Writing more zabbix plugins effort.

[muratkoc]

Hi,

When I looked at the forum and wiki it seems that not much plugin available for zabbix but for making zabbix enterprise grade we need much more plugins.

For example there is no plugin for groupwise, BES, amanda, bacula, TSM, hadoop, SAP, edirectory, ifolder, iprint ... (Basically Novell OES2 Services) , RAID controllers status ... etc, you name it.

Yes, there are ways to monitor them but not everybody has to know how to write scripts, so that we have to give at least basic forms of plugins to the users.

So, I decided to write those missing plugins

I am gonna write them in bash to give idea how to monitor these items for whom wants to extend the plugins or rewrite in another language, but when bash capabilities blocked me I'll write some of them in python.

All the plugins I'll wrote also have related graphs, triggers, items as export.

As you can guess I am gonna write them in my spare time it'll take some time so any help will be appreciated

I want to create a new title as "Plugins" in zabbix wiki to make all the plugins in one place, is it o.k?

And a little poll, which plugin is the most needed one?

Is there anybody who can help me to write plugins or give ideas, comments etc?

Thanks,

[muratkoc]

It's nice to see no comments

Anyway this is the first plugin, for openvpn.

http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22217

[untergeek]

Nothing personal, but we tend to write our own here, and share what we've created after the fact. Once we've posted them, it is essentially providing the means for open discussion and revision.

If you want help, make the first move by writing your best scripts and post them here. You will likely receive feedback and help after that. You're not likely to see much coming in here and just asking for help writing a laundry-list of plugins.

You've done the right thing by adding your own openvpn monitoring script. Congrats!

[fmrapid]

Plugins

muratkoc,

I think the initiative is very good. The wiki should be the focal point for putting up plugins. Look at the structure, there is one place where new devices/services are put up. This is by no means an exhaustive list, as lots of users put their new supported devices in the forum, but forget to link it in the wiki.

Correct method:

1 - Search forums and wiki to see if requested device is supported
2 - Create new supported device
3 - Post devices/services information to the WIKI
(installation, what it does, references to cvs/github/svn, references to forum posts where the new device/service is discussed.
4 - Create a new discussion on the forum concerning the new device/service. So that users can post questions, enhancements, etc.

I have quite a few devices myself that I would like to post up, and that is the above recommended method.

One thing I would point out, is that discovery frameworks that create all items, calculated items, graphs, templates automatically based on the discovery output are superior and really the way to go. Automated deployments are truly where its at.

Cheers

fmrapid

[muratkoc]

If you want help, make the first move by writing your best scripts and post them here. You will likely receive feedback and help after that. You're not likely to see much coming in here and just asking for help writing a laundry-list of plugins.

untergeek first of all thanks for the comment but I think you got me wrong. I don't want help! I want to help. There is little difference between them Maybe my last sentence got you that the idea "I want help" but that is wrong, I just meant that if there is any other volunteer to write the plugins.

I am gonna write a laundry-list of plugins (at least basic forms of them) and I'll do it with or without help, in fact with my ~20 years of open source systems experience I don't think that I'll need help to write them

I'll write them not because of I need them, because of zabbix should have them like zenoss zenpacks, nagios plugins etc ...

I'll provide basic (or advanced) forms of plugins and people should discuss and improve them but when a new zabbix user asks for something's plugin we should point them to the something we have.

There are lots of questions in the forum like "how can I monitor xxx, is there any progress on them etc" without answer.

That's why I asked "which plugin is the most needed one?" because I'll write it

Thanks again for the comment.

[muratkoc]

muratkoc,

I think the initiative is very good. The wiki should be the focal point for putting up plugins. Look at the structure, there is one place where new devices/services are put up. This is by no means an exhaustive list, as lots of users put their new supported devices in the forum, but forget to link it in the wiki.

Thanks fmrapid for the comment. That's why I want to create a new title named Plugins and sub categories in it and sync with the forum links also.

Correct method:

1 - Search forums and wiki to see if requested device is supported
2 - Create new supported device
3 - Post devices/services information to the WIKI
(installation, what it does, references to cvs/github/svn, references to forum posts where the new device/service is discussed.
4 - Create a new discussion on the forum concerning the new device/service. So that users can post questions, enhancements, etc.

1-) If you look at the examples at my first post you'll see that none of them has available plugin, I have already done that
2-) and 3-) Before going to wiki I think it should be on the forum, wiki entry should be added later after the discussions. But yes I agree with you about the methodology.

I have quite a few devices myself that I would like to post up, and that is the above recommended method.

One thing I would point out, is that discovery frameworks that create all items, calculated items, graphs, templates automatically based on the discovery output are superior and really the way to go. Automated deployments are truly where its at.

Cheers

fmrapid

Yes that will be way to go but without internal checks there will be always need to use necessary plugins.

Thanks for comment again.

[untergeek]

Thanks for the clarification. I guess I was confused because there are few people here who are as altruistic as you appear to be. Most come here practically asking the other denizens of the forum to write scripts for them. It's both surprising and refreshing to find someone who is willing to do this for altruistic reasons. Thank you.

The other thing you may run into is those who, like me, have barely enough time to write the "modules" or "plugins" that we need for our own unique circumstances. We are doing very custom work where I am and some can be shared back, but other bits of code are either sensitive or to specialized to our situation. Check my blog for an example of how I used a php script to create direct links to graphs and latest data as an inline URL in notifications (as an example of something I shared which others are finding useful).

[muratkoc]

Thanks for the clarification. I guess I was confused because there are few people here who are as altruistic as you appear to be. Most come here practically asking the other denizens of the forum to write scripts for them. It's both surprising and refreshing to find someone who is willing to do this for altruistic reasons. Thank you.

You are very welcome Since I am gonna write in my spare times it is not a problem at all in fact

The other thing you may run into is those who, like me, have barely enough time to write the "modules" or "plugins" that we need for our own unique circumstances. We are doing very custom work where I am and some can be shared back, but other bits of code are either sensitive or to specialized to our situation. Check my blog for an example of how I used a php script to create direct links to graphs and latest data as an inline URL in notifications (as an example of something I shared which others are finding useful).

I know that situation, because of some NDAs I can't publish lots of my modifications neither

Thanks again,

BTW here is the hylafax plugin

http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22249

[richlv]

1. it's probably useful to define "plugin" - in this case you are referring to ways to collect data;
2. it's probably also useful to figure out that is planned to be delivered - script only, or also accompanying templates ?
3. as for where to put this all... it seems to me that zabbix community site, https://zabbix.org , might be a good choice. there's wiki, and also initial svn instance http://zabbix.org/svn/zabbixorg/

i guess scripts and maybe also templates would better fit in the svn.

organization-wise there's still an issue with environment - single authentication source has not been set up etc, but we have to progress somehow anyway, right ?