Problem changing from Passive to Active agent

[Alan Lim]

Zabbix server is running on version 3.2 and currently is a passive mode for all agent.
Tried to change to an active agent but to no avail. The following were the step that I have made.
1. In a zabbix_agentid.conf;
#Server =
ServerActive = 10.10.10.1
Hostname = Testing.local
StartAgents = 0
of course restart the zabbix service

2. In the Zabbix server, full cloned of default "template App Zabbix Agent " & label it "Template App Zabbix Agent (active)" and changed the 3 default items to Zabbix agent (Active).
- Agent ping
- Host name of zabbix_agentd running
- Version of zabbix_agent(d) running

3. Changed the template for Testing.local host to "Template App Zabbix Agent (active)".

Unfortunately, the ZBX icon still in Red on the Testing.local host.

Question;
- Should the ZBX in Red or Green for Active Agent?
- What is the Agent interfaces IP under Hosts setting?
- Do I miss any configuration?
I would appreciate someone could guide me about the Active Agent configuration. Thank you

[HarryKalahan]

Hi Alan,

Revise the Zabbix Documentation about active monitoring, but I think you're making a bad configuration.

The most of items you'll monitor from Agent are passive (cpu, memory, those that you mention like agent.ping, etc). It's normal you don't receive values as active items.

An example of active items through the agent are for example log monitoring. In this kind of monitorization the log are readed by the agent and send information that mathes the item configuration to the Zabbix Server, like a Zabbix Trapper item.

In the agent configuration file you have to parameters. Server and ServerActive. The first is for passive agent monitoring and the second for active.

The Zabbix icon in the Zabbix front gets green when the you start to receive correct values from the agent you are monitoring.

The agent interface Ip is the IP of the host where Zabbix Agent is installed, which you need to get values.

I hope this helps. Best regards!

[Alan Lim]

Hi HarryKalahan,

Thank you for your explanation.

I have a few questions,
It is impossible to have an Active Agent to monitor CPU, memory, and network?
Will passive agent work well for 300 to 350 devices? Someone ever said it's best to switch to active agent.

For your info, the ZBX icon was Green originally unit change to Active mode and became Red. There not much information how to configure Active Agent.

Thank you

[HarryKalahan]

Hi Alan,

I think it's possible to monitor CPU, memory and so on through active agent, but you should think about it, because you had to dump all the information you want to monitor to a text file that you will have to process to send the values to the Zabbix Server, so problably you have to make some script.

About the ZBX icon, my experience says that gets green when the first item of a host starts to get values. Idem for SNMP and JMX. All of them, normaly are passive items.

Good luck!

[bbrendon]

Whoa WHoa whoa there guys!!! Slow down!

I'm not going to go into great detail because then I would have to do some research on what the limitation of active/passive (I don't recall from memory).

You can monitor most everything using active. The main difference between the two is that items set to active type are requested from the server when the agent starts up and then re-queried every so often. The agent then sends the data to the server. For Passive items, the server contacts the agent for the data.

You can monitor just about everything using passive or active.

The default is passive, but I would guess that more mature installations only use active. I personally _never_ use passive except for the 0.01% of the time when I can't use active.

I would also tell you there is a bit of a learning curve for active as not everything is clear cut like the default of passive.

So that's a long answer to: YES -- you can monitor CPU, disk, whatever using active. You don't need to dump anything to a text file. I'm not sure where you got that idea.

[bbrendon]

- Should the ZBX in Red or Green for Active Agent?

I just re-read the thread and saw this.

EXCELLENT QUESTION!

This has been a point of confusion forever. I really have no idea how the red/green thing works under the hood (I have an hunch but I'm not sure) I wish I did but I discovered it makes no difference what the red/green says. I have gone so far in my installation to remove those columns from the php code because people would ask about them and it never mattered if it was red or green. It's mostly there to confuse you. (At least I believe it so)

[HarryKalahan]

Hello,

I've given that idea, because I thoght that was a way to do it, but I don't know because I always use passive monitorization (except for log monitoring where active is required), although it's good to know that active is the better, so it would be good you show some example how to configure a cpu monitorization using an active item.

Thank you very much for your comments.

Best regards!

[bbrendon]

There are 1000's of examples online. This isn't a new feature.