trigger is good or bad

[swardell]

I use a template (based on std linux template) for most of my linux servers. AS different servers run different things I then tailor it per server (making a new template if its going to be 1 of n)

It would be helpful if a trigger in a template could have its role reversed with a click. For example...

On server A Apache is supposed to run, so the trigger (standard) works fine
On server B Apache is NOT supposed to run, so either I disable the trigger or I reverse it so its OK if Apache is not running and TRIGGERED if it is.

This would be easier if it was a simple click. I would suggest the Enabled/Disabled option is given a 3rd option 'Reversed'

[richlv]

there is no easy way to create "reversed" option, because trigger expressions can be very different.

how would you reverse something like load > 5 & service #1 ? and that's even far from really complicated triggers

[swardell]

for complex compound triggers it would be difficult but typically standard templates have simple triggers for on/off or >/< for these it would be quite simple. For complex triggers its less likely you would want a reversal of it anyway.

It occurs that a trigger fires or doesn't, its a binary event (right?) so a reversal would be possible for any trigger. If enabled the trigger fires when the result of its evaluation is true, if its reversed it fires if its false - or am I missing something or not describing it correctly?

[James Wells]

Greetings,

It would be helpful if a trigger in a template could have its role reversed with a click. For example...

While I understand what you are asking for, as Rich said it would actually be a great deal of work, but what he didn't state is that there would be very little payoff for it, nor did he mention that there is a very simple solution to it.

At it's core, the Zabbix item system is all about templates. In older versions of Zabbix, the templates were meant to inherit from a single parent only (depth first inheritance), however, in the newer versions of Zabbix, templates are capable of inheriting from multiple parents (breadth first inheritance). This provides a very simple solution to your issue, a core system template with an Apache running template or a core system template with an Apache not running template.

In the long run, this would actually reduce your maintenance a bit over what you were proposing as this allows you to focus your running Apache checks in a single template and your non-running Apache checks in another.