Help with Trigger and Item (key status). ?Possible bug with key STATUS?

[SAT QPass]

Running zabbix-1.1beta7....

I have a 2 hosts defined.....

They are linked to the template. I have the status item configured (and it is showing valid data). Now status, correctly has the value of 2 (in the overview page) since Zabbix cannot talk to the agent on one host and appears to be undefined or null with the host it can talk too.

I then created a trigger.....

{hostname.fqdn:status.last(0)}=2

1 host is deliberately without an agent and zabbix console (monitor->overview->data) shows it as having a value of "2" (no agent, status is reported as 2).

However, the trigger perpetually remains in the state of "unknown". It never goes to TRUE or FALSE.

The same is true for a host that does have zabbix_agentd running on it. It never exits the UNKNOWN state. Even if I change the trigger expression to #2.

Is this a bug with status? Can anybody else replicate this? Am I doing something wrong?

Any help would be appreciated.

Aaron

[bbrendon]

Hmm... I'm not completely sure what you're getting at. If the zabbix server can not contact the server being monitored and you're using active agents, then status is useless. Status only works for agents that have direct network connectivy from zabbix server to the zabbix host (agent) being monitored.

In cases where a server can not contact the agent, you have to use something like nodata() to realize the server has fallen off the earth. Unfortunately for me, the servers i monitor are scattered around the US and network connectivity can create false positives, but back to the topic.

you say one server doesn't have an agent? Then I hope it has snmp or something that requires some CPU/IO because we all know unix boxes can go belly up and ping just fine.

As for the host availability being unknown on the host configuration screen, that is normal if the host is an active only agent. The only way to get that to register properly is if the host is PINGABLE by the zabbix server, which means the host can't be behind a firewall. I use active across the board, thus all my hosts say unknown. The host Availabilty column appears to be reliant on zabbix pinging the host and nothing to do with an agent.

For your unknown trigger state. (1) make sure the value you of the item changes. (2) if you're worried about "Unknown" state, then make sure you cycle the trigger to be off and on so the system has a basis of where it is at.

A trigger is only related to the data an item collects, not so much to the item. So if status data changes, the trigger associated to the item/data should work.

In my setup, I never look at the availability column and never worry about status for a few reasons. (1) my monitored items are scattered around the internet so network connectivity will cause status or availity to fluctuate and i don't want false positive. (2) 90% of my agents are behind firewalls. Even if they aren't behind a firewall, i still use active to keep things consistent.

[SAT QPass]

I finally figured this out. My issue was compounded by my syntax as well as by observed behavior. Syntax stupidity aside (mine). It would appear that status is not populated immediately despite existing data (or lack there of). So I was adding the trigger and I was not seeing the result I expected in the overview. By contrast traditional values seem to set trigger status immediately (or as close to it as possible).

So in short, had I been patient and then suddenly I got exactly the result I was looking for. Awesome.

Aaron

[bbrendon]

Ah. so i wrote an essay for nothing. i'll remember that