failed to start Zabbix Server (status=127/n/a

[headcrash]

Hey everyone,

we want to try out Zabbix for monitoring the servers in our company. I want to host Zabbix on a virtual machine using Debian 10, MySQL and Apache2. I've followed the quide at the Zabbix download page and I'm currently stuck at step f. (Start Zabbix server and agent processes). Here's what happens when I try to start the server:

zabbix@ZABBIXHOST:/etc/zabbix$ systemctl restart zabbix-server
Job for zabbix-server.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status zabbix-server.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

I tried just that and I got:

zabbix@ZABBIXHOST:/etc/zabbix$ sudo journalctl -xe
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://www.debian.org/support
--
-- A start job for unit zabbix-server.service has finished with a failure.
--
-- The job identifier is 482052 and the job result is failed.
Apr 09 07:23:49 ZABBIXHOST systemd[1]: zabbix-server.service: Service RestartSec=10s expired, scheduling restart.
Apr 09 07:23:49 ZABBIXHOST systemd[1]: zabbix-server.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 6524.
-- Subject: Automatic restarting of a unit has been scheduled
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://www.debian.org/support
--
-- Automatic restarting of the unit zabbix-server.service has been scheduled, as the result for
-- the configured Restart= setting for the unit.
Apr 09 07:23:49 ZABBIXHOST systemd[1]: Stopped Zabbix Server.
-- Subject: A stop job for unit zabbix-server.service has finished
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://www.debian.org/support
--
-- A stop job for unit zabbix-server.service has finished.
--
-- The job identifier is 482125 and the job result is done.
Apr 09 07:23:49 ZABBIXHOST systemd[1]: Starting Zabbix Server...
-- Subject: A start job for unit zabbix-server.service has begun execution
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://www.debian.org/support
--
-- A start job for unit zabbix-server.service has begun execution.
--
-- The job identifier is 482125.
Apr 09 07:23:49 ZABBIXHOST zabbix_server[11674]: /usr/sbin/zabbix_server: error while loading shared libraries: libOpenIPMI.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Apr 09 07:23:49 ZABBIXHOST systemd[1]: zabbix-server.service: Control process exited, code=exited, status=127/n/a
-- Subject: Unit process exited
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://www.debian.org/support
--
-- An ExecStart= process belonging to unit zabbix-server.service has exited.
--
-- The process' exit code is 'exited' and its exit status is 127.
Apr 09 07:23:49 ZABBIXHOST systemd[1]: zabbix-server.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
-- Subject: Unit failed
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://www.debian.org/support
--
-- The unit zabbix-server.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'exit-code'.
Apr 09 07:23:49 ZABBIXHOST systemd[1]: Failed to start Zabbix Server.
-- Subject: A start job for unit zabbix-server.service has failed
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://www.debian.org/support
--
-- A start job for unit zabbix-server.service has finished with a failure.
--
-- The job identifier is 482125 and the job result is failed.
Apr 09 07:23:50 ZABBIXHOST sudo[11676]: zabbix : TTY=pts/0 ; PWD=/etc/zabbix ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/journalctl -xe
Apr 09 07:23:50 ZABBIXHOST sudo[11676]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)

I also tried:

zabbix@ZABBIXHOST:/etc/zabbix$ sudo journalctl -u zabbix-server
[sudo] Passwort für zabbix:
-- Logs begin at Wed 2020-04-08 21:58:55 CEST, end at Thu 2020-04-09 07:22:02 CEST. --
Apr 08 21:58:55 ZABBIXHOST systemd[1]: zabbix-server.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Apr 08 21:58:55ZABBIXHOSTsystemd[1]: Failed to start Zabbix Server.
Apr 08 21:59:06 ZABBIXHOST systemd[1]: zabbix-server.service: Service RestartSec=10s expired, scheduling restart.
Apr 08 21:59:06 ZABBIXHOST systemd[1]: zabbix-server.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 3219.
Apr 08 21:59:06 ZABBIXHOST systemd[1]: Stopped Zabbix Server.
Apr 08 21:59:06 ZABBIXHOST systemd[1]: Starting Zabbix Server...
Apr 08 21:59:06 ZABBIXHOST zabbix_server[6756]: /usr/sbin/zabbix_server: error while loading shared libraries: libOpenIPMI.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Apr 08 21:59:06 ZABBIXHOST systemd[1]: zabbix-server.service: Control process exited, code=exited, status=127/n/a

Now I might have to add that I'm not that skilled using Linux operating systems as our whole company solely uses Windows Servers. I can somewhat navigate a Linux Terminal, install features and so on but I'm far from being a pro.
Anyway, as far as I can tell, Zabbix seems to be missing some kind of library, but other than that, the logs leave completely clueless. Has anyone an idea what could be the cause of this? Also if you need additional information, just let me know.
Thanks in advance and have a good one!

[tim.mooney]

Did you install Zabbix from packages? If you're using Debian, those packages would end with ".deb".

In any case, the software was built to require OpenIPMI for IPMI support, but your Zabbix server doesn't have the necessary OpenIPMI package installed. That's why it's failing to start.

You may want to spend some time on https://packages.debian.org/ to figure out what the package name is that provides that library. It's probably something like "openipmi-libs" or "libopenipmi", but it may vary slightly depending on Debian release.

Once you know the package name that you need, just install the package and try again.

BTW, your systemd has tried (and failed) to restart zabbix-server for you more than 6000 times. Until you get the shared library problem fixed, you might just want to "systemctl stop zabbix-server.service", so systemd stops its pointless exercise.

[headcrash]

Hi Tim,

thanks for the reply, I'll dig into this after the Easter weekend. Oh and I also stopped that systemd task like you suggested!

Have a good one!