A host template is very similar to a regular host. Both are collections of items, triggers, graphs, screens, and low-level discovery rules. Both need a unique name just as any other entity in Zabbix. Both can belong to one or more groups. The crucial difference is that a host has one or more means to be contacted so that the Zabbix server can actually take item measurements on it, as illustrated in Chapter 4, Collecting Data. These can be one or more IP addresses, or host names, that represent agent interfaces, or SNMP, JMX, and IPMI ones. So, a host is an object that the Zabbix server will ask for information to or wait for data from. A template, on the other hand, doesn't have any access interface, so the Zabbix server will never try to check whether a template is alive or ask it for the latest item measurements.

The creation of a template is very straightforward, and there is not much to say about it. You navigate to the Configuration | Templates tab and click on the...