Implementation questions

[bluelinq]

Hello all, I found Zabbix a few days ago and it looks nice. However, before implementing it I wanted to check if it can do a few things that are essential to our enviroment. We want to monitor servers Win/Linux that are on remote private networks so we need an server based agent to send the information to the main Zabbix server. We cannot open incomming ports on the firewall for each server as with Hyperic for example. This can be an issue if the main Zabbix server needs to talk to the agents too.

The other issue is that we also need to monitor certain things like if a directory is full, if a program is running, usage of swap, if Backupexec failed, number of messages in queue for Exchange and if possile event log errors.

So the million $$ question, can Zabbix do it like that?

Regards,

-pa

[Alexei]

So the million $$ question, can Zabbix do it like that?

Short answer, it does all of these and even more! You may use active checks in order to make ZABBIX agents report back to ZABBIX server.

[bluelinq]

Thanks for your answer!, good to know. What ports are necessary to open on either side to make the remote agent send the information to the monitoring one?

Regards,

-pa

[Alexei]

Incoming 10051 on ZABBIX server side.

[bluelinq]

Alexei, what is the concept for active checks exactly? If the remote client connects to the Zabbix server, then the Zabbix server sends the command to be executed during that communication channel, the client process them, returns the value to the Zabbix server and then the client disconnects?

If no, how does it work? My scenarios are that the Zabbix server and the clients are on different private networks so the traffic must always be originated from the client side.

I have the client agent configured on a remote Windows server and I can telnet to port 10050 to the Zabbix server, but I am faling to get any data. Can you help me with lets say reporting the CPU Utilization?

Regards,

Paul

[bill.unger]

Alexei, what is the concept for active checks exactly?

Check out this small thread for a quick explain on Active vs. Passive:

http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6468&highlight=active+passive

I have the client agent configured on a remote Windows server and I can telnet to port 10050 to the Zabbix server, but I am faling to get any data.

Your Items are probably defined as passive checks, so they are expecting to communicate to the agent, instead of vice-versa...

Bill