Call for discussion on ZABBIX 1.6

[rreilly]

csv data export

Alexei, It would be nice when viewing a graph if there was a link that you could click on and it would return the data in that graph in csv or xls format (think prompt to save as spreadsheet), I often need this type of data for trending and planning where I need to massage the data..
Rob

[swaterhouse]

Alexei, It would be nice when viewing a graph if there was a link that you could click on and it would return the data in that graph in csv or xls format (think prompt to save as spreadsheet), I often need this type of data for trending and planning where I need to massage the data..
Rob

You can get a listing of the values that you can copy and paste into excel by choosing "Values of Specified Period" from the dropdown in the upper right corner. That will spit the values out in an HTML table. Not exactly the same but its still possible.

I agree though it would be nice to have an export values button (to xml, and csv would be my choices).

[bee]

I hope it's not too late to put my wish here...

My biggest vote would be for better client support.

The BSD based unices (OpenBSD, FreeBSD, AIX, OS X) have very little, or very bad support.

Similar like what agehring's comment, i wish in next release of zabbix could have better support for BSD family, especially for old release of FreeBSd such as FreeBSD 4.11.

The other thing, i wish zabbix will have capability to retrieve or monitor windows server performance agentlessly thru WMI.

Thanks for all efforts....thank you....thank you...thank you...

Regards,
BEE

[mcarbonneaux]

Zabbix tends to open 1 connection per item. Which is crazy. Here's the connection list, monitoring 4 servers:

is one the main reason what the snmp use udp...
other reason : are if the target machine is full in file handle...
the snmp deamon continue to many of the time...
with tcp protocole the agent cannot open new handle...

[nelsonab]

Custom Graph Titles

I don't know if this has been said before, but it would be nice to have a custom title for graphs within screens. For instance I've got a bunch of switches. Each port has a graph for in/out from the switch template. When I create a network overview I would like to say something like "VPN connection" rather than the title be "Switch1:if05" on one graph and on another I'd like to say "Switch5 -> Switch1" rather than it be "Switch5:if05".

[bee]

ZABBIX Documentation

Hi all,
As additional comment for zabbix's documentation, it will be great if in next release of zabbix documentation have a "complete" sample of triggers expression, especially when your monitored host is SNMP based.

Thanks,
BEE

[crashdummyMCH]

improvements

I don't know if this suggestion is too late but here goes.
1. Could we have a page to upload/manage sounds on a per user basis. It would also be nice to have sounds for EVERY level of severity instead of just the 3 currently in 1.1.

2. As a function last(#) and previous(#) seem pretty darn silly. There should only be one function last(#). the function should be able to take that number parameter and use it to retrieve the last entry, 2nd to last entry, 3rd to last entry, etc. based on the number given. I had suggested this a long time ago and guess it was never adopted.

3. A standard API for accessing information would be nice so that we can start to tie in 3rd party tools more easily.

4. flap detection.

[n000b]

I think we need a much better manual. The software itself is amazingly powerful and great for what it does, but it's simply impossible to use due to the lack of documentation on many features - we're left guessing on how to use things, which is made worse due to the complexity of the software.

[trikke]

Zabbix windows monitoring with WMIC

Hi There,

I think this should be an easy one. oculd u "extend" windows Monitoring with the possibility of using wmic-queries (even maybe instead of Perfmon data, which are included in wmi anyway). This would give a enormous and easy way of monitoring whatever in Windows. At the momment I'm using this item, to check if all Windows services are running:
system.run[wmic /output:wmic.out service where "Startmode='Auto' and state!='Running'" get DisplayName /Format:csv | type wmic.out]. This looks a bit clumsy, with a "real" item this could be much easier.
Thanx & Greets
Patrick

[kloczek]

Please, give ZABBIX team some feedback on the following topics:

- general functionality you're missing

Templates for graphs, slide shows and SLAs.

[welkin]

Originally Posted by Alexei
Please, give ZABBIX team some feedback on the following topics:

- general functionality you're missing

in addition to the last post : escalation module, high aviability mode

mfg
welkin

[bee]

Additional Features Request

Hi Zabbix Team,
As addition of my last posting in this thread:

1. Function for export the value mapping.
This will be "must have" category when you have many of value mapping.
In my case i have nearly 30 value mapping, and there is one value mapping consist of over 15 item. So this function will make us able to share the value mapping created, especially for snmpv2 host, to other users.

2. Function to fill/read description of each monitored item in latest data page.
This will be "nice to have" category. So if you boss have a lot of question regarding every item monitored, it will answer that question.

Thanks,
BEE

[ngeron]

LatestData UI for Networking Equipment

Forgive me if this has come up previously, but where the current applications/application item arrangement works well for hosts, it falls a little short on network equipment in my possibly uninformed opinion.

For example, if I'm looking at the latest data on a linux or windows host, I have neatly organized and logical groupings of Processes or CPU items. If I'm looking at a beefy Cisco router with multiple 48 port cards, I can have hundreds of interfaces and probably multiple items per interface (traffic in/out, errors in/out, etc.) - pushing my total number of items per single network device on the 'latest data' page into the stratosphere.

I have decreased the number of items displayed on the monitoring page with an 'application' per interface. So for each interface, I monitor traffic, errors, link speed and the like and each one of those items is associated with it's interface 'application.' However, even this makes trying to get a birds eye view of multiple switches and routers cumbersome to say the least.

I've only been working with Zabbix for a week and am growing to appreciate it in some regard over our current cacti and nagios systems. Since I'm new to it and I have yet to dive down into the code to see if my request is even feasible. So if I'm missing the obvious, please bonk me on the head and let me know the proper way to organize things. Or if there are any network admins that have come up with a solution for their infrastructure, I'd love to hear it.

Otherwise, love to see network device features like the aforementioned snmpwalk/cacti style population of hosts and my own wishes for a heads-up display implemented in the next major release.

Thanks

[eli.stair]

Host creation features: template linking, full XML import support, HTTP UI automation

I run a large environment (~3000 devices) and in the time I've been evaluating Zabbix over the years (never have run it in production), there have been varying states of ability to automate the batch addition/modification of entities (hosts). Currently, it's in a bad state relative to where it's been in the past... and despite having more than enough hardware to monitor this fully, it's unwieldy (unfathomable) to consider the number of clicks and hours necessary to link all the hosts to appropriate templates even after import.

Specifically in 1.4.2, I'm finding issues with:

1) Inability to define template/group memberships via XML import, even though this is present when using the UI _AND_ was added as a user-generated feature later added by LEM + James Wells to the core distribution in 2005. See: "http://zabbix.com/forum/showthread.p...batch+populate"

Consider this a request for full replication of GUI options in the XML import _AND_ export functions.

2) Due to use of Javascript in the GUI, I'm finding it difficult (impossible?) to automate UI actions via any scripts... i.e., I can't work around the lack of XML template support by scripting HTTP GET URI's crafted to create/update items in the database. This is really just an artifact of the languages chosen to write the frontend in, but unfortunately makes it really difficult to use it in a large-scale environment where tools need to be written to do many things. This immediately limits scripted and API-like interaction to PHP, unless I want to re-write (and maintain) modules for specific languages.

Consider this a request for an XML-RPC/SOAP/REST interface to the GUI features, as that would enable interaction in whatever fashion users can conceive.


Regardless of these issues however, I'm currently seeing Zabbix in a favorable light. The improvements over the last few years have been astounding, with few design/implementation decisions made that dilute the "purpose", and I feel that the project has an edge over its competitors now... even though there are even MORE than there were and are more sophisticated than anything available when Zabbix started!

Great work, and I'm hoping these issues work out so I can start to contribute and use it in production.

Cheers,

/eli

PS - Yes, production likely means a support contract

[xobnis]

Map change.

Just want to start of by saying how great the Zabbix product is and that our IT team here uses it to monitor just about every aspect of our network. Recently we added two large LCD screens to the IT department that displays trigger data on one screen and a network map on the other. For us it is great to be able a a moments notice look at the screens and see if there is a problem. It also has some definite wow factor for the bosses .

Since we use the maps feature extensively I have one item I would like added. On the triggers screen when a trigger is tripped it displays the corresponding color of the triggers severity, light green for information, yellow for warnings, and various shades of red for more severe problems.

On the maps however there are only three choices for icons, ON, OFF or unknown. Currently we have two variations of icons one for off/unknown which has the default transparent background and then a second icon with a red background for showing when a trigger has been tripped.

It would be nice if there were a choice of icon for each trigger severity. So in our case there would be a green colored icon for items with an info trigger tripped and yellow for a warning trigger etc...

Thanks for all your hard work!