Chapter 1. Installing a Distributed Zabbix Setup

Most likely, if you are reading this book, you have already used and installed Zabbix as a network monitoring solution. Now, in this chapter, we will see how to install Zabbix in a distributed setup, eventually moving on to a large use of proxies. The chapter will take you through all the possible scenarios and explain the main differences between the active and passive proxy setup. Usually, the first Zabbix installation is done as a part of the concept to see whether the platform is good enough for you. Here, the common error is to start using this setup on a large production environment. After reading this chapter, you will be ready to install and set up a large environment ready infrastructure.

In this chapter, we will explain how to prepare and set up a Zabbix installation, which is ready to be grown within your infrastructure, and ready for a large to a very large environment. This book is mainly focused on Zabbix for network monitoring. This chapter will quickly take you through the installation process, emphasizing on all the most important points you need to consider. In the next chapter, we will spend more time describing a better approach to monitor your network devices and how to retrieve all the critical metrics from them. After reading this chapter, you will become aware of the communication between server and proxies being able to mix the active and passive setup in order to improve your infrastructure. You can extend the strong central Zabbix core setup with many lightweight and effective Zabbix proxies acting as a satellite inside your network to improve your monitoring system.