How do you run and update Zabbix?

[danboid]

My Zabbix server is still running Ubuntu 18.04 and Zabbix 4.0. I attempted in-place upgrades to Ubuntu 20.04 / 22.04 a few times but I had unresolvable issues (for me) with both the mariadb db and the web interface. In hindsight, it seems I may have a little less trouble upgrading if I had used mysql instead of mariadb, maybe? Not sure but Zabbix does seem to prefer mysql over mariadb.

So this time I need to install Zabbix in a more easily reproduceable and upgradable way and the Zabbx website leads me to believe that using Docker compose is probably the Zabbix installation and upgrade method that I should be looking to use for my Zabbix server. The problem is that I don't know enough about docker and zabbix to be able to use the current Zabbix docker docs to get a server running. I've created a separate topic for that:

https://www.zabbix.com/forum/zabbix-suggestions-and-feedback/473141-improving-the-zabbix-docker-compose-docs

I should note that I only need to monitor about 10 machines and so I intend to run the zabbix db server and the main zabbix server all within one LXD or proxmox container, most likely, if I can do that? I know Zabbix server runs fine within an regular LXD container as thats how I'm running it now.

Everybody else who's not using docker, how did you install Zabbix and how do you upgrade it to newer major releases? I'm most interested in hearing from people running Zabbix under Ubuntu who have successfully done major version upgrades and managed to keep Zabbix working.

If I can't get Zabbix working using docker then I may try to automate its installation with ansible. Surely someone has already done that?

[tim.mooney]

My Zabbix server is still running Ubuntu 18.04 and Zabbix 4.0. I attempted in-place upgrades to Ubuntu 20.04 / 22.04 a few times but I had unresolvable issues (for me) with both the mariadb db and the web interface. In hindsight, it seems I may have a little less trouble upgrading if I had used mysql instead of mariadb, maybe? Not sure but Zabbix does seem to prefer mysql over mariadb.

I don't think there's much difference in Zabbix support between MySQL and MariaDB (or Percona). MySQL and MariaDB have diverged a little so there are differences that only affect one or the other, but they seem to cause about the same amount of problems for upgrades no matter which one you use. Either way, when upgrading to a new series, it really helps to read all the known issues, upgrade notes, etc. and pay attention to anything that may have changed for the database.

It's certainly possible to do an in-place upgrade, although it helps to be comfortable troubleshooting both Linux and Zabbix upgrade issues.

If you've been unable to successfully complete an in-place upgrade, you may have an easier time creating a new, fresh install of the updated Zabbix version you want to run and then import your existing config (mainly your old database) into that install. By doing a fresh install, you can validate that you have the basics working before attempting the upgrade of your old database.

[danboid]

Thanks for your response Tim!

I was really hoping that one of the Zabbix staff or someone who has successfully installed Zabbix using docker would've answered some of my questions by now but it hasn't happened so I am just going to re-install Zabbix from scratch in much the same way as I did last time albeit using Ubuntu 22.04, Zabbix 6.0 and MySQL instead of mariadb.

Hopefully next time I have to do a major version upgrade of my Zabbix server the docker install process will be better documented.

[dimir]

Will try to bring some attention of the person that is working on our Docker containers.

Meanwhile, yes, as Tim said, from Zabbix perspective there is no difference between MaiaDB and MySQL (or Percona). I can mention one thing though, we guarantee our official packages will work with whatever the operating system provides by default. Docker is a bit different, we do not use our packages in our docker containers.

As to your case, if you only have 10 machines, yeah, if you can't fix the upgrade issues it shouldn't be too hard to install from scratch. Depends on the templates you use (your own or what Zabbix provides).