zabbix templates - help me understand

[knightwolf8877]

I understand that the current template system for managing different computer types is confusing and seems disorganized. Let me help clarify the scenario and your requirements.

Scenario: You have 100 computers divided between two types:

1. Workstations (Windows)
2. Servers (Windows)

You want to create separate templates for these types because they have different monitoring requirements:

Workstations:

• No need to monitor WiFi or network status
• No need to monitor automatic services, even if they occasionally have issues
• Paging to disk is not a concern

Servers:

• Monitoring paging is essential
• Network speed and connectivity must be tracked
• Other critical aspects should be monitored

To achieve this, you need to create separate templates for workstations and servers, including their linked templates. Alternatively, you can enable or disable the services, triggers, and items individually, but this is time-consuming and not ideal for effective template management.

[knightwolf8877]

also what about when I screw up a template - I want to import it again but with a new name? do I edit the code to change it manually?

-can you reset a default template?
-to I have to get the full download from zabbix/github?
-I can't seem to find the network discovery one with the network triggers in it to clone and relink?
-do I have to upload each individual new one I want?

[cyber]

I would start with cloning a default one and do all the mods there... Those out-of-the-box ones are good ones to start with, Kind of good for most, but not for everyone... but you really should modify them according to your needs...

Your pics... first .. .The green link there ... it is link to a "master item", indicating, that network discovery is a "dependent" on the result of one wmi.get item,
second one... that trigger list in template only shows hardcoded triggers, others are under trigger prototypes probably.. .under those discovery rules... Those are created on the run, based on discovery results. Tweaking discovery filters can give you different set of triggers....

[knightwolf8877]

so if I am understanding this right, you are saying that I should start from scratch - the template system is that bad.

my understanding of the template system - it was designed as it was really hard the time consuming for each individual person making the exact same template (why have everyone recreate the same stuff).

but now you are saying it's so hard that ti's best to just make one yourself.


so If I don't have time to write an entire one in say windows: is there easy way to do this(or a hack way)?

or do I swallow the struggle and just do it manually for all the different computers!!

thank you so much for your help in this as I am struggling to find the easiest way to manage this.

[cyber]

OOB templates are not usable by everyone.. They just cannot satisfy everyones needs. But if you understand how they work, they are usually quite easily tweakable. Like excluding services in windows, adding custom thresholds for FS-es by adding some context macros, etc. I would take a little bit of time and poke around in there and tweak it to my liking as much as possible. It will take less time, than doing everything from scratch. I am pretty sure, if you take that time, you will not touch that config very often after that.
As I suggested cloning before, it would keep the original unchanged, you can always import newer version, if there are changes and then copy new features over to your "clone"...

[tim.mooney]

so if I am understanding this right, you are saying that I should start from scratch - the template system is that bad.

I don't know what Zabbix templates did to hurt you, but you seem to have a real issue with them. You keep saying the "template system", but what I think you're actually talking about are the pre-defined templates.

Every environment is different and there is no "one size fits all" solution. Zabbix comes with a selection of "Official" pre-defined templates for a few very common monitoring needs, and what's included in these templates has evolved over time, especially since the 5.0 version. In addition, you can find alternate unofficial sets of customer-contributed templates. Some user-contributed templates are for less-common monitoring needs that aren't covered by any official template. Other unofficial templates may offer an alternate approach to monitoring vs. the official templates.

The pre-defined "Official" templates tend to be very configurable and to be good examples of how to create configurable templates. They're a great starting point for customizing things to be appropriate for your specific environment's monitoring needs.

Having to do some customization to make something fit for your environment is not, in my opinion, any reason to jump to the conclusion that something is bad or poorly designed. On the contrary, the design is flexible enough to accommodate a wide range of customization needs. In my opinion, that's a benefit.

In this specific case, it also seems like you're not going to have do customization by adding things that are missing. Instead, you'll probably be able to customize by removing things that you don't need. That's usually much easier than adding, but again it will depend upon environment.