Feature Request / Howto: Trigger on Last Seen Interval of Proxies

[teltaris]

I have several remote hosts all running their own proxies, so as to cut down on points of failure:

Monitored Node ( Agent + Proxy) >------------->-------------\
                                                             \\
Monitored Node ( Agent + Proxy) >------------>-----------> Zabbix Server
                                                             //
Monitored Node ( Agent + Proxy) >----------->---------------/

Each host can reach out to the Zabbix server directly, and each host's proxy does exactly that.


By not having the nodes all report to one dedicated proxy host on their side, I make sure that I can still get monitoring metrics pushed up from any host still able to send data to the Zabbix server.

This would not be the case if (as suggested) I had all the remote hosts report to a single proxy host remotely and that proxy host crashed/stop responding. If that happened, then I'd get no metrics from any of the remote nodes, even though they were still running.

My main problem is this: since all these hosts are communicatiing to Zabbix via proxies, the Zabbix server does not have a clear idea of whether they are reachable or not.

I need to know when the Zabbix server has not heard from these hosts in a while.

The only thing that I have to work with here is the "Last Seen" value for proxies in the Hosts page.

I wish I could trigger on those.

If there were a way to alert/trigger on some "proxy.last_seen > N seconds" type of event, that would be most helpful.

I actually need this functionality ASAP, so if there is a workaround or something that I can do to get that functionality right now, that would be excellent.

Thanks in advance.

[emerzon]

I am also in need of this exactly feature as well.

[bbrendon]

You don't want the agent connecting directly to the server because you don't want to lose data (metrics) ?

Why not patch the agent to cache data? I know someone posted the patch for this once before.

[Alexei]

If there were a way to alert/trigger on some "proxy.last_seen > N seconds" type of event, that would be most helpful.

It is already supported. You should create an item having type Zabbix Internal and key equal to zabbix[proxy,"Proxy name",lastaccess], set units to "unixtime". The item is processed internally by Zabbix Server and will return the proxy's last seen timestamp. Replace "Proxy name" with the name of your proxy.

Then you would just create a trigger:

{host:zabbix[proxy,"Proxy name",lastaccess].fuzzytime(300)}=0 to check is the proxy hasn't sent any data within last 5 minutes.

Note that Zabbix Proxy sends hearbeat message every 60 seconds by default regardless of any data on Proxy side. The hearbeat frequency can be decreased in zabbix_proxy.conf.

I hope this helps.

[hbelanger]

Thanks I've been looking for this info.

It's also explained vary well.

[NOB]

You don't want the agent connecting directly to the server because you don't want to lose data (metrics) ?

Why not patch the agent to cache data? I know someone posted the patch for this once before.

If you use a proxy, this must be 1.6.x, right ?

The agent already cashes data, although in RAM.
And it works fine. We tested it.

bbrendon is right, there was a patch for caching the data in a file
rather in RAM if you desparately need this feature now.

Regards,

Norbert.