Zabbix agent active checks results buffer

[Shmuma]

Hello,

at the moment, I plan to implement possibility for zabbix agent to store active checks results in buffer (disk or memory) when zabbix server is unavailable for some reason. This will allow to get rid of ugly blank spaces on graphs and provide more information for later analysis (for example when data center is overheated and central zabbix server becomes unreachable). When connection to server returns, agent send all data in buffer to server.

During analisys I found that agent->server interaction protocol can be optimized by allowing agent to send items' results not one-by-one in separate connection but group them in lager chunks and send all at once. This is especially true when we have several items for server with equal refresh interval. In that case, agent can defer items delivery for some time to send them all at once.

It seems to me that this allow reduce zabbix server load when we have lot of servers to monitor.

Please, tell me what do you think about these changes. Maybe ideas/suggestions?

[BenP]

Hello,

[...]

Please, tell me what do you think about these changes. Maybe ideas/suggestions?

Hi,

That's sound a really good idea, both will save cpu and bandwidth and keep graph clean of blanks!


There's something missing that will save a lot of time to configure host: a list of the agent's items capabilities. A kind of zabbix_not_supported killer ...

[Shmuma]

There's something missing that will save a lot of time to configure host: a list of the agent's items capabilities. A kind of zabbix_not_supported killer ...

Not sure I understood you right. Agent have such list, just run it manually with -p option.

There are no automatic interface to tell server which metrics supported and which not, but after one try such unsupported items disabled automatically by agent.

Best regards,
Max

[BenP]

Not sure I understood you right. Agent have such list, just run it manually with -p option.

There are no automatic interface to tell server which metrics supported and which not, but after one try such unsupported items disabled automatically by agent.

Best regards,
Max

Hi,

Sorry for my english with a good french accent ...

That's what I'm searching for a long time, but I still have a lot of zbx_notsupported in report.
I gess we will have such option in the frontend after an auto-discovery, with checkboxes to quickly manage, change and add items to host.

Thank's for the tips, I found an IIS running on one of my tse server ...

Cheers

[Alexei]

Please, tell me what do you think about these changes. Maybe ideas/suggestions?

Currently we are working on a more flexible communication protocol. I am quite sure it will be implemented in 1.6.

[Shmuma]

Implemented

Hello,

this approach is implemented and tested. Patch can be downloaded here: http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?p=29419

[marcel]

Alexei,
has this feature been implemented? If yes, can you please give more indication on where do I find any documentation on this?

Thank you,
Marcel

[Alexei]

Alexei,
has this feature been implemented? If yes, can you please give more indication on where do I find any documentation on this?

Thank you,
Marcel

The feature is supported by Zabbix since version 1.8 or even 1.6. Please look at configuration parameters of Zabbix Agent. It is all there!