Monitoring VMWare ESX

[NOB]

Hi

is there a way to monitor the VMWare ESX Layer below the guest OSes
with ZABBIX or an integration of some on-board mechanisms ?

Thanks in advance.

Regards

Norbert.

[alixen]

Hi,

I have not tested it myself but it seems that there is an SNMP agent for VMWARE ESX:

http://www.vmware.com/support/esx21/doc/esx21admin_snmpagents.html

Regards

[qix]

I still need to look into this as well.
I was figuring to deploy an agent to the ESX OS (It's basically Linux anyway). But i'm not sure if this is allowed/supported by VMWare.

Because of the weird way ESX mounts it's VMWARE volumes, you'd probably need some scripts to report disk usage etc.

Let us know how you are doing regarding this. When I get around to it, I'll definitely post my results as well.

[xs-]

If you mean the ESX instance itself (the host OS), we just deploy a zabbix agent on it.
ESX is basically RHEL so hey, why not. We even have Dell OpenManage running on it to monitor the dell hardware via the OS.

You can basically use a linux template minus the disk and network interfaces since they are named differently or not used.

[NOB]

Hi

thank you all for the hints and comments.

Seems not to be so bad as I thought.
Although I doubt, that installing (any) agent on the system
is supported by VMWare.

Any experience with version 3.x, yet ?

Regards

Norbert.

[xs-]

yeah, just deploy the rhel rpm package on it
it works like a charm

[abhi238]

Hi,

I am monitoring few ESX hosts using Zabbix Agents. To install agents on the ESX hosts, you need to allow port 10050 on firewall settings.

I am also monitoring count of Guest OS on the ESX.

[RohrbaGe]

Hi,

as we have Dell PowerEdge servers for Vmware, I have installed
the Dell Open Manager stuff on those machines and on top the
zabbix agent,

With the Template of the Dell-Poweredge in zabbix I'm able to monitor
the Vmware Hardware quite well.

Gerald

[caarts]

Since I'm about to test this on our own vmware server I was wondering if anyone else can share their experience with using a RHEL rpm.

[swaterhouse]

Everything is on the ESX service console that you need to compile the ZABBIX agent, or you can use a RHEL 3 or 4 version of the compiled agent. Agents compiled for RHEL 5 will not run on the ESX service console.

[xs-]

The VMWare service console for ESX 3.0-3.5 is based on RHEL3 (afaik).

- Install a RHEL3-4 32bit RPM package.
- Open firewall ports for zabbix
esxcfg-firewall -openPort 10050,tcp,in,zabbixClient
esxcfg-firewall -openPort 10051,tcp,out,zabbixServer
esxcfg-firewall -enableService snmpd (convenient for hardware monitoring agents if you have any)
- Configure the zabbix_agentd.conf file
- go go gadget /etc/init.d/zabbix_agentd start

[krimson]

For monitoring ESX specifics, ESX's SNMP is pretty limited unfortunately. You may however find some interesting stuff to add in /proc/vmware

[Tristan]

In my environment i monitor a lot of esx hosts and esx guests. I use the vmware perl scripts witch i modified a little, and user the zabbix sender(perl version) to send information to my zabbix server.
These scripts run on my zabbix server
It works like a charm!

i monitor the following item form my datastores:
Associated Hosts
Available space
Datastore Location
Datastore name
Filesystem
Maximum capacity


from my esx host:
Boot time
Cpu model
Cpu speed
Cpu usage
Filesystem
Hostname
Network adapters
Maintenance mode
Memory Usage
VMotion
Physical memory
Software on host
Port number
Reboot required

and a lot of esx guest items.

I someone need more info i can provide this.

[eger]

In my environment i monitor a lot of esx hosts and esx guests. I use the vmware perl scripts witch i modified a little, and user the zabbix sender(perl version) to send information to my zabbix server.
These scripts run on my zabbix server
It works like a charm!

i monitor the following item form my datastores:
Associated Hosts
Available space
Datastore Location
Datastore name
Filesystem
Maximum capacity


from my esx host:
Boot time
Cpu model
Cpu speed
Cpu usage
Filesystem
Hostname
Network adapters
Maintenance mode
Memory Usage
VMotion
Physical memory
Software on host
Port number
Reboot required

and a lot of esx guest items.

I someone need more info i can provide this.

Hi, do you mean you are using the remote CLI and some scripts running on the Zabbix host to monitor remote ESX?

I would love to get more information and some examples if it is possible to share.

This would be especially more useful for those using ESXi where you cannot install applications like the agent on the console (as there is no console). SNMP or the vSphere remote CLI is the only way to go.

[swaterhouse]

Tristan,

Can you post your templates and the scripts you use?