Zabbix MCP Server — manage Zabbix with AI assistants (open source)

[hermanekt]

Hi everyone,

we've released an open-source MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that connects any AI assistant to the Zabbix API. It covers all 58 API groups
(225 tools) — hosts, problems, triggers, templates, dashboards, SLAs, and everything else.

What you can do with it:
- "Show me all unacknowledged problems with severity High or above"
- "Create a maintenance window for host db-01 for 2 hours"
- "Export the template 'Template OS Linux' as YAML"
- "What changed in the last 24 hours?" (audit log)

Works with Claude Code (recommended), OpenAI Codex, VS Code + Copilot, Claude Desktop, and other MCP clients. Supports Zabbix 5.0 through 8.0 (experimental).
Security: read-only mode by default, bearer token auth, IP allowlist, TLS, rate limiting.

GitHub: https://github.com/initMAX/zabbix-mcp-server

Happy to answer any questions!
initMAX s.r.o. team

[kronicklez]

Hi @hermanekt,

I try follow step in your url https://github.com/initMAX/zabbix-mcp-server and this youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXClAcTwgys&t=285s . But when i execute command it not install MCP as per below snapshot. Is it i missing step or your file have issue?

[kronicklez]

Hi hermanekt,

Noted. It already solved yesterday. Your MCP server for me superb. Now i just have assistant to add additional task. Btw, u have any method that we can import the chatgpt web into dashboard widget so means i dont need to open new browser incase want to use chatgpt.

Thanks

[hermanekt]

Hi kroniclez, i don't want to spoiled all of, but something will comes soon

[kronicklez]

Hi @hermanekt,

I see has some update file in your MCP github. May i know the correct way to update to the latest version this MCP server without disturb any existing config? Thanks

[cyber]

You are root already, why do you use sudo?

[kronicklez]

Hi,

even without sudo still same result.

Thanks.

[coelliale]

Fantastic project!
It’s impressive to see how, together with Claude, it manages to “understand” the data and put it into context even without being given any additional information.
I installed it in a Docker container outside the Zabbix system, so I could keep it isolated for testing, and it worked without any issues.
It uses quite a lot of tokens, but it’s truly amazing. Congrats, great job!
Alessandro

[hermanekt]

Hi Alessandro, thank you for the kind words!

Regarding the token usage - v1.19 (just released) addresses this directly. The default config exposes all ~232 Zabbix API tools, and MCP clients load the full tool catalog into the LLM context at session start. That alone costs ~100k tokens before your first prompt.

The fix is adding a tools filter in [server] of your config.toml:

[server]
tools = ["host", "hostgroup", "problem", "trigger", "event", "item"]

That cuts the catalog from ~232 tools to ~15 tools, dropping the baseline from ~100k to ~7k tokens. You still get all the important monitoring tools - just without the 100+ template/dashboard/admin methods you probably don't need in every conversation.

There is a new "Token Budget" section in the README with per-group tool counts and examples: https://github.com/initMAX/zabbix-mc...r#token-budget

Upgrade: cd zabbix-mcp-server && git pull && docker compose up -d --build

[kronicklez]

H @hermanekt

May i know the step/procedure what need to do when to update your MCP server without lost existing configuration? Another question do i need execute this command manually as per below snapshot after install using command "sudo ./deploy/install.sh update".





Thanks and appreciate your feedback

[hermanekt]

Hi kronicklez,

Good news — the update procedure is safe and fully automated. I just expanded the README with a detailed Upgrade section that should answer exactly this:

https://github.com/initMAX/zabbix-mcp-server#upgrade

Short answer: sudo ./deploy/install.sh update is the whole procedure. No manual commands afterwards.

Your configuration is preserved. The installer never overwrites:

• /etc/zabbix-mcp/config.toml — your Zabbix URL, API token, MCP tokens, scopes, TLS settings
• Admin portal users and sessions (/var/lib/zabbix-mcp/)
• Audit log, report templates, and any custom data

You'll see this line during the update confirming it:
✓ Config preserved at /etc/zabbix-mcp/config.toml (not overwritten)

What the update command does automatically (v1.15+):

1. Pulls the latest code from git (fast-forward, falls back to fetch + reset --hard origin/<branch> if needed) and re-executes itself from the updated script
2. Reinstalls the Python package into /opt/zabbix-mcp/venv
3. Refreshes the systemd unit and logrotate config
4. Checks file permissions and offers to fix any ownership issues
5. Runs small migrations (legacy token, report templates) and validates config.toml
6. Restarts the service via systemctl restart zabbix-mcp-server and runs an HTTP health check

PDF reporting note: by default update keeps your current reporting state. If you want to enable PDF reporting on an existing install that didn't have it, use:
sudo ./deploy/install.sh update --with-reporting

If anything goes wrong, these two commands tell you what happened:
sudo ./deploy/install.sh test-config # validate config.toml
sudo journalctl -u zabbix-mcp-server -n 50 --no-pager

Feel free to paste the output here if you hit an issue — happy to take a look.

Tomas