ZabbixManual1.1/Glossary

Active

Active refers to a mode that the Zabbix Agent can run in. When running actively, the agent keeps track of what items to send to the server and at what intervals. The agent can poll the server at set intervals in order to keep track of what items it should be sending.

Active checker

Active checker gather operational information from the system where ZABBIX Agent is running, and report this data to the ZABBIX for further processing.

Action

An action is a response taken when a Trigger has been triggered. Actions can be configured to send messages to specific user groups as defined in Zabbix, based on their Media Type settings, or execute remote commands.

Agent

Agent refers to the program that is run on hosts that want to be monitored. It is run as a service and can run in active or passive mode.

Alerter

Alerter is a server process which is resposible for axecution of actions (emails, sms, scripts).

Autoregistration

Autoregistration refers to a feature of Zabbix that allows Hosts to automatically register themselves with the Zabbix server. This is configured via the web interface by an administrator that defines a particular Hostname patter such as ‘*-linux’ and define Items for that host based on a Template of items.

Event

An event is when a trigger is triggered.

Graphs

Graphs can refer to the simple graphs that are available for each numerical Item that is monitored, or it can refer to custom graphs which can be used to show several numerical Items in one graph.

Host

Host refers to the machine that is being monitored.

Housekeeper

Housekeeper refers to the service within the Zabbix server that cleans the Zabbix database of old actions, events, history, and trend data as defined by the user. Housekeeping of Actions and Events is defined in General settings. History and trend data is defined per item.

IT Services

IT Services refers to a feature within Zabbix that allows users to define an SLA and have Zabbix keep track of the expected SLA and actual SLA. IT Services are defined as groups of triggers and can be configured to calculate the minimum of a group or maximum of a group.

Item

Item refers to an individual item that is monitored on a host, such as load average or response time. Item can refer to an item obtained via the Zabbix agent, SNMP, or other means. Items can be configured as float, 64-bit integers, character strings, or log values.

Map

Map refers to a feature of Zabbix that allows users to create customized graphics via the web interface to create network maps and define links between Hosts on the map. Links can be configured to change color or style based on Triggers.

Media Type

Media Types are used to notify Zabbix users when an Action has occured. Media types can be via email or custom scripts. Media Types are configured globally to be made available to all Users, and then sepcified per User to allow certain Users to be notified via one media type, and other users to be notified via another media type.

Queue

Queue refers to the internal queue of items the Zabbix server is monitoring. Based on the specified intervals of items the Zabbix server maintains a queue to keep track of the items and when it should poll them.

Passive

Passive refers to a mode that the Zabbix Agent can run in. When running passively, the agent waits for requests for items from the server and sends them back as requested. It should be noted that typically the agent runs in both modes, and the modes are defined by the Item when it is configured.

Pinger

Pinger - process checks for availability of hosts.

Poller

Poller - process is responsible for data gathering from the agent and processing item.

Screen

Screen refers to another customizable feature of Zabbix which allows users to create custom pages within Zabbix for displaying information. A screen can consists of graphs (custom), simple graphs, maps, or plain text such as the last 5 values of a particular item.

Server

Server refers to the program that is run on a centralized machine that has been deemed the “monitoring station”. The server is run as a service and is in charge of keeping track of all the configured hosts, items, actions, alerts, etc.

SLA

SLA refers to Service Level Agreement. These are typically used in contracts between companies and clients in order to define a certain level of service such as 99.5% availability of a particular Host.

Template

A Template is a Host that has a defined set of Items, Triggers, etc. which Hosts can be linked to. This allows easier configuration of hosts and changes to hosts without having to change each individual host. Host Templates are no different from other hosts except that their status is set to ‘Template’ during configuration and as such no Host is actually monitored.

Timer

Timer - process is responsible for work of triggers and generates event.

Trapper

Trapper - process is responsible for processing values of the active checks received from the agent.

Trigger

A trigger is used to define contraints on items and provide notifications when these contraints are exceeded. For example, you could be monitoring load average on a specific host and want to know when load average exceeds 1.0. Triggers are very flexible and can allow for multiple constraints.

User

The Zabbix web frontend can be configured to allow access to multiple users at varying levels of access. Users can be allowed anonymous access via the guest account and be allowed to view all available data but not modify any changes, or users can be given access to only view or modify specific sections of Zabbix.

User Parameter

User Parameter (UserParameter) refers to custom scripts defined in an agent’s configuration file. User parameters are defined by a key and command. The key refers to the item defined in the web interface and can be configured to accept arguments as sent by the server.