zabbix_agentd does not start

[akbarstatx]

I have tried both 1.7 and 1.8 and neither zabbix_agentd will start. It does not produces any errors messages either. How do I debug this.

Below is my config

# This is config file for zabbix_agentd
# To get more information about ZABBIX, go http://www.zabbix.com

############ GENERAL PARAMETERS #################

# List of comma delimited IP addresses (or hostnames) of ZABBIX servers. 
# No spaces allowed. First entry is used for sending active checks.
# Note that hostnames must resolve hostname->IP address and
# IP address->hostname.
Server=192.168.1.11

# Server port for sending active checks
ServerPort=10051

# Unique hostname. Required for active checks.
Hostname=prod-maint

# Listen port. Default is 10050
ListenPort=10050

# IP address to bind agent
# If missing, bind to all available IPs
#ListenIP=127.0.0.1

# Number of pre-forked instances of zabbix_agentd.
# Default value is 5
# This parameter must be between 1 and 16
StartAgents=5

# How often refresh list of active checks. 2 minutes by default.
#RefreshActiveChecks=120

# Disable active checks. The agent will work in passive mode listening server.
#DisableActive=1

# Enable remote commands for ZABBIX agent. By default remote commands disabled.
#EnableRemoteCommands=1

# Specifies debug level
# 0 - debug is not created
# 1 - critical information
# 2 - error information
# 3 - warnings (default)
# 4 - for debugging (produces lots of information)
DebugLevel=4

# Name of PID file
PidFile=/var/run/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.pid
# Name of PID file
PidFile=/var/run/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.pid

# Name of log file.
# If not set, syslog will be used
#LogFile=/var/log/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.log

# Spend no more than Timeout seconds on processing
# Must be between 1 and 30
Timeout=3

[Firm]

Check zabbix_agentd.log file. If no luck then strace/truss zabbix_agentd.
On Linux: strace -f /<zabbix_agentd>
On FreeBSD/Solaris: truss -f <zabbix_agentd>

[nmail_uk]

You're logging to syslog so the messages could be going anywhere - I'd suggest uncommenting the LogFile line and creating a log in /tmp (which should be world-writeable thus ruling out permissions.)

I found the 1.8 agent pretty good at notifying when things go wrong when I was installing yesterday - it either logs on the console if it cannot get a log file created, or logs it into the log file.

My guess would be the user zabbix either doesn't exist, or doesn't have write permissions on /var/run - that bit me and I ended up writing the PID files to /tmp until I can sort the permissions out.

Also it might not hurt zabbix, but you've got PidFile= defined twice - comment out the first one.

[akbarstatx]

Solved

Thanks for all the help. It turned out that the pid file was left behind from a failed install or startup. Removing the pid file allowed the service to start.

However I was not able to determine this while I had logging set to syslog, I had to turn the syslog feature off and use zabbix's internal logging to see the error message.