ZABBIX documentation

[Tenzer]

Why don't you comment php code so that I can generate documentation with phpdocumentor?

Without knowing very much about phpdocumentor, I don't think that you can use it, since Zabbix does not only consist of PHP code, but also have both client and server software written in C.

Another thing is that Zabbix isn't directly targeted for using as a framework like other PHP systems, and as such aren't there any need for documenting the code to the same extend as other projects.

[fatiha]

Maybe you don't understand my recommandation, documentating php code only means adding few lines of comments before every class or method.

See the example below :

  <?php
   /**
    * Documents the class following
    * @package SomePackage
    */
      class SomeClass {
      }
   ?>

I have already installed phpdocumentor, it works.

more informations

Thanks
Fatiha

[nelsonab]

I would *LOVE* to see better documentation of the PHP code. However I don't feel something like PHPDocumentor would be useful for the Zabbix manual. It is not useful for a user to know how the Graph class is used and so forth. They want to know how to use the Chart page.

However for developers, I think this would be great! Just not for users.

[fatiha]

To nelsonab,

I do agree with you as a developer In the frontend, I added the possibility to backup/restore data.

But when I started reading php code I was disappointed I need to evoluate the interface and the documentation is very necessary.
-------------
To Tenzer,

I simply need to modify the php interface and I am not talking about C code.

Fatiha

[cedric]

Looking at the C code, it lack of docs, it is sure.

Doxygen is one of the alternatives I would suggest (work with so many languages, and very fine with php and C), there are others.

[fatiha]

Yes, you're right, doxygen is better than phpdocumentor. I installed it and generated documentation of php code.

[cedric]

doc in pdf

zabbix doc in pdf is a pain :

* you can not read it in a term
* in a pdfviewer, you can not 'click' the titles
* the summary is not provided in the 'views'

doc in plain text AND in htlm are a 'must have', I think.

[fatiha]

I agree with you, zabbix documentation is very difficult to read.

[bee]

Good Enough

For me, it's good enough! but definetly need more sample of triggers and IT service.
Thanks
BEE

[dan.trainor]

Hi -

I just wanted to bump this thread a bit, because I've spent about an entire week learning the innards of Zabbix, and how we might be able to use it in a production environment.

I think that some more clear and conscience documentation would not only be nice - but rather, completely mandatory. I saw someone say in the forum that there are probably a good number of people who have simply walked away from Zabbix for this very reason, and from a managerial standpoint, I don't think I'd let any of my Juniors implement any sort of software that was not clearly documented. The only reason why we're evaluating Zabbix is because it's power far outweighs its nuances in documentation.

I'll start to contribute a lot to the wiki, since I've found quite a few caveats and discrepancies between the documentation and an actual production, real-world environment. After which time I hope that you all learn something, as well.

Thanks
-dant

[FreeTheMallocs]

I think we all know that the downfall of most open source projects is poor documentation. Developers would much rather write code than documentation. The success of projects like Ubuntu and Gentoo before it have everything to do with the excellent, accessible documentation provided by the projects and the community in the form of wikis and howtos.

I've been extremely disappointed with the documentation (or lack thereof) with Zabbix. Fortunately, I've had some free time at work to muddle through, and found a few of the wiki articles helpful enough to extend my own understanding, but I'm certainly not a typical case. If this project expects to grow, the developers need to do two things, and they need to do them in short order.

1) Develop decent, comprehensive documentation. This is time consuming, but not difficult. The community can be very helpful here. I've seen half a dozen offers to help clean up the documentation and yet none of these are apparently being answered.

2) Fix the inconsistencies within the current code base. There's no way to burn off potential new users faster than code that doesn't work consistently. New features are shiny and all, but if your existing features don't work, as advertised, reliably then you will lose users.

Unless the intent here is to let the user community languish with sub-standard documentation and broken-ness in the hopes that they'll purchase support contracts. One almost has to wonder if this is the case.

[loophole]

I'm missing some informtion on the privileges the mysql user needs for the zabbix database.

For sure it needs: Insert
But what about Update? Also why do we have the check for "Create Table" when running install.php. The drop privilge during this test is for sure due to the create.

Maybe you could fill the needed privileges into the document and remove create an drop from the install. (If not needed for normale usage).

Thanks in advance Loophole

[vikty]

DB documantation

Hi,

In the site is ther the db's zabbix schema documantation?
an explanation on the means of the fields tables....

[nelsonab]

Hi,

In the site is ther the db's zabbix schema documantation?
an explanation on the means of the fields tables....

There isn't one on the recent tables, however the 1.0 docs do have one.

[timmix]

Screenshots in documentation

Hello,

I'd managed a installation of ZABBIX and it runs fine (as far as I know). But reading the manual is almost to technical AND the pictures are most useless because nobody can read the text in them.

I.e. in the manual (section 11.5, Real life scenarios) you wrote (Step 3) "Add steps for monitoring", but the exact syntax is only showed in the screenshot and by kompression of PDF it isn't readable. It's frustating.

I accede to some posters before that a manual in HTML format and with UNCOMPRESSED pictures would be helpful.

I believe that ZABBIX is a great and powerfull tool, but at time I'm frustated with the configuration of everything, because I didn't know the exact syntax of quite everything in ZABBIX. :-/

Thank you