Proxy handover

[crillus]

Hello guys,

I would like to know something, I'm currently working on doing some HA on my zabbix proxies and here is the problem I'm dealing with.

- I use Zabbix 3.0
- I have several proxies
- I have an agent, linked to one of the proxies

If tomorrow I loose my proxy, is there a mechanism which permit my agent to make a handover to another proxy ?

Thank you by advance for your answer

[aib]

You can configure as many Servers/proxies in Zabbix Agent configuration file as you need.
It allows all listed servers/proxies to send requests and receive answers from Agent.

[kloczek]

If tomorrow I loose my proxy, is there a mechanism which permit my agent to make a handover to another proxy ?

Typical/simplest HA procedure uses moving service address to new system. You can use any active/standby cluster infrastructure which uses things like quorum to organize such migration automatically.
Even if on new system proxy DB backend will be without data first connection to zabbix server as the same proxy will cause receive cfg data which can be spread to all agents behind proxy.

Zabbix proxy is just standard service which can have HA organized almost the same way as for example HTTP server.

All hosts registered in zabbix monitored over proxy X must be monitored over still the same proxy X.

[crillus]

Thank you for your answers !

You can configure as many Servers/proxies in Zabbix Agent configuration file as you need.
It allows all listed servers/proxies to send requests and receive answers from Agent.

Yes, but actually the proxy list is dynamic (I use an automated proxy creation) .

I through of round robin DNS too but it looks too simple to be good enough.

Typical/simplest HA procedure uses moving service address to new system. You can use any active/standby cluster infrastructure which uses things like quorum to organize such migration automatically.
Even if on new system proxy DB backend will be without data first connection to zabbix server as the same proxy will cause receive cfg data which can be spread to all agents behind proxy.

Zabbix proxy is just standard service which can have HA organized almost the same way as for example HTTP server.

All hosts registered in zabbix monitored over proxy X must be monitored over still the same proxy X.

It looks really seductive.

We gain load balancing and HA, and it's good.

So we can declare the virtual IP as proxy in Zabbix and it could be good, is it right ? I'll try it.

Thank you Kloczek

[kloczek]

I never played with a cluster on linux using tools such as pacemaker or others, but when you add a monitored machine in Zabbix GUI you have to define a hostname for the proxy you use, how it works in the clustered case ? you have to declare the virtual IP of the cluaster as proxy is it that ?

What is the problem with this hostname?

another thing is that to provide communication with some system you don't need to use clustering. You can use NATing as well. If you have experience with AWS just have look hos ELB (Elastic Load Balancer) with single instance behind ELB is working.
You can translate bidirectionally address A to your X.
If you will be using active proxy proxy name will be embedded in zabbix proxy set up.

What exactly you should choose may depends on two factors:
- you knowledge and exp
- available resources

and use as always KISS principle.

[crillus]

Sorry I edited my last message, it was really badly written. The hostname is not really a problem.

The KISS principle is my credo, that is why my questions seem to be simple and stupid. And so making the good choice is not always the simpliest solution as it can make exploitation harder.

For the moment I'll make some tests with a proxy cluster.

Thank you again.