Host Groups - What am I missing?

[iank-digicat]

Hello, I have looked at the documentation for this, and I must be missing something, because it doesn't look like it works. I want to create groups Production, inside that group I want SERVERS, NETWORK, ENVIRONMENT inside SERVERS I want WNDOWS, LINUX. according to the documentation all I need to do is create a host group using PRODUCTION/SERVERS/WINDOWS and the groups are created automatically? But what I end up with is a group called PRODUCTION/SERVERS/WINDOWS If I create the top level groups separately and then try to create the nested groups using the '/' notation I get separate groups.

Can you tell me what I'm doing wrong or what I'm missing?

Many thanks

Ian

[cyber]

You should create those groups from top to down. As "/" is not a forbidden character in group name, then Zabbix is unable to decide, if you want to create a chain of groups or a group with "/" in the name.
I think clear info about this is missing from docs..

[iank-digicat]

Thank you, but I still don't think I understand, how do I make the subgroup? as I mentioned, if I create "Production" then try to create Production/Servers I get two different groups, one called production and one called production/servers, I want to create a hierarchy of groups, am I missing something in the way I ought to be setting it up? I thought that having the group structure was a good way of organising hosts.

See here

[cyber]

Unfortunately, that's how subgroups are in Zabbix... with such a long and cumbersome names.. It does not draw you a tree.. Full tree is in your group name..
And if applying permissions, then you need to remember to reapply them, if you add another subgroup but previously added permissions to "include all subgroups".. it is just a shortcut to add all existing subgroup id-s to permissions at that moment... later addons, need reapplying...

[iank-digicat]

Oh really, so there is only one "Production" group? even though my picture suggests they are two different groups?

[cyber]

yep.. if you look into DB (hstgrp table), then you can see that each of them has their own Id... there is no hierarchy there in DB...

[iank-digicat]

Wow, ok, I have to say that doesn't make sense from a UX perspective at all to me.
How do I know my group isn't just called Production/Servers/Windows because, as you say, the '/' character isn't a special char. if I have to have all the groups created sort of individually, how do you nest them?

What I end up with is this do I not?

[cyber]

Well your group is called "Production/Servers/Windows" ... "Nesting" comes to play only from the access permissions view... Where (I think by black magic) it manages to identify similarly "prefixed" groups and make assumptions, that those might be nested... and then you can give permissions with "include subgroups". Example : if you add usergroup x permissions to "Production" and "include subgroups" ... then In the end there are 3 records (based on your pic) in "rights" table per usergroup... -> usergroup X has permissions to hostgroup "Production", usergroup X has permissions to hostgroup "Production/Servers" and usergroup X has permissions to hostgroup "Production/servers/Windows",
But then again, you may decide, that that usergroup x has only access to "production/servers/Windows", it does not have to have access to "Production" or "Production/Windows"..

[iank-digicat]

Ok, It makes no sense to me, surely a tree view and an option to "add sub-group" would have been far more logical. it never used to be like this, I've not used Zabbix since version 4, I'm just trialing it in a new job, but I'm not sure it's going to be of any use, as it's so "odd"
What are the steps to create for example, the Linux and Windows sub-groups both in "Servers"

[cyber]

it never used to be like this, I've not used Zabbix since version 4

Exact same way in v4... and since I can remember...

What are the steps to create for example, the Linux and Windows sub-groups both in "Servers"

first create "Production"
second "Production/Servers"
third "Production/Servers/Windows" and "Production/Servers/Linux"

That way you end up with 4 groups, which may visually look like nested in host groups view.. Which in real life ain't nested at all...


EDIT: ugh I have to say, that this is all based on 6.0LTS...:P if something changed in 6.4... then oops, my bad..
(but I doubt it changed radically)...

[iank-digicat]

Ok, thanks for your help, So, there aren't really nested groups, only some kind of weird backend association that happens in the back end then I suppose.

If there were then I'd expect to see only 1 Production group and then have the ability to just "add" a sub-group to it.