Call for discussion on ZABBIX 1.8

[lamont]

Auto-Vivify

When using zabbix_sender have the trapper thread auto-create items for hosts if the items don't exist.

That way I can run discovery on the monitored host to determine what kind of software is running on it, and then send the appropriate items to the zabbix server without having to configure the zabbix server.

With 2,000 servers and probably 200-400 different small clusters of servers (SOA environment), the server running the software basically knows much better what its software is an how it should be managed than any central solution to managing this configuration. If we had a unified, consistent method of pushing software and a decent centralized configuration behind that, it might be possible to slave the zabbix configuration off the SCM database in some way, but we don't have that and I don't control that, so the decentralized state of the actually deployed applications is the best representation of the state which needs to be monitored. Right now I have tools which can be used to autodiscover applications running on servers and to setup cronjobs that spit information out to zabbix servers through zabbix_sender. But once that occurs automatically, it requires unscalable human effort to attempt to configure the zabbix server correctly (and templates don't really help when you're talking about an environment with hundreds of templates -- templates just turn O(n) in servers to O(n) in server groups).

And yes, if you give me an API, I can write something to do autovivification myself if you find it horrendously distasteful -- so chalk up yet another request for the API.

[exkg]

Hi

Our two cents:

- a item in map (hosts) can have same colors of triggers severity, i mean: we can have only one icon but this icon change colour according trigger severity that is ON in this host.

- the maintenance module (scheduled or not) for groups and hosts;

- an API to comunicate with ZABBIX server and agent;

- something like 'ghost clients' (like Hobbit) where we can see what hosts have agents sending data to server but they are not created in web interface;




[]s,
Luciano

[krimson]

• SNMP wizard
• API
• Implement traffic map graphing (like weathermap)
• Overall extended graph configuration (fonts)
• More frequent releases

[bbrendon]

My wishes: (please keep in everything I do is active agent based)

1. Auto-discovery. Partitions for monitoring is #1 for me. There is plenty more that can be "auto discovered". Use your imagination . Applications, services, hardware, etc ....

2. Better UNIX items. The items that currently exist are just OK. There are too many scripts needed to monitor a UNIX host properly. An agent should do iowait, CPU usage, swap space used, and other things that are important. The agent currently does none of these.

3. Agent extension scripts distribution.
Having to manage an agent AND manage a way to deliver all the scripts for the agent to the server is troublesome. I would like there to be a way for the agent to grab all of the scripts associated to it and store them locally.

4. Active agent commands
Currently you can't have an active agent use command actions. This is a bummer.

5. Cacti - like
The way cacti walks an SNMP agent and indexes/presents interfaces and things to configure is awesome. The plugin model is cool too. Maybe something like this can be in zabbix.

[bcheese]

More Secure Proxy Capability.

How about a "Secure" proxy server?

By this I mean that the connection to transfer the items from zabbix_proxy to zabbix_server is created from the server and not the agent. This could still use the active protocol but the connection must be made from the server to the proxy/agent.

Why do I need this? Well, because I am monitoring servers out on an unclassified network from a zabbix server installed on a classified network the TCP connections can only be made from the classified network to the unclassified network and not the other way around.

[DGK]

I would like to see

- easy installer for zabbix

[niranjan]

report generation in 1.8

alexei

first and formost requirement in 1.8 is report generation....daily weekly monthly yearly, cumulative as well as each system reporting.

also when is the date for release of 1.8

niranjan

[alixen]

Hi,

As far I'm concern Zabbix is really easy to set up (don t need much effort)

I'm totaly agree with niranja


regards,

[richlv]

alexei

also when is the date for release of 1.8

niranjan

from http://www.zabbix.com/next.php :
"ZABBIX v1.8 will be released on 5 May 2009."

[lwickline]

SNMP Wizzard!
I would also like to be able to define web tests as a unique host and not have to bind to an existing host.
It would also be nice to be able to template web tests.

[fraenki]

Hi,

Zabbix Agents should be backward compatible for at least one major release, I would like to use a Zabbix Agent 1.8 with a Zabbix Server 1.6.

Currently I'd like to use Zabbix Agent 1.6 with Zabbix Server 1.4, because we need some more time for migration and testing, but that's not possible. Maybe you could prevent this problem in Release 1.8 and later.


Kind regards
- Frank

[Tenzer]

Zabbix Agents should be backward compatible for at least one major release, I would like to use a Zabbix Agent 1.8 with a Zabbix Server 1.6.

Ehm, isn't that part of the point in having major releases? It allows you to improve the protocol and certain core aspects of the code which may break compatibility.

Also, how do you currently know that you would like to use 1.8 clients with a 1.6 server? Nothing but the release date has been put out about the 1.8 version yet

[Alexei]

Zabbix Agents should be backward compatible for at least one major release, I would like to use a Zabbix Agent 1.8 with a Zabbix Server 1.6.

ZABBIX agents are backward compatible. Agents from 1.1.x, 1.4.x are supposed to work absolutely fine with 1.6! If not, report a problem. Let's not discuss it here.

[fraenki]

Hi,

I just want to answer the questions/comments, not starting an endless discussion here :-) Alexei, please move this to a new thread if you think there's more to talk about.

Ehm, isn't that part of the point in having major releases?

That's right, but from my point of view backward compatibility is necessary to allow a practical upgrade path. I think it's somewhat difficult to update everything (all clients and all servers) at once. By having backward compatibility, the choice *how* and *when* you upgrade a component would be up to the system administrator again.

Also, how do you currently know that you would like to use 1.8 clients with a 1.6 server?

I'm seeing this from the current situation with 1.4 vs. 1.6 and I'm not talking about staying on an old version forever. It's just that you'll have different versions during the upgrade process in a large environment with Linux, BSD and Windows.

ZABBIX agents are backward compatible. Agents from 1.1.x, 1.4.x are supposed to work absolutely fine with 1.6!

That's right, agents will work with newer server versions, but not reverse. A new agent (1.6) will not work with an old Server (1.4). I'm not blaming anyone for this, I just wanted to point out, that it would help system administrators, if this kind of backward compatibility would be added in future versions.


Kind regards
- Frank

[bchitambira]

Major changes

The Dashboard
- Zabbix should have a very simple dashboard which lists stats like
- Overal health of network
- Overal health of services (Charts will do the trick here)
- Hypermarked links to problem hosts/services
- Should have ability to manage hosts/services into groups so that
subdashboards for hostgroups an be configured or rather, Zabbix should
have the ability to customise your own kind os dashboard.
Remote Command
- Should be able to specify command to run on a mornitored device, from
the web front-end. (ability to shut down/wake-up a host)
- Should intergrate shell applet of some kind
MIB browser and compiler
Application discovery
- Not interface and port discovery only
Syslog
- Should be able to read syslog and other logs and collect events from
there
Specific Application Management
- If zabbix can encoporate another app mgmt, like Email, etc