11 Recipes for monitoring

General

Monitoring server availability

At least three methods (or combination of all methods) may be used in order to monitor availability of a server.

  • ICMP ping (“icmpping” key)
  • “zabbix[host,agent,available]“ item
  • trigger function nodata() for monitoring the availability of hosts that use active checks only
Sending alerts via WinPopUps

WinPopUps maybe very useful if you’re running Windows OS and want to get quick notification from Zabbix. It could be good addition for email-based alert messages. Details about enabling of WinPopUps can be found at http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2147.

Monitoring specific applications

AS/400

IBM AS/400 platform can be monitored using SNMP. More information is available at http://publib-b.boulder.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedbookAbstracts/sg244504.html?Open.

MySQL

Several user parameters can be used for the monitoring of MySQL in the agent configuration file: /usr/local/etc/zabbix_agentd.conf

  1. ### Set of parameters for monitoring MySQL server (v3.23.42 and later)
  2.        ### Change -u and add -p if required
  3.        #UserParameter=mysql.ping,mysqladmin -uroot  ping|grep alive|wc -l
  4.        #UserParameter=mysql.uptime,mysqladmin -uroot status|cut -f2 -d":"|cut -f2 -d" "
  5.        #UserParameter=mysql.threads,mysqladmin -uroot status|cut -f3 -d":"|cut -f2 -d" "
  6.        #UserParameter=mysql.questions,mysqladmin -uroot status|cut -f4 -d":"|cut -f2 -d" "
  7.        #UserParameter=mysql.slowqueries,mysqladmin -uroot status|cut -f5 -d":"|cut -f2 -d" "
  8.        #UserParameter=mysql.qps,mysqladmin -uroot status|cut -f9 -d":"|cut -f2 -d" "
  9.        #UserParameter=mysql.version,mysql -V
  • mysql.ping

Check whether MySQL is alive.

  1.     Result: 0 - not started 1 - alive
  • mysql.uptime

Number of seconds MySQL is running.

  • mysql.threads

Number of MySQL threads.

  • mysql.questions

Number of processed queries.

  • mysql.slowqueries

Number of slow queries.

  • mysql.qps

Queries per second.

  • mysql.version

Version of MySQL. For example: mysql Ver 14.14 Distrib 5.1.53, for pc-linux-gnu (i686)

For additional information see also the userparameter_mysql.conf file in conf/zabbix_agentd directory.

Mikrotik routers

Use SNMP agent provided by Mikrotik. See http://www.mikrotik.com for more information.

Windows

Use Zabbix Windows agent included (pre-compiled) into Zabbix distribution.

Tuxedo

Tuxedo command line utilities tmadmin and qmadmin can be used in definition of a UserParameter in order to return per server/service/queue performance counters and availability of Tuxedo resources.

Informix

Standard Informix utility onstat can be used for monitoring of virtually every aspect of Informix database. Also, Zabbix can retrieve information provided by Informix SNMP agent.

HP OpenView

Zabbix can be configured to send messages to OpenView server. The following steps must be performed:

Step 1

Define new media.

The media will execute a script which will send required information to OpenView.

Step 2

Define new user.

The user has to be linked with the media.

Step 3

Configure actions.

Configure actions to send all (or selected) trigger status changes to the user.

Step 4

Write media script.

The script will have the following logic. If trigger is ON, then execute OpenView command opcmsg -id application=<application> msg_grp=<msg_grp> object=<object> msg_text=<text>. The command will return unique message ID which has to be stored somewhere, preferably in a new table of ZABBIX database. If trigger is OFF then opcmack <message id> has to be executed with message ID retrieved from the database.

Refer to OpenView official documentation for more details about opcmsg and opcmack. The media script is not given here.