4 Proxy

Overview

Zabbix proxy is a process that may collect monitoring data from one or more monitored devices and send the information to the Zabbix server, essentially working on behalf of the server. All collected data is buffered locally and then transferred to the Zabbix server the proxy belongs to.

Deploying a proxy is optional, but may be very beneficial to distribute the load of a single Zabbix server. If only proxies collect data, processing on the server becomes less CPU and disk I/O hungry.

A Zabbix proxy is the ideal solution for centralized monitoring of remote locations, branches and networks with no local administrators.

Zabbix proxy requires a separate database.

Note that databases supported with Zabbix proxy are SQLite, MySQL and PostgreSQL. Using Oracle is at your own risk and may contain some limitations as, for example, in return values of low-level discovery rules.

See also: Using proxies in a distributed environment

Running proxy

If installed as package

Zabbix proxy runs as a daemon process. The proxy can be started by executing:

shell> service zabbix-proxy start

This will work on most of GNU/Linux systems. On other systems you may need to run:

shell> /etc/init.d/zabbix-proxy start

Similarly, for stopping/restarting/viewing status of Zabbix proxy, use the following commands:

shell> service zabbix-proxy stop
shell> service zabbix-proxy restart
shell> service zabbix-proxy status

Start up manually

If the above does not work you have to start it manually. Find the path to the zabbix_proxy binary and execute:

shell> zabbix_proxy

You can use the following command line parameters with Zabbix proxy:

-c --config <file>              path to the configuration file
-f --foreground                 run Zabbix proxy in foreground
-R --runtime-control <option>   perform administrative functions
-h --help                       give this help
-V --version                    display version number

Runtime control is not supported on OpenBSD and NetBSD.

Examples of running Zabbix proxy with command line parameters:

shell> zabbix_proxy -c /usr/local/etc/zabbix_proxy.conf
shell> zabbix_proxy --help
shell> zabbix_proxy -V

Runtime control

Runtime control options:

Example of using runtime control to reload the proxy configuration cache:

shell> zabbix_proxy -c /usr/local/etc/zabbix_proxy.conf -R config_cache_reload

Examples of using runtime control to gather diagnostic information:

Gather all available diagnostic information in the proxy log file:
shell> zabbix_proxy -R diaginfo
Gather history cache statistics in the proxy log file:
shell> zabbix_proxy -R diaginfo=historycache

Example of using runtime control to reload the SNMP cache:

shell> zabbix_proxy -R snmp_cache_reload

Example of using runtime control to trigger execution of housekeeper

shell> zabbix_proxy -c /usr/local/etc/zabbix_proxy.conf -R housekeeper_execute

Examples of using runtime control to change log level:

Increase log level of all processes:
shell> zabbix_proxy -c /usr/local/etc/zabbix_proxy.conf -R log_level_increase
Increase log level of second poller process:
shell> zabbix_proxy -c /usr/local/etc/zabbix_proxy.conf -R log_level_increase=poller,2
Increase log level of process with PID 1234:
shell> zabbix_proxy -c /usr/local/etc/zabbix_proxy.conf -R log_level_increase=1234
Decrease log level of all http poller processes:
shell> zabbix_proxy -c /usr/local/etc/zabbix_proxy.conf -R log_level_decrease="http poller"

Process user

Zabbix proxy is designed to run as a non-root user. It will run as whatever non-root user it is started as. So you can run proxy as any non-root user without any issues.

If you will try to run it as ‘root’, it will switch to a hardcoded ‘zabbix’ user, which must be present on your system. You can only run proxy as ‘root’ if you modify the ‘AllowRoot’ parameter in the proxy configuration file accordingly.

Configuration file

See the configuration file options for details on configuring zabbix_proxy.

Proxy process types

• configuration syncer - process for managing in-memory cache of configuration data

• data sender - proxy data sender

• discoverer - process for discovery of devices

• heartbeat sender - proxy heartbeat sender

• history syncer - history DB writer

• housekeeper - process for removal of old historical data

• http poller - web monitoring poller

• icmp pinger - poller for icmpping checks

• ipmi manager - IPMI poller manager

• ipmi poller - poller for IPMI checks

• java poller - poller for Java checks

• poller - normal poller for passive checks

• preprocessing manager - manager of preprocessing tasks

• preprocessing worker - process for data preprocessing

• self-monitoring - process for collecting internal server statistics

• snmp trapper - trapper for SNMP traps

• task manager - process for remote execution of tasks requested by other components (e.g. close problem, acknowledge problem, check item value now, remote command functionality)

• trapper - trapper for active checks, traps, proxy communication

• unreachable poller - poller for unreachable devices

• vmware collector - VMware data collector responsible for data gathering from VMware services

The proxy log file can be used to observe these process types.

Various types of Zabbix proxy processes can be monitored using the zabbix[process,<type>,<mode>,<state>] internal item.

Supported platforms

Zabbix proxy runs on the same list of supported platforms as Zabbix server.

Locale

Note that the proxy requires a UTF-8 locale so that some textual items can be interpreted correctly. Most modern Unix-like systems have a UTF-8 locale as default, however, there are some systems where that may need to be set specifically.