3 Remote commands

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions on how to setup remote execution of pre-defined commands in case on an event. It is assumed that Zabbix is configured and operational.

Step 1

On Zabbix agent, enable remote commands. In zabbix_agentd.conf make sure that parameter EnableRemoteCommands is set to 1 and uncommented. Restart agent daemon if changing this parameter.

Step 2

Configure new action by going to Configuration → Actions and in the New action block choose operation type Remote command.

Pay attention to the following parameters of the action:

PARAMETER	Description
Action type	Must be set to 'Remote command'.
Remote command	Each line must contain an command for remote execution. For example: host:sudo /etc/init.d/apache restart. Remote command may contain macros!

Note the use of sudo - Zabbix user does not have permissions to restart system services by default. See below for hints on how to configure sudo.

Syntax of remote commands:

REMOTE COMMAND	Description
{HOSTNAME}:<command>	Command 'command' will be executed on the host where the event happened.
<host>:<command>	Command 'command' will be executed on host 'host'.
<group>#<command>	Command 'command' will be executed on all hosts of host group 'group'.

Zabbix agent executes commands in background. Zabbix does not check if a command has been executed successfully.

Remote commands in Zabbix < 1.4 are limited to 44 characters, in Zabbix >= 1.4 they are limited to 255 characters.

Syntax of IPMI remote commands:

REMOTE COMMAND	Description
{HOSTNAME}:IPMI <ipmi control> [value]	The syntax is for execution of IPMI command on the host where the event happened. Supported values: "on", "off" or number (1, by default).
<host>:IPMI <ipmi control> [value]	The syntax is for execution of IPMI command on a single host.
<group>#IPMI <ipmi control> [value]	The syntax is for execution of IPMI command for all hosts of a host group.

Access permissions

Make sure that user 'zabbix' has execute permissions for configured commands. One may be interested in using sudo to give access to privileged commands. To configure access, execute as root:

# visudo

Example lines that could be used in sudoers file:

# allows 'zabbix' user to run all commands without password.
       zabbix ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL
       
       # allows 'zabbix' user to restart apache without password.
       zabbix ALL=NOPASSWD: /etc/init.d/apache restart

On some systems sudoers file will prevent non-local users from executing commands. To change this, comment out requiretty option in /etc/sudoers.

On recent systems it might be required to set Defaults visiblepw in /etc/sudoers.

Example 1

Restart of Windows on certain condition.

In order to automatically restart Windows in case of a problem detected by Zabbix, define the following actions:

PARAMETER	Description
Action type	'Remote command'
Remote command	host:c:\windows\system32\shutdown.exe -r -f Replace 'host' with Zabbix hostname of Windows server.

Example 2

Restart the host by using IPMI control.

PARAMETER	Description
Action type	'Remote command'
Remote command	{HOSTNAME}:IPMI reset on

Example 3

Power off the host by using IPMI control.

PARAMETER	Description
Action type	'Remote command'
Remote command	{HOSTNAME}:IPMI power off

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