no foreign keys in database?

[cameL]

maybe my eyesight is getting worse but i cant find the foreign keys in the database. innoDB supports foreign keys in connection with MySQL and i cant believe, that the developers didnt make use of fks, cause when i take a look at the tables some fields bear the name of a foreign key =)

maybe someone can help me, cause im trying to develop an ER Model and i dont want to (just) guess the relationships =)

thx
kind regards
cameL

[fatiha]

It is right

Hi,

I am reading php code and I found that foreign keys are simulated in the code. For example, in actions.inc.php before deleting an action :
- delete from conditions
- delete from operations
- delete from alerts

So if you want to create foreign keys in the database, you have to comment lines in php code and activate "on delete cascade" in BDD.

I hope that zabbix developers will correct this.

Fatiha

[r3dn3ck]

any word on if/when this sort of feature may make it into a release?

It would make it cake to integrate with other management systems and then maybe we could have a bulk template assignment feature almost as a side effect.

[Alexei]

Lack of foreign keys does not make a software worse. This is a design decision, which is absolutely correct for ZABBIX.

[r3dn3ck]

it's not a criticism bud... it's a feature request. Hell I'm one of the biggest fans of Z. I've installed it on over 5000 hosts in 4 different companies production environments in the last year. Trust me... I'm a fan. It's a legit feature request that would make integration with other systems significantly easier.

While the bulk of the pain the FK thing addresses is initial setup it'd still be super neato to have the option to use really simple command line sql and have cascade update/delete take care of the complicated bits. For now I use the import tool and complicated sql scripts for bulk imports and that combined with the template assignment mod in v1.4.6 should do away with a lot of the actual meat of that issue but still... suggestion stands.

BTW...I'm currently installing Zabbix on yet another production environment. This one has a little over 2000 hosts + associated network infrastructure. There's no limit to the ways I'll look to save time when the host lists are this long. I'd imagine many sysadmins are similarly selectively active.

[Niels]

I agree with Alexei.

@ r3dn3ck: You're asking for a simple SQL to do updates on the Zabbix database. That's the wrong way of solving the problem, imo. What you should be asking for is a simple Zabbix function call to do it -- we need a Zabbix API, so that Zabbix can safely abstract away the details of the database.

[r3dn3ck]

you are correct... an API would be groovy. Alexei, thoughts? Even rolling out pieces of it at a time would be cool.

[nelsonab]

I agree with this. A SOAP or XMLRPC interface would be awesome! I also think this would greatly improve and speed the ability to create interoperability with other systems.

[lamont]

Yep, I'm another 2,000-host user that would like some kind of web services API in addition to the php frontend. XML-RESTish, XML-RPC-ish or SOAP would be fine.

[hwinkel]

Soap

I defintly vote for a API as well. We just evaluate for 200 Host n*****s replacement, and a API is a major requirement for us

[nelsonab]

Already in the works. :-)

[teferi]

Agreed with all above, because what I'm now doing - is writing somekind tool, which alters zabbix db. And having a developer-provided API would be much more reliable =)

[Alexei]

I would like to understand API requirements before starting doing anything. What functions the API would provide?

[r3dn3ck]

I would like to be able to add/remove/change hosts, templates, and groups from it. I don't need to administer items or triggers or most other things from the API (nor do I see a lot of sense in that, since those can be messed with pretty perfectly in the web interface)

add/change/remove hosts
add/change/remove host profile data
add/change/remove host group assignment
add/change/remove host template assignment
Enable/Disable monitoring on HOST(x)
Enable/Disable monitoring on template members (all hosts in a template affected)
Enable/Disable monitoring on group members (all hosts in a group affected)

Being able to apply templates to large numbers of hosts is the single most critical item to me. All my hosts get items assigned to them based on function, each function has a template. This would make adding a template to 500+ hosts at a time so much easier. We can't link groups since we use groups too identify which property(ies) the server is working under.

A faster way of creating maps would be slick too (but it's a purely nice-to-have). Perhaps if I could feed an XML with grid coordinates and boundaries to the API it load it into the DB faster than I can click and select.

[xs-]

A nice talk about an API.

Pease add the following to the wishlist also
- User management
- UserGroup management (including add/remove permissions for nodes/hostgroups/hosts
- Action mgt (tricky i know)