Zabbix Windows NIC problem

[alex400]

I had a problem that I could not monitor my NICs in my Windows 2003 server.
But thanks to my big friend google and this forum I made a mini HOWTO for monitoring your nics in your Windows 2003 server.

If you have questions, you can contact me by e-mail: alexander(AT)bloemendaalconsultancy.nl

[alex400]

I have found the solution for monitoring the interfaces.
Here are the steps:

In this case I want to monitor the NetXreme NIC:

1. Look up in hardware the name of the nics:
Please note: these are not the actual names you have to use, you just need them as reference.



Just write down the Nic name.

2. Now you have to lookup the name Windows uses for this nic.

Just open a command prompt and type: typeperf -qx | find "NetXtreme"

Note: you can also use other strings to lookup your Nic.

3. It will display all the items you can monitor for the Nic.



4. You can test the items by opening a prompt:

zabbix_agentd.exe -t perf_counter["\Netwerkinterface(Embedded Broadcom NetXtreme 5721 PCI-E Gigabit NIC)\Ontvangen bytes per seconde"]

Please note: You have to use the string you looked up earlier. So if you are using French OS, the string is French, if the OS is Dutch (like this example)
the string is in Dutch and so on...

If you have the right syntax it will show the output:
(in this case received bytes per second)



>> continue to next post

[alex400]

>> follow up

5. Assuming that you already installed the agent, open the zabbix_agentd.conf

Add the line:



Note: look very good at the syntax!

6. Save zabbix_agentd.conf, and restart your agent.
Look at the log file if everything is running okay. (if you make an mistype, the agent will not run)

7. Make an Item in zabbix:



The key string is: (in this case)

perf_counter[\Netwerkinterface(Embedded Broadcom NetXtreme 5721 PCI-E Gigabit NIC)\Ontvangen bytes per seconde]

Also note here that you have to use the exact string you looked up before.
And don't use " for this string.

Note: Note all the values. The value of the string is in bytes. So use a custom multiplier to convert from bytes to Kbps or Mbps. (I know I use the wrong multiplier)

Activate this item, and there you go!

You can also use this mini howto to monitor other items for this nic,
or for another nic. If I made any mistake, please reply to this thread.

[xarous]

When creating the Item within Zabbix, you don;t need to use the full perfcounter field as the key, you can use the first parameter as well.

in your example you could use

NetIn

rather than

perf_counter[\Netwerkinterface(Embedded Broadcom NetXtreme 5721 PCI-E Gigabit NIC)\Ontvangen bytes per seconde]

Doing this also means that the same Item can be used for machines with different network cards.

Hope this helps,
Jeff

[erv]

xarous is right on this one. If you have defined the user parameter in agent's conf, you just need your key (NetIn in the example) to be specified in Zabbix.
Or, if you put the full perfcounter field in the Zabbix item definition, there is no need to put anything in agentd.conf.
Both those approaches work, I have no idea which one is better though