zabbix 4: keeping host groups and templates up to date

[harri]

Using Zabbix 4 I find it very difficult to keep my templates and host groups up-to-date, esp. for manually created hosts. Of course you have your new host on the radar when you create it, but if you introduce a new template or host group, then it is pretty painful to search for all hosts *not* in the group.

I know its possible to create appropriate lists on the command line, using the Zabbix api somehow, but what is your recommendation to resolve this in the web interface?

Every helpful comment is highly appreciated.
Harri

[LenR]

Do you use something to manage your systems like puppet or ansible? Managing monitoring config is just another item on the list of running the enterprise. Auto registration and LLD can help, but it is a continual problem. User says they weren't notified that app was down but they never told us they were running that app.

[1berto]

Have you tried nested templates and auto registration?
Lets say you create a 'full server template', compassing 'database template' and 'web server' templates...
If you create a 'disk template' you just need to nest it in the 'full server template' wich contais all wanted hosts.
Maybe you can make something similar for Groups

https://www.zabbix.com/documentation/2.0/manual/config/templates/nesting

https://www.zabbix.com/documentation/3.2/manual/introduction/whatsnew320#nested_representation_of_host_groups

[harri]

Both suggestions miss the point: Apparently zabbix 4 became *much* more difficult to use on the web gui. :-(

[kloczek]

Please describe exact scenario showing what is difficult here.

[Ramses]

Hello!
I'm using Zabbix since version 3.4 for our test net with over 1000 computers. In 3.4 you can see and manage all members of a host group and it is very easy to add or move members (computers or templates). Open Host Groups at Configuration in 3.4 you will see all members and you can select other groups and move members. Do this in 4.0 and you get only a field with the name of a group. This was a very usefull feature and for me it is a nogo to upgrade to 4.0.
Thanks and regards

[Ramses]

Forgot something but could not edit my own post ..

The same for Configuration/Template, in 3.4 it is easy to add/remove many computers (can add e.g. 20 computers to a template in just a view seconds) to or from a template in 4.0 i have to open each computer and add the template. Another way is the Mass update under Configuration / Hosts but this tool is a pain for this.

[harri]

Exactly. Zabbix < 4 was much more user-friendly wrt managing templates and host goups. To assign a template you could select a host group and then easily select the (lets say 20) hosts that haven't got your template yet. I am missing that.

Zabbix 4 has made my work much more difficult. I regret the upgrade.

[kloczek]

Exactly. Zabbix < 4 was much more user-friendly wrt managing templates and host goups. To assign a template you could select a host group and then easily select the (lets say 20) hosts that haven't got your template yet. I am missing that.

Zabbix 4 has made my work much more difficult. I regret the upgrade.

In case spawned hosts in the cloud env instead using manual assignment of the templates to the hosts you should use autoregistration and automatic assignment of the templates to the host.

[Ramses]

In case spawned hosts in the cloud env instead using manual assignment of the templates to the hosts you should use autoregistration and automatic assignment of the templates to the host.

This could not be a solution in many environments. In fact it is a hughe degradation for working with templates and host groups. We are using a lot of templates for different hardware and functions and I don't understand why this very useful feature was dropped. It is also a bad operation mode to close a change request (4725) as fixed if the original issue was not fixed - it's a pity.

[kloczek]

This could not be a solution in many environments. In fact it is a hughe degradation for working with templates and host groups. We are using a lot of templates for different hardware and functions and I don't understand why this very useful feature was dropped. It is also a bad operation mode to close a change request (4725) as fixed if the original issue was not fixed - it's a pity.

If you have a lot of HW already you should have already as well in some kind of DB all information about all your assets. who is responsible for what etc. You should be using those already collected data to do automatic assignment of the templates to exact monitored hosts and for example to feed zabbix about who should be informed about exact class./groups of alarms. Bigger env to monitor than needs to assign some templates manually should be close to real zero.
In other words: subject is not related to the zabbix but more to general methodology. If someone in large scale env is doing manual assignment of the templates.
Change in external asset tracker database should automatically cause change in used templates on exact hosts. This is for what is zabbix API.
If in exact row of the table describing exact asset something is added or updated it should be on the side defined SQL trigger executing over SYSTEM external script which should call API to update zabbix configuration. This is how people are doing such updates in large scale envs. In biggest envs no one is even using detection or discovery. Someone is adding new HW in DB and this starts automatically many things from opening tasks for other staff to provision around all necessary resources with provisioning zabbix monitopring as well (on differen stages of the provisioning process sometimes people are using different templates to more confirm correctness done tasks than do regular monitoring).
Again .. if we really talking about large scale prod env (not a POC) your needs to assign template manually should be NULL. If it is not the case I can imagine that templates assignment is not your biggest problem.

Another thing .. you wrote that you have a lot of templates. This is next area which you should review very close. I saw the cases when for few hundreds monitored hosts was used almost the same number of templates. If it is your case It is really wrong. No matter how bit evn to monitor is number of the templates should not bigger than few tenths (maybe ~100 in some extreme cases).
And always remember about KISS principle.

[Ramses]

Thanks for your time, your view and your instruction.

But one of the biggest advantage of Zabbix is that everyone can work with it by using the GUI without further knowlege in scripting, DB or API. We use automatic discoveries only for assigning basic templates. We are using Zabbix for monitoring a test network with many different and often changing hardware.

For our environment it is useful to get the old feature back and maybe other user like it too.