6.

DAY 5

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved
 COPYRIGHT NOTICE
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This course is intended only for the officially enrolled student. Subject to the Copyright Notice below, the student is not allowed to
share his credentials for attending this course, to allow others to join and take part, or otherwise make use of these Materials.

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© Zabbix, 2022. All rights reserved.
Unless otherwise indicated, Zabbix owns the copyright and other intellectual property rights in the text, graphics, information,
designs, data, verbal/audio/video presentations and files, comments, drawings, exam questions and exam answers, and other
training content, lab manuals and practical tasks, and training courses themselves (further – Materials).
The Materials are protected by watermarks, copyright statements, and other means. It is prohibited to remove any of watermarks
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All course Materials made available to the student during the course of the training may be used solely by the student enrolled in
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The student acknowledges that damages alone would not be an adequate remedy for the breach of this copyright and the student
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Copyright notice.

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 2
 AGENDA
Real time data
Graphs Network maps
export

Administrative
Dashboards Reporting services
settings

Zabbix Zabbix releases

Certification
performance and upgrade

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 Real-time Data Export

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved 10 minutes 4
 DATA EXPORT
Zabbix can export historical data in JSON format in real time:
Events, history and trends can be exported
Data is written to files additionally to storing into database

MySQL
PostgreSQL
Oracle

History

Trends

Events

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 5
 DATA EXPORT SETTINGS
ExportDir must be specified to enable data export
The directory must exist
Zabbix server must have write permission for this directory

### Option: ExportDir

# Directory for real time export of events, history and trends in newline delimited JSON format.
# If set, enables real time export.
ExportDir=/home/zabbix/export

It is possible to specify which data types to export:

Events
History
Trends
### Option: ExportType
# List of comma delimited types of real time export - allows to control export entities by their
# type (events, history, trends) individually.
ExportType=events,history,trends

! Exporting history may lead to huge data size and IOPS on your file storage!

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 6
 DATA EXPORT FILES
Each Zabbix process writes data to its own file:
One file per each writing process is started:
history-history-syncer-1.ndjson
history-history-syncer-2.ndjson
etc.
Default limit per file is 1G (no free disk space: the server just stops)

### Option: ExportFileSize

# Maximum size per export file in bytes. Only used for rotation if ExportDir is set.
# Range: 1M-1G
ExportFileSize=100M

Value mappings and units are not applied to exported data:

{"clock":1529673721,"ns":690523076,"value":1,"eventid":44364,"name":"Service
is not available","hosts":["Linux 009"],"groups":["Linux servers”],"tags":
[{"tag":"Service","value":"Jira"},{"tag":"Env","value":"Production"},
{"tag":"Datacenter","value":"NY2"}]}

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 7
 PRACTICAL SETUP
1) Configure real-time export of problems and trends only
Location: /tmp/zabbix_export
Limit maximum file size to 50 MB
2) Generate a problem
Make sure that Zabbix writes event data to the files
3) Stop Zabbix server
Make sure that Zabbix writes trends data to the files

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved 10 minutes Practical task No: 38 8
 Graphs

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 GRAPHS OVERVIEW
Graphs provide an easy way to look deep into history and compare data:
Create visual representation of data instead of viewing plain numbers
Trace when a problem has started
Compare different metrics on a single graph to correlate problems

Zabbix provides users with:

Built-in simple graphs of single item data
Ad-hoc graphs to quickly compare several items
Complex customized graphs
Modern customizable vector graphs.

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 10
 SIMPLE GRAPHS
Simple graphs can be displayed on the fly for any numerical metric:
Accessible from the Monitoring > Latest data frontend section
Simply click on the Graph link for the respective item to open the graph
It is possible to zoom in by selecting time period with a mouse
Graph links

Zoom in

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 11
 ON DEMAND GRAPHS
It is possible to display graphs from multiple items on demand:
Select multiple items by using checkboxes
Press Display stacked graph or Display graph at the bottom of the page

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 12
 TIME PERIOD SELECTOR
All graphs have time period selector:
Allows to select common required periods with a single mouse click
The From/To fields display the selected period using:
Absolute time syntax in yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss format: 2022-01-16 06:41:39
Relative time syntax from current time: now-1d, now-1w, now-1d-2h+5m

Define custom time Use built-in time periods

periods

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 13
 RAW VALUE VIEW
Graph views has possibility to switch to raw value view
Choose graph or values view
Values view can be displayed also as a plain text

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 14
 CREATING GRAPHS
Custom graphs are configured manually on a host or template
Normal, Stacked, Pie or Exploded graph formats are available
Graphs allows to save predefined options (dimension, scale, line colors etc.)
Different Y axis sides can be used for different metrics
When designing a graph on a host quick preview is available

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 15
 DYNAMIC GRAPH NAMES
Dynamic graph names can be created by using Expression macros
Expression macros are supported in this field
Only last, min, max and avg functions may be used with time as parameter
{?function(/host/key,time period)} {?avg(/Production server/system.cpu.load,1h)}
{HOST.HOST<1-9>} macros are supported for usage within this macro
{?function(/{HOST.HOST}/key,time period)}
Current host may be skipped
{?function(//key,time period)} {?avg(//system.cpu.load,1h)}

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 16
 ACCESSING GRAPHS
Custom graphs can be accessed from Monitoring -> Hosts
Click on Graphs Graphs

Display all graphs for host or use Filter

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 17
 PRACTICAL SETUP
1) On The Template Basic
Create a new graph for Network traffic and CPU load
Add incoming and outgoing traffic on the left Y axis
Add CPU load on the right Y axis

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved 10 minutes Practical task No: 39 18
 Network Maps

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 MAPS OVERVIEW
Network maps allow graphical representation of real-time data:
Hosts can be placed on a map using different icons
Hosts can be connected by links representing their connections
Icon status or link color on the map is changed automatically in case a problem occurs
Scripts, dashboards and other pages are accessible
Multi-level hierarchy of maps is possible

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 20
 ACCESS TO MAPS
Maps are accessible through Monitoring -> Maps frontend section:
Viewing and creating new maps is available to all Zabbix user types by default
Access to maps is limited based on
Private or public map type
User permissions
It is possible to use User roles to remove
Access to any maps at all
Possibility to create new maps
Maps can be imported/exported and cloned

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 21
 CREATE MAP
Press Create map button to create a new map and define properties:
Owner (creator by default)
Map name
Dimensions
Custom background image
Icon options:
Automatic mapping
Highlighting
Behavior
Label type and location
Problem displaying options:
Minimum trigger severity
Show suppressed problems
URLs for map elements

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 22
 PRIVATE AND PUBLIC MAPS
A map can be created as private or public:
Private allows to set individual (user or user group) access settings
Public automatically enables "Read-only" sharing for all users

User groups

Individual users

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 23
 PERMISSIONS ON MAP ELEMENTS
If a user has no permissions to an element on the map:
Element icon is still displayed, but is grayed out
All textual information is hidden or marked as *UNKNOWN*

User has at least read-only

permission to all hosts

User has no permissions

on host2 and host3

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 24
 CUSTOM IMAGES
Administration -> Images allows to upload custom images
Custom icons for map elements
Custom background pictures

The following formats are supported

PNG
JPEG
GIF (animation is supported)
Other formats may be converted to PNG automatically during upload (depends on php-gd
library version)

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 25
 MAP CONSTRUCTOR
Map constructor is used to place objects on maps:
Elements (host, host group, image, map, trigger)
Each type has its own set of properties
Shape (rectangle, ellipse, line)
Customize the background/border
Add text and customize the look, layout, size
Link (select two elements)
Customize the look and the label
Can change color based on triggers

Gride size can be adjusted:

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 26
 MAP LABELS
Map element labels can be used to display dynamic information:
Built-in macros are supported
Expression macros can be used to display live data
Only avg, last, min and max functions may be used with time as parameter
Expand macros option controls how macros are displayed on the constructor page

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 27
 MAP LINKS
Map elements can be connected using links:
Select two hosts and click on "Link: Add"
A green line will appear representing the link

A label can be added to the link to display additional information

Expression macros are supported to display live information
{HOST.*} macros cannot be used
link belongs to two hosts

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 28
 LINK TYPE AND COLORS
Default link type and color can be adjusted:
Line, bold line, dotted and dashed line types are available

Link type and color may be changed automatically if problems are detected:
Choose triggers to use custom link indicators
Define line type and color for each trigger

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 29
 PROBLEM DISPLAYING ON MAPS

Expand single problem Number of problems Number of problems and expand most critical one

Problem display All Separated Unacknowledged only

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 30
 PRACTICAL SETUP
1) Create a new map named "Training map"
2) Add your own machine to the map as a host
Create label displaying hostname, CPU usage and free memory
Use macros in the label
3) Clone the existing host to add two more student machines
Check that labels are displaying information properly
4) Create a new element representing a router (Image)
5) Create links from student machines to the switch
Add labels to links displaying network traffic

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved 20 minutes Practical task No: 40 31
 Dashboards

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved 10 minutes 32
 DASHBOARDS
Dashboards are designed to display summaries of all the important information:
Unlimited number of dashboards can be configured

A dashboard may contain one or several pages, which can be rotated in a

slideshow:
A dashboard page consists of one or multiple widgets
Each widget is designed to display information of a certain kind and source:
Graphs
Maps
Data display
Problem views
Clocks
Other

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 33
 MANAGING DASHBOARDS
Dashboards are accessible through Monitoring -> Dashboards frontend section:

Access to dashboards is limited based on:

Private or public dashboard type
User permissions

It is possible to use User roles to remove

access to any dashboards at all
possibility to create new dashboards

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 34
 DASHBOARD SHARING TAGS
Dashboards owned by the current user are displayed with a sharing tag:
My
My private dashboards
Shared
Shared public dashboards or a private dashboards shared with other users

Tags are not displayed for dashboards owned by other users

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 35
 CREATING A DASHBOARD
Press Create dashboard to create a new dashboard and define properties:
Owner
Name
Slideshow options

For already created dashboards, multiple controls are available

Edit dashboard edit, add, remove or rearrange widgets on the dashboard
actions menu (sharing options, clone, delete reporting options etc.)
switch to kiosk mode

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 36
 DASHBOARD WIDGETS
Dashboards are fully based on widgets:
More than 20 different widgets are available
Each widget has unique configuration options or filters
Custom refresh interval can be defined for each widget
Widgets can be arranged on 24-column grid
Widgets can be dragged, dropped, rearranged and resized

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 37
 DASHBOARD PAGES
A dashboard may have multiple pages:
Each page has a name and display period (used in slideshow)
Start/stop slideshow button will appear if multiple pages are created
Pages can be copy / pasted to quickly clone existing ones
Only the first page can be used to generate reports

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 38
 HOST DASHBOARDS
It is possible to create dashboards for a host:
Host dashboards display data about the host only
They are configured on the template level and then generated for linked hosts
Only a limited number of widgets is supported

Accessing host dashboards is different from global dashboards:

Cannot be accessed from the Monitoring → Dashboard section
Can be accessed from the host menu that is available in many frontend locations

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 39
 Dashboard widgets

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved 20 minutes 40
 ITEM VALUE WIDGET
Item value widget allows to display information for a single item
Description
Time
Value
Change indicator

Advanced configuration options are available:

Custom description using macros
Custom colors for different elements
Custom position for value and labels (top, bottom, middle etc)

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 41
 TOP HOSTS WIDGET
Top hosts widget displays hosts with the highest values for some metric:
Possible to select host groups or individual hosts
Hosts can be filtered using tag names and values
Possible to specify number of hosts (default is 10)

Metrics are specified using Columns parameter:

Choose column label
Choose one or multiple metrics
Choose which column is used to order the results
Specify priority (Top N or Bottom N metrics)

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 42
 TOP HOSTS WIDGET
Top hosts widget can display information in three different ways:
Values as is
Using bars
Using indicators

Thresholds are defined on the widget level:

Multiple thresholds using custom colors are allowed
Thresholds defined on the widget are not associated with any trigger thresholds

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 43
 CLOCK WIDGET
Clock widget can display local time for:
Browser (workstation time)
Currently logged in user
Specified host using
system.localtime[local] item is used
An item must exist on the host

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 44
 GRAPH WIDGET
Graph widget provides a modern and versatile way of visualizing collected data:
Vector image drawing technique is used
Different draw types can be combined:
Line (set by default)
Points
Staircase
Bar
It is possible to customize:
Base color
Line width, point size or fill level
Transparency level
Aggregation functionality supports:
Functions (min, avg, sum, count, last, etc.)
Custom aggregation intervals
Each item or entire data set aggregation

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 45
 GRAPH WIDGET
Graph widget is based on data sets, which have:
Host and item patterns (wildcard * may be used)
Base color
Draw style (line, points, staircase or bar)
Draw parameters (width, transparency etc.)
Missing data display options
Y-axis location
Time shift
Data aggregation options

Multiple data sets can be used

Each dataset may have different options

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 46
 GRAPH WIDGET SETTINGS
Graph widget has a lot of additional settings:
Displaying option (auto, history or trends data)
Custom time period
Show or hide Left Y, Right Y and X axis
Left Y and Right Y axis options (min, max, units)
Legend settings (show/hide, number of rows)
Display problems on graphs with filters
Overrides based on host or item pattern

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 47
 HOST AVAILABILITY WIDGET
Host availability widget displays high-level statistics:
Four colored columns or lines are used
Host availability in each column/line is counted as follows:
Available hosts with all interfaces available
Not available hosts with at least one interface unavailable
Unknown hosts with at least one interface unknown (none unavailable)
Total total of all hosts

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 48
 MAP WIDGETS
In the map widget you can display either:
A single configured network map
One of the configured network maps in the map navigation tree

Map navigation tree widget allows building a hierarchy of existing maps:

Problem statistics are also displayed with each included map and map group
Map widget can be linked to the navigation tree to display selected map

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 49
 GEOMAP WIDGET
Geomap widget displays hosts as markers on a geographical map:
Zabbix offers multiple predefined map tile service providers
A custom tile service provider or even host tiles can be added
Administration → General → Geographical maps menu section
When the widget loads initially it is possible to specify:
Comma-separated map center coordinates
Optional zoom level
Format <latitude>,<longitude>,<zoom>

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 50
 GEOMAP WIDGET
Geomap displays all enabled hosts that have Latitude and Longitude defined:
Corresponding inventory fields are used

It is possible to configure host filtering in the widget parameters:

Display only predefined hosts
Display only hosts from some host groups

Hosts can be filtered by problem severity

Host markers displayed on the map have:

The host's most serious problem color
Green color if a host has no problems

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 51
 PRACTICAL SETUP
1) Create a new dashboard named "Training dashboard":
Add clock widget that shows Zabbix server time
Add host availability widget
Add "Item value" widget that displays Available memory on Zabbix server
Change background, clock and item value colors for "Item value"
Add top hosts widget that shows available memory using bars with colored threshold
Add top hosts widget that shows CPU utilization on Zabbix server using bars with thresholds
Add map navigation tree and a linked map widget
2) Add a second dashboard page
Add a graph widget for incoming network traffic on all Training-VM servers

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved 30 minutes Practical task No: 41 52
 Reporting services

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved 20 minutes 53
 SCHEDULED REPORTS
It is possible to automatically generate and send scheduled reports:
Additional components are required
Zabbix web service (TCP 10053 by default)
Google chrome browser (headless is enough)
Reports are based on dashboards
For multi-paged dashboards only the first page can be used

10053

Zabbix server Zabbix web service PDF report Email recipient

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 54
 ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE COMPONENTS
Additional software components must be installed:
On the same machine where Zabbix server is installed
On a different machine (Google Chrome must be installed together with web service)
# dnf install -y zabbix-web-service

# vi /etc/yum.repos.d/google-chrome.repo

[google-chrome]
name=google-chrome
baseurl=http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/rpm/stable/$basearch
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub

# dnf install -y google-chrome-stable

On the same machine On separate machine

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 55
 CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS
Zabbix server has new configuration parameters:
StartReportWriters how many reports can be requested in parallel
WebServiceURL Zabbix web service location

### Option: StartReportWriters

# Number of pre-forked report writer instances.
StartReportWriters=2

### Option: WebServiceURL

# URL to Zabbix web service, used to perform web related tasks.
WebServiceURL=http://web-services.example.com:10053/report

Zabbix web service has its own configuration file

Located at /etc/zabbix/zabbix_web_service.conf
### Option: AllowedIP
# List of comma delimited IP addresses, optionally in CIDR notation, or DNS names of Zabbix servers
AllowedIP=zbx.example.com

### Option: ListenPort

# Service will listen on this port for connections from the server.
ListenPort=10053

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 56
 FRONTEND URL
Zabbix frontend URL must be specified in Administration > General > Other
This URL is used by Zabbix web service to generate dashboard screenshots

zabbix.example.com

report generation request

zbx.example.com web-services.example.com

StartReportWriters=3 AllowedIP=zbx.example.com
WebServiceURL=http://web-services.example.com:10053/report ListenPort=10053

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 57
 SCHEDULED REPORTS SECTION
Reports -> Scheduled reports frontend section is used to schedule reports
Zabbix server time zone is used for report generation
Custom periods are supported (previous day, week, month or year)
Reports can be sent daily, weekly (on chosen days), monthly or yearly
Report generation time can be specified
Report generation can be
started or stopped after specific date
{TIME} macro is supported in
Subject field
Message field

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 58
 REPORT GENERATION AND RECIPIENTS
A report will look the same as the requested dashboard:
By default, a report is generated using permissions of current user
A report can be generated on behalf of a recipient also
If a user who generates the report lacks permissions to some dashboard objects, they will be
empty
Recipients are added to subscriptions section
Recipients do not require any permissions
Users or user groups may be used
Some users may be excluded as recipients if user groups are used
All user must be created as Zabbix users with configured email media

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 59
 PRACTICAL SETUP
1) On your virtual machine
Install zabbix-web-service package and start it
Install headless google chrome
2) Create a scheduled report
Send the Training dashboard to your email address

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved 15 minutes Practical task No: 42 60
 Global Administrative Settings

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved 20 minutes 61
 GLOBAL GUI SETTINGS
Global GUI settings affect all users:
Default language, time zone and theme
Limit for search and filter results
No more than this number of rows is returned
Affects Configuration -> Hosts, Configuration -> Items
and other pages

Maximum number of elements displayed inside table cell:

Show warning if Zabbix server is down:

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 62
 WORKING TIME
Working time only changes background color for "classic" graphs and graph
widgets:
This setting does not affect services, maintenance, media or other parameters!
Modern graph widgets in dashboards are not affected

Working time Non-working time

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 63
 MORE GLOBAL GUI SETTINGS
Display technical PHP/SQL errors for all users
Maximum time period for which to display historical data in
Monitoring subsections: Latest data, Web
Data overview dashboard widget
Time period to be used in graphs and dashboards by default
Maximum available time period for graphs and dashboards

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 64
 GLOBAL REGULAR EXPRESSIONS
Global regular expressions can be defined to reuse them later:
Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE) are supported
An expression can be used in several places by referring to its name prefixed with "@"

reference regex

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 65
 CREATING GLOBAL REGULAR EXPRESSIONS
Press [New regular expression] button to add a new expression
If several subexpressions are defined, Zabbix uses AND operator to calculate the result.
Test tab allows to test expressions with any test string you provide.
Templates that are using Global regular expressions will be not self-sustained

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 66
 HOUSEKEEPER SETTINGS
Housekeeping settings affect Zabbix housekeeper:
Housekeeper can be enabled or disabled for different data
Events (trigger, service, internal, autoregistration, network discovery)
Services data
User sessions
History
Trends
Audit log
Custom data periods can be specified for different data types
It is possible to globally override history or trend storage period
This will affect all items on entire Zabbix instance

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 67
 Zabbix server health

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved 30 minutes 68
 ZABBIX INTERNAL MONITORING
Use Zabbix to monitor health of Zabbix itself:
Zabbix has self-monitor process which calculates statistics about different components
Internal item keys are used to collect data:
zabbix[<parameters>]
On fresh installations "Zabbix server" host is created and monitored

Out-of-the-box templates are available for server and proxy monitoring

"Zabbix server health" and "Zabbix proxy health"
"Remote Zabbix server health" and "Remote Zabbix proxy health"
Local and remote monitoring is discussed in ZCP 6.0 course

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 69
 BUILT-IN HEALTH DASHBOARD
Use built-in Zabbix server health dashboard to monitor performance:
Usage of caches (configuration, history, value, etc.)
How busy are internal processes (history syncer, housekeeper, timer, etc.)
How busy are data collectors (pollers, trappers, icmp pingers, etc.)

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 70
 DATA COLLECTORS
Typical data collectors are: ### Option: StartPollers
# Number of pre-forked instances of pollers.
Pollers: # Range: 0-1000
Zabbix passive agent StartPollers=30

SNMP checks
### Option: StartTrappers
HTTP items # Number of pre-forked instances of trappers.
Trappers: # Range: 0-1000
StartTrappers=20
Zabbix active agent
Zabbix sender ### Option: StartPollersUnreachable
Active proxies # Number of pre-forked pollers for unreachable hosts
# Range: 0-1000
Unreachable pollers: StartPollersUnreachable=10

Pollers for unreachable hosts

### Option: StartPingers
ICMP pingers: # Number of pre-forked instances of ICMP pingers.
# Range: 0-1000
Performs ICMP ping requests StartPingers=5
HTTP pollers:
Web scenarios ### Option: StartHTTPPollers
# Number of pre-forked instances of HTTP pollers.
# Range: 0-1000
StartHTTPPollers=2

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 71
 INTERNAL PROCESSES
Important internal processes: ### Option: StartPreprocessors
# Number of instances of preprocessing workers.
Preprocessing workers # Range: 1-1000
Performs preprocessing tasks StartPreprocessors=5

Manager is started automatically

### Option: StartDBSyncers
History syncers # Number of pre-forked instances of DB Syncers.
# Range: 1-100
Process triggers StartDBSyncers=4
Writes information into database
Timers ### Option: StartTimers
# Number of pre-forked instances of timers.
Manages maintenance # Range: 1-1000
StartTimers=1
History pollers
Calculated checks ### Option: StartHistoryPollers
# Number of pre-forked instances of history pollers.
LLD workers # Range: 0-1000
Process LLD rules StartHistoryPollers=5
Manager is started automatically
### Option: StartLLDProcessors
# Number of low level discovery processors.
# Range: 1-100
StartLLDProcessors=2

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 72
 INTERNAL PROCESSES AND CACHES
More internal processes: ### Option: StartEscalators
# Number of pre-forked instances of escalators.
Escalators # Range: 0-100
Process action steps StartEscalators=1

Alerters ### Option: StartAlerters

Send out alerts # Number of pre-forked instances of alerters.
# Range: 0-100
Manager is started automatically StartAlerters=3
Alert syncer is started automatically
Proxy pollers ### Option: StartProxyPollers
# Number of instances of pollers for passive proxies.
Passive proxies # Range: 0-250
StartProxyPollers=4

Caches store important data: ### Option: CacheSize

# Size of configuration cache, in bytes.
Configuration cache # Range: 128K-64G
Stores monitoring configuration CacheSize=4G

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 73
 INTERNAL CACHES
More important caches: ### Option: HistoryCacheSize
# Size of history cache, in bytes.
History cache # Range: 128K-2G
Values before writing into DB HistoryCacheSize=512M

History index cache ### Option: HistoryIndexCacheSize

Indexes history cache # Size of history index cache, in bytes.
# Range: 128K-2G
Trends cache HistoryIndexCacheSize=128M
Trends before writing into DB
### Option: TrendCacheSize
Trend function cache # Size of trend write cache, in bytes.
Used for trend* functions # Range: 128K-2G
TrendCacheSize=256M
Value cache
Used for trigger calculation ### Option: TrendFunctionCacheSize
# Size of trend function cache, in bytes.
# Range: 128K-2G
TrendFunctionCacheSize=64M

### Option: ValueCacheSize

# Size of history value cache, in bytes.
# Range: 0,128K-64G
ValueCacheSize=2G

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 74
 CONFIGURATION TUNING
The default Zabbix server configuration is not suitable for serious production

Tune Zabbix configuration files accordingly to self-monitoring data:

Adjust the number of data collectors and internal processes (~ 60% utilized)
Increase sizes of caches (40% - 60% free)
Change timeout settings to match environment

Read Zabbix server log files to detect additional issues:

# tail -f /var/log/zabbix/zabbix-server.log

173731.602 error reason for "Production server:system.localtime" changed: Value of type "string" is not suitable
for value type "Numeric (unsigned)".
071934.422 item "Windows host:system.sw.packages" became not supported: Cannot obtain package information
113111.073 enabling Zabbix agent checks on host "Prod-1": interface became available
141142.374 failed to send email: Login denied
170136.906 cannot connect to proxy "Tokyo proxy": cannot connect to [[10.20.30.40]:10051]: Connection timed out

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 75
 Zabbix queue

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved 15 minutes 76
 ZABBIX QUEUE
The Queue is for expected arrival of values:
Shows the number of delayed items per type
Displays only items with update intervals

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 77
 RETRIEVING ZABBIX QUEUE
Queue is retrieved directly from Zabbix server:
Frontend connects to Zabbix server trapper port (10051) to get the queue
Zabbix server address and port must be properly configured in the frontend

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 78
 QUEUE DETAILS
More detailed queue information can be displayed:
Queue per proxy

Details per each delayed item

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 79
 PROXY QUEUE EXAMPLE

Where is the data

from
New York Proxy?

New York proxy

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 80
 WHY THERE IS A QUEUE?
The most typical reasons for a queue:
Zabbix agent or proxy server is down
Active or passive agent misconfiguration
Network issues or slow item checks
Not enough data collectors started

The queue does not display:

Unsupported items
Items which are already collected but not fully processed by Zabbix:
Stuck in preprocessing queue
Stored in history cache and not written to the database yet

Queue counters are reset when Zabbix server is restarted

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 81
 Zabbix releases

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved 15 minutes 82
 ZABBIX RELEASE POLICY
Zabbix has LTS (long time support), major and minor releases:
4.0, 5.0, 6.0 are major LTS releases
Major Minor
4.4, 5.2, 5.4 are major releases version version
number number
5.2.3, 5.4.4, 6.0.1 are minor releases

LTS versions have extended support:

3 years of full support (general, critical and security issues)
6.0.1
2 years of additional support (critical and security issues only)

Major non-LTS versions are supported only until the next major version release

Minor versions are released once per month approximately

It is recommended to always have the latest minor version

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 83
 LTS AND MA JOR VERSIONS
Zabbix LTS version specifics:
Longer support service, i.e. updates for potential security problems and bugs
Quality and new features expected
New version released approximately every 1.5 years

Major version specific:

Released every 6 months
Earlier access to new features
Shorter support service

Both LTS and major versions are stable, fully tested and production-ready

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 84
 Zabbix upgrade

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved 15 minutes 85
 COMPATIBILITY NOTES
All Zabbix components are fully compatible only inside the major version:
Frontend, server, proxies, Java gateway, web service must have the same major version
Zabbix agents are backwards compatible starting from version 1.4

Zabbix upgrade to the next version is fully automated:

Install the next major Zabbix release and update major components
Zabbix database will be upgraded automatically on Zabbix server start
Large downtime is possible due to DB structure changes (contact support for help)
Zabbix agents can be upgraded later

Minor version upgrades only updates binary files:

Database structure is not changed, the upgrade is fast, only restart required

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 86
 ZABBIX UPGRADE
Always read release and upgrade notes!

Minor version upgrade:

Backup (recommended)
Upgrade binaries and frontend, restart daemons
No database changes (6.0.0 > 6.0.x)

Major version upgrade:

Backup (required)
Stop Zabbix server
Upgrade binaries and frontend
Start Zabbix server
Automatic DB upgrade (starting from 2.2)
i https://www.zabbix.com/documentation/current/en/manual/installation/upgrade_notes_600
Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 87
 UPGRADE NOTES
Direct upgrade skipping an intermediate major releases is supported (2.0 -> 6.0)
Zabbix versions starting from 2.x have all required DB patches built in
Upgrade process will automatically detect Zabbix version and apply all required patches

Major version downgrading is not supported!

Always create a database backup before proceeding with the upgrade

Some optional database patches need to be applied manually:

Float32 to Float64 history table upgrade
Primary key for all history* and trends* tables
# ls -la /usr/share/doc/zabbix-sql-scripts/mysql/
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 282 Jan 11 11:37 double.sql
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 1526 Jan 11 11:37 history_pk_prepare.sql
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 163854 Jan 11 11:37 proxy.sql
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 2807245 Jan 11 11:37 server.sql.gz

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 88
 COMMON UPGRADE ISSUES
Query failed (e.g. column or index is missing)
Add missing index and continue the upgrade
It is not recommended to customize DB structure to avoid such problems

The upgrade is slow (e.g. 5.0 > 6.0)

Consider cleaning up some tables (read release notes about DB structure changes)
Improve DB performance

It is recommended to watch zabbix_server.log file during the upgrade

If the upgrade fails at some point, fix the problem and restart Zabbix server

Zabbix provides upgrade as a commercial service if you need assistance

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 89
 Zabbix Summit 2022

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved 90
JOIN THE 10TH
ANNIVERSARY
ZABBIX SUMMIT
2022 IN-PERSON
on October 7-8 in Riga, Latvia
TECHNICAL WORKSHOPS, BUSINESS
USE-CASES, EXPERIENCED SPEAKERS
FUN PART

THREE DAYS OF
NETWORKING
 Certification

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved 90 minutes 94
 CERTIFICATION INFORMATION
When the trainer confirms your attendance of the program, please check that
the name on your attendance certificate is printed correctly

All students, please be so kind and provide:

Delivery address
Your T-shirt size (S,M,L,XL, etc.)

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 95
 DEMO EXAM
If you want to try a demo exam before attempting the real exam, use the
following steps:
Go to the home page on exam.zabbix.com site and
select Demo course

Click on “ZDC: Zabbix demo course”

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 96
 ENROLLMENT KEY
Enroll yourself using enrollment key “zabbix”
This step won’t be necessary with the real exam

Access the exam

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 97
 DISCUSSION AND COFFEE BREAK
Discuss previous day topics if you have any questions:
Zabbix components and their roles (backend, frontend, proxies, etc.)
Zabbix interface types and where they are used
Differences between Zabbix active/passive agent modes
Items, triggers and graphs - their purpose and configuration
Maintenance mode and problem suppression
Different kinds of Zabbix actions and messaging options

Take some break before exam...

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 98
 EXAM
Navigate to https://exam.zabbix.com
This exam consists of 50 questions including:
True/False
Single choice questions
Multiple-choice questions
60 minutes to complete the exam
The grade is 80% (passing threshold)
You can use a flag to mark questions so that you can come back to them later
You can still change an answer before submitting the quiz
You can receive 1 mark for each question
Partially correct answers will not be awarded
You will not be negatively marked for incorrect answers

You are NOT allowed to use the documentation, Google, etc.

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved Theory 99
 Thanks for participating in
Zabbix Certified Specialist 6.0
course

Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist ● Day 5 © 2022 by Zabbix. All rights reserved