Select Proxy per web scenario?

[jonxor]

Hi all,
I am a long time zabbix user, and administrator for my organization (4000 hosts, 2168 NVPS, 12 proxies).
I have been creating web scenarios and they seem to work well. I do have a few concerns over the interface to create them, however.
I have web hosts and proxies on 4 continents, and I would like to leverage this to monitor a host from multiple proxies, to see if all proxies "agree" that a host is down.

As far as I can tell Web Scenarios are linked child objects of hosts, and seemingly the only configuration values that the web scenario uses from the host is what proxy it is monitored by, and whether it is enabled or disabled. The items and triggers are populated on the host after the web scenario is created, which is great.

The problem this presents, is if I want to test the same site from multiple proxies, I need to create a dummy host for each additional proxy that I want to monitor. This greatly increases my overhead work for each one that I create, as I need to add dummy hosts to the host groups, and confirm the actions for each new one I add.

In addition, web scenarios cannot be cloned or exported/imported, so I cannot create them in batch. I must create a new web scenario for each site, and for each proxy.

I would like it if I could configure a proxy per web scenario so that they can all be created on the same host.

If there is a proper way to submit the request, let me know, and I can submit this through the correct channels.

[kloczek]

The problem this presents, is if I want to test the same site from multiple proxies, I need to create a dummy host for each additional proxy that I want to monitor. This greatly increases my overhead work for each one that I create, as I need to add dummy hosts to the host groups, and confirm the actions for each new one I add.

You can have single dummy host with four web scenarios which will have only different settings in HTTP proxy.
You can use even some of many open HTTP proxies (try to google for "open http proxy"). Each one located on one of the four continents

[jonxor]

You can have single dummy host with four web scenarios which will have only different settings in HTTP proxy.
You can use even some of many open HTTP proxies (try to google for "open http proxy"). Each one located on one of the four continents

That's how I've been working on it so far, but I have a fairly large organization with many departments. Departments want alerts for their hosts, but not others. Grouping web tests into the same host adds a to more granular actions that need to be created (Each web scenario has several actions based on severity), and makes changing something mean I have to update it in several places (The web scenario, AND the action). I'm nearly to the point where my full time job is zabbix administrator, instead of my primary responsibility . If I can find a way to create a web scenario on one dummy host, and then copy it, with all items and triggers to the 11 other hosts, it would probably solve this enough for me. I could create actions based on just the trigger names.

I don't really want to use an HTTP proxy, since it would depend on an outside 3rd party. My idea is to use my own zabbix proxies that I have set up, and create logic for certain scenarios. We have a lot of public-facing services, so being able to test them from different parts of the world helps me determine if one site or VPN link, or BGP peer connection is down, or if the entire service is down.

I am creating a setup so that if 50% of the proxies trigger for the web scenario of one site, then it notifies and pages me of a partial outage. If 75% of them trigger, then I am alerted and paged on what would be a major outage.

My own speculation is that web scenarios were a feature that was added in, and rather than be given their own category entirely, they were tacked on to become child objects of "hosts".

[kloczek]

I am creating a setup so that if 50% of the proxies trigger for the web scenario of one site, then it notifies and pages me of a partial outage. If 75% of them trigger, then I am alerted and paged on what would be a major outage.

My own speculation is that web scenarios were a feature that was added in, and rather than be given their own category entirely, they were tacked on to become child objects of "hosts".

Maybe it is good to start thinking about such scenarios ..
I fully understand you needs and some useful informations which created web scenario from exact zbx proxy item over items with different http proxy settings.
For example on using zbx proxy you can measure more precisely web pages latency as long as with zbx proxy you are controlling physical path to to monitored web page.
In case http proxy how much latency is on the path to proxy, on the proxy and between proxy and monitored url.

Only problem is that in zabbix only object which has source point from where some group of metrics is taken is host with own zbx proxy attribute.

I'm only thinking about how to define what you need without DB schema changes or what needs to changed in schema to open possibility to have type of metrics with attributes which you need.
If such idea will be formed we can start approaching zabbix devel team to start talking about details.
I have no idea at the moment how to describe such items on zbx metadata layer. If you have any thoughts or even shadow of such idea please try write something about this.

Definitely having host description record under which are hanging items definitions allows reduce dramatically amount of cfg data. If host data would be populated to each item creating flat single layer description definitely it will be not accepted because only server memory overhead would be necessary to increase by the same factor.

Seems new solution must be within similar if not even the same two layers description ..
Question only is is it possible to change current structures without increasing size of metadata?

[jonxor]

Thanks for the reply. I'm glad I'm not crazy. A good workaround that would suit my needs would be some other tool that I can use to batch create web scenarios. For example, if I had a web scenario that I wanted to create to test apple.com and have all the associated items and triggers. If I could create that once, and then have it copied to the 11 other dummy hosts, that would save me plenty of time. The items and triggers can be batch copied, but the web scenario itself cannot.

[jonxor]

If a mod could rename this thread to "Import/Export tool for Web Scenarios W/ Items, Triggers",
That would more accurately reflect the request.

[jonxor]

Nevermind, it looks like the feature is already in development.
ZBXNEXT-178