Book Image

Zabbix Network Monitoring - Second Edition

By : Rihards Olups, Rihards Olups, Rihards Olups
Book Image

Zabbix Network Monitoring - Second Edition

By: Rihards Olups, Rihards Olups, Rihards Olups

Overview of this book

This book is a perfect starting point for monitoring with Zabbix. Even if you have never used a monitoring solution before, this book will get you up and running quickly, before guiding you into more sophisticated operations with ease. You'll soon feel in complete control of your network, ready to meet any challenges you might face. Beginning with installation, you'll learn the basics of data collection before diving deeper to get to grips with native Zabbix agents and SNMP devices. You will also explore Zabbix's integrated functionality for monitoring Java application servers and VMware. Beyond this, Zabbix Network Monitoring also covers notifications, permission management, system maintenance, and troubleshooting - so you can be confident that every potential challenge and task is under your control. If you're working with larger environments, you'll also be able to find out more about distributed data collection using Zabbix proxies. Once you're confident and ready to put these concepts into practice, you'll find out how to optimize and improve performance. Troubleshooting network issues is vital for anyone working with Zabbix, so the book is also on hand to help you work through any technical snags and glitches you might face. Network monitoring doesn't have to be a chore - learn the tricks of the Zabbix trade and make sure you're network is performing for everyone who depends upon it.

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Zabbix Network Monitoring - Second Edition
Rihards Olups | Rihards Olups | Rihards Olups
Aug, 2016 | 754 pages
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Table of Contents (32 chapters)
Zabbix Network Monitoring Second Edition
Zabbix Network Monitoring Second Edition
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Getting Started with Zabbix
Getting Started with Zabbix
The first steps in monitoring
Zabbix features and architecture
Installation
Summary
2
Getting Your First Notification
Getting Your First Notification
Exploring the frontend
Monitoring quickstart
Information flow in Zabbix
Let's create some load
Basic item configuration
Using global search
Summary
3
Monitoring with Zabbix Agents and Basic Protocols
Monitoring with Zabbix Agents and Basic Protocols
Using the Zabbix agent
Simple checks
Tying it all together
Summary
4
Monitoring SNMP Devices
Monitoring SNMP Devices
Using Net-SNMP
Adding new MIBs
Polling SNMP items in Zabbix
Receiving SNMP traps
Summary
5
Managing Hosts, Users, and Permissions
Managing Hosts, Users, and Permissions
Hosts and host groups
Users, user groups, and permissions
Summary
6
Detecting Problems with Triggers
Detecting Problems with Triggers
Triggers
Summary
7
Acting upon Monitored Conditions
Acting upon Monitored Conditions
Actions
Global scripts
Summary
8
Simplifying Complex Configurations with Templates
Simplifying Complex Configurations with Templates
Identifying template candidates
Creating a template
Linking templates to hosts
Using multiple templates
Using mass update
Nested templates
Summary
9
Visualizing Data with Graphs and Maps
Visualizing Data with Graphs and Maps
Visualize what?
Individual elements
Summary
10
Visualizing Data with Screens and Slideshows
Visualizing Data with Screens and Slideshows
Screens
Slide shows
Showing data on a big display
Summary
11
Advanced Item Monitoring
Advanced Item Monitoring
Log file monitoring
Reusing data on the server
User parameters
External checks
Sending in the data
SSH and Telnet items
Custom modules
Summary
12
Automating Configuration
Automating Configuration
Low-level discovery
Global regular expressions
Network discovery
Active agent autoregistration
Summary
13
Monitoring Web Pages
Monitoring Web Pages
Monitoring a simple web page
Logging in to the Zabbix interface
Authentication options
Using agent items
Summary
14
Monitoring Windows
Monitoring Windows
Installing the Zabbix agent for Windows
Querying performance counters
Querying WMI
Monitoring Windows services
Windows event log monitoring
Summary
15
High-Level Business Service Monitoring
High-Level Business Service Monitoring
Deciding on the service tree
Setting up IT services
Viewing reports
Specifying uptime and downtime
Summary
16
Monitoring IPMI Devices
Monitoring IPMI Devices
Getting an IPMI device
Preparing for IPMI monitoring
Setting up IPMI items
Monitoring discrete sensors
Summary
17
Monitoring Java Applications
Monitoring Java Applications
Setting up the Zabbix Java gateway
Monitoring JMX items
Summary
18
Monitoring VMware
Monitoring VMware
Preparing for VMware monitoring
Automatic discovery
Available metrics
The underlying operation
Summary
19
Using Proxies to Monitor Remote Locations
Using Proxies to Monitor Remote Locations
Active proxy, passive proxy
Setting up an active proxy
Proxy benefits
Proxy limitations
Proxies and availability monitoring
Setting up a passive proxy
Tweaking the proxy configuration
Summary
20
Encrypting Zabbix Traffic
Encrypting Zabbix Traffic
Overview
Pre-shared key encryption
Certificate-based encryption
Concerns and further reading
Summary
21
Working Closely with Data
Working Closely with Data
Getting raw data
Diving further into the database
Using XML import/export for configuration
Starting with the Zabbix API
Summary
22
Zabbix Maintenance
Zabbix Maintenance
Internal monitoring
Backing things up
Upgrading Zabbix
Performance considerations
Who did that?
Exploring configuration file parameters
Summary
Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting
Chapter introduction
Common issues
Troubleshooting Zabbix
Being Part of the Community
Being Part of the Community
Community and support
Following the development
Translating Zabbix
Commercial support options
Index
Index

External checks

All the check categories we explored before cover a very wide range of possible devices, but there's always that one which doesn't play well with standard monitoring protocols, can't have the agent installed, and is buggy in general. A real-life example would be a UPS that provides temperature information on the web interface, but does not provide this data over SNMP. Or maybe we would like to collect some information remotely that Zabbix does not support yet—for example, monitoring how much time an SSL certificate has until it expires.

In Zabbix, such information can be collected with external checks or external scripts. While user parameters are scripts run by the Zabbix agent, external check scripts are run directly by the Zabbix server.

First, we should figure out the command to find out the remaining certificate validity period. We have at least two options here:

  • Return the time when the certificate expires

  • Return 0 or 1 to identify that the certificate expires in some period...

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