Zabbix-Agent

[MrRobbert]

Hi Guys,

Can anyone tell me

What is the zabbix agent?

I know this agent polls the information to your zabbix server, but how does this agent do that? Is it just an snmp client or is it something else? What kind of protocols does it use? etc...

Anybody knows this or does anybody have a site for me whgere i can find this?

[MrRobbert]

Nobody who wants to help me?

[napel25]

Sure I want to help.
I think the Zabbix agent is not a snmp client. This because it has next to the snmp ability it's own measurements with Zabbix specific language. I think SNMP is more an additions to the 'normal' monitoring.
The way the agent communicates with the server can probably be looked up in the source of the program. Some advantage of open source.

[MrRobbert]

Yeah tnx allready... anyway i am a rookie... i dont now how to look things up in source etc...

Can you help me further or anyone else?

[Calimero]

To the best of my knowledge, Zabbix uses its own protocol between agent and server. It's not documented (well actually it is: read the source ! ).

It's not related to SNMP as far as I know.

On Linux, info is grabbed from /proc (process info, network...) or through syscalls (like statvfs() for disk usage). See zabbix-1.1.X/src/libs/zbxsysinfo/ .

[MrRobbert]

oke tnx i will check it...

so it is also possible to monitor servers across the internet? I just need to open a port on my router 10052 and thats it... ofcourse i need to add the host etc...


But what is the advantedge of the zabbix agent instead of the normal snmp agent?

[tazzu]

But what is the advantedge of the zabbix agent instead of the normal snmp agent?

The main thing is that you can configure it by your own. You also have some standart items what you can check but by the user parameters you can set up the agent by your own (in a very easy way). So you are able to monitor services, logfiles and other things that dont have a snmp mib.

[Calimero]

Technically you can use Zabbix Agent/Server over any IP network: LAN, WAN, Internet...
As long as there's no encryption you may want to use some VPN layer if you're going to monitor a remote host over the Internet. At least some simple per-IP firewall rules. You should also disable remote commands in agent config.

Regarding to pros and cons of Zabbix Agent over SNMPD, I honestly have no definitive answer on this. I'm actually in the process of choosing between SNMP and Zabbix agent. What I like with zabbix is that resources are "named" (/var, eth0 ,... ). Thus you can create generic templates while SNMP relies on OIDs which can vary between hosts, making configuration a but more difficult.

Both SNMPD and Zabbix allow custom data collection. Zabbix allows remote command execution but for security reason I don't want to allow this so it's a bit irrelevant in my case.

Well actually I posted on this (Zabbix Agent vs SNMPD) and I haven't found the definitive answer yet.

Depending on your "environment" there might also be more "political" criteria. Security/network admins might accept SNMP more easily than Zabbix as SNMP is better known.