When we are network or systems administrators, IT staff or members of a support team, it is ideal to know the different options we have for a correct and optimal system administration and what better way to achieve this if it is not with monitoring utilities of the system ..
There are hundreds of these utilities and each one has something in particular for that reason we must use those that offer us the best advantages and analysis of all the elements of the system so that in this way the administration is total.
Within these complete tools we have Zabbix, which is open source and has been developed with a total approach to monitoring the distributions in which it can be executed.
On this day, TechnoWikis will analyze how to use Zabbix in Debian 9..
If you do not have Debian 9, we can download it from the following link:
Debian
What is Zabbix?
Zabbix is ​​a free open source tool that has been in the market for more than 19 years, which is a state-of-the-art application focused and created for real-time monitoring of millions of metrics that can be taken from thousands of servers, machines virtual or network devices within an organization which makes Zabbix the ideal solution for both small and large companies.
Zabbix makes use of a flexible notification mechanism which allows users to configure certain alerts that can be sent to email in any event that occurs in the system, with this option, we can be aware of any changes that occur on the server . With Zabbix, we have various reporting and data visualization functions based on stored items.
All reports and statistics offered by Zabbix, as well as the configuration parameters, can be accessed through a web-based interface. Which guarantees that the state of the network and the state of the servers can be evaluated from any location without having to be physically in place..
Its web front end is written in PHP, the back end is written in C and uses MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Oracle or IBM DB2 to store the data to be analyzed.
1. Zabbix features
Zabbix offers various features for data management and can be divided into categories as follows:
Data collection
- Availability and performance checks in real time
- It has support for SNMP (capture and polling), IPMI, JMX, VMware monitoring and more.
- You can capture specific data at custom time intervals
- Analysis by server / proxy and agents
Flexible threshold definitions
With Zabbix it will be possible to define problem thresholds in a flexible way, called triggers, which refer to backend database values.
Configurable alerts
- All shipping notifications can be customized for the escalation schedule, recipient, media type and other parameters.
- Notifications in Zabbix can be made more useful using macro variables.
- It is possible to execute automatic actions include remote commands.
Real time graphics
All elements monitored with Zabbix are automatically plotted using the built-in graphics function.
Web monitoring capability
With Zabbix you can follow a route of simulated mouse clicks on a website and check their functionality and response time.
Various display options
- Zabbix is ​​in the ability to create custom graphics that can be combined several elements in a single view.
- We can create network maps.
- Option to use multiple custom screens and slide shows for an overview of the data.
- High level (business) view of monitored resources
Historical data storage
- Zabbix preserves the data stored in a database
- All history is configurable
- It has a built-in cleaning procedure
Simple setup
- It is simple to add devices to be monitored as hosts
- All hosts are defined for monitoring, only once in the database
- We can apply templates to monitored devices
Network detection
- With Zabbix, automatic discovery of network devices is possible
- Zabbix creates automatic agent registration
- We can run the discovery of file systems, network interfaces and SNMP OID.
Other features
Additional we find other features like:
- Integration with third party software
- Scalability without limit
- Data encryption options and more.
Monitoring elements
Some of Zabbix's monitoring elements are:
- Number of abnormal TCO connections
- System status when in warning / critical state
- When the device temperature is too high / too low
- The power supply is in critical condition
- The fan is in critical condition
- There is no SNMP data collection
- New devices added or removed
- The network module is added, deleted or replaced
- The firmware has been updated
- The serial number of the device has changed.
- The interface has changed to low speed or half-duplex mode
Zabbix can be installed in the following distributions:
Now we will see how to install Zabbix on Debian 9.
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