ZabbixManual1.4/Installation
How to Get ZABBIX
Check the ZABBIX Home Page at http://www.zabbix.com for information about the current version and for downloading instructions.
Requirements
Hardware Requirements
Memory Requirements
ZABBIX requires both physical and disk memory. 128 MB of physical memory and 256 MB of free disk space could be a good starting point. However, the amount of required disk memory obviously depends on the number of hosts and parameters that are being monitored. If you're planning to keep a long history of monitored parameters, you should be thinking of at least a couple of gigabytes to have enough space to store the history in the database.
Each ZABBIX daemon process requires several connections to a database server. Amount of memory allocated for the connection depends on configuration of the database engine.
Note: The more physical memory you have, the faster the database (and therefore ZABBIX) works!
CPU Requirements
ZABBIX and especially ZABBIX database may require significant CPU resources depending on number of monitored parameters and chosen database engine.
Other hardware
A serial communication port and a serial GSM Modem required for using SMS notifications built-in ZABBIX.
Examples of hardware configuration
The table provides several hardware configurations:
| Name | Platform | CPU/Memory | Database | Monitored hosts |
| Small | Ubuntu Linux | P2 350MHz/256MB | MySQL MyISAM | 20 |
| Medium | Ubuntu Linux 64 bit | AMD Athlon 3200+/2GB | MySQL MyISAM | 500 |
| Large | Ubuntu Linux 64 bit | Intel Dual Core 6400/4GB/RAID | MySQL MyISAM or PostgreSQL | >1000 |
| Very large | RedHat Enterprise | Intel Xeon 2 CPU/8GB/RAID | MySQL MyISAM or PostgreSQL | >10000 |
Note: Actual configuration depends on number of active items and refresh rates very much. It is recommended to keep database engine on a separate box for large installations.
Supported Platforms
Due to security requirements and mission-critical nature of monitoring server, UNIX is the only operating system that can consistently deliver the necessary performance, fault tolerance and resilience. ZABBIX operates on market leading versions.
ZABBIX is tested on the following platforms:
- AIX
- FreeBSD
- HP-UX
- Linux
- Mac OS/X
- OpenBSD
- SCO Open Server
- Solaris
Note: ZABBIX may work on other Unix-like operating systems as well.
Software Requirements
ZABBIX is built around modern Apache WEB server, leading database engines, and the PHP scripting language.
The following software is required to run ZABBIX:
| Software | Version | Comments |
| Apache | 1.3.12 or later | |
| PHP | 4.3 or later | |
| PHP modules:
php-gd php-bcmath |
4.3 or later | PHP GD module must support PNG images. |
| MySQL
php-mysql |
3.22 or later | Required if MySQL is used as ZABBIX backend database. |
| Oracle
php-sqlora8 |
9.2.0.4 or later | Required if Oracle is used as ZABBIX backend database. |
| PostgreSQL
php-pgsql |
7.0.2 or later | Required if PostgreSQL is used as ZABBIX backend database.Consider using PostgreSQL 8.x or later for much better performance. |
| SQLite
php-sqlite3 |
3.3.5 or later | Required if SQLite is used as ZABBIX backend database. |
Note: ZABBIX may work on previous versions of Apache, MySQL, Oracle, and PostgreSQL as well.
WEB browser on client side
Support for HTML and PNG images required. MS Explorer (5.xx and 6.xx) and Mozilla 1.x work perfectly. Cookies and JavaScript must be enabled. Other browsers may work with ZABBIX as well.
Choice of database engine
ZABBIX supports four database engines:
- MySQL
- Oracle
- PostgreSQL
- SQLite
Each database engine has its own advantages. We cannot recommend one over another.
Choice of database engine depends on the following aspects:
- how powerful is your hardware
- free or commercial database engine
- how busy is ZABBIX Server
The table can be used as a general recommendation on choice of database engine.
| Usage of ZABBIX Server | Database engine of choice |
| Heavy duty Node/Standalone | MySQL MyISAM |
| Light duty Node/Standalone | PostgreSQL
MySQL MyISAM |
| Remote zero-admin Node | PostgreSQL
SQLite |
| Standalone light duty | MySQL MyISAM |
Time synchronisation
It is very important to have precise system date on server with ZABBIX running. timed is one of most popular daemons that synchronises the host’s time with the time of other machines.
