Table of Contents
1 Zabbix definitions
Overview
In this section you can learn the meaning of some terms commonly used in Zabbix.
Definitions
- a networked device that you want to monitor, with IP/DNS.
- a logical grouping of hosts; it may contain hosts and templates. Hosts and templates within a host group are not in any way linked to each other. Host groups are used when assigning access rights to hosts for different user groups.
- a particular piece of data that you want to receive off of a host, a metric of data.
- a logical expression that defines a problem threshold and is used to "evaluate" data received in items
When received data are above the threshold, triggers go from 'Ok' into a 'Problem' state. When received data are below the threshold, triggers stay in/return to an 'Ok' state.
- a single occurrence of something that deserves attention such as a trigger changing state or a discovery/agent auto-registration taking place
- a predefined means of reacting to an event.
An action consists of operations (e.g. sending a notification) and conditions (when the operation is carried out)
- a custom scenario for executing operations within an action; a sequence of sending notifications/executing remote commands
- a means of delivering notifications; delivery channel
- a message about some event sent to a user via the chosen media channel
- a pre-defined command that is automatically executed on a monitored host upon some condition
- a set of entities (items, triggers, graphs, screens, applications, low-level discovery rules, web scenarios) ready to be applied to one or several hosts
The job of templates is to speed up the deployment of monitoring tasks on a host; also to make it easier to apply mass changes to monitoring tasks. Templates are linked directly to individual hosts.
- a grouping of items in a logical group
- one or several HTTP requests to check the availability of a web site
- the web interface provided with Zabbix
- section of the web interface displaying summaries and visualisations of important information in visual blocks.
- Zabbix API allows you to use the JSON RPC protocol to create, update and fetch Zabbix objects (like hosts, items, graphs and others) or perform any other custom tasks
- a central process of Zabbix software that performs monitoring, interacts with Zabbix proxies and agents, calculates triggers, sends notifications; a central repository of data
- a process deployed on monitoring targets to actively monitor local resources and applications
- a process that may collect data on behalf of Zabbix server, taking some processing load off of the server
- a full Zabbix server configured as an element within a hierarchy of distributed monitoring; it is responsible for monitoring its own location
- automated discovery of network devices.
- automated discovery of low-level entities on a particular device (e.g. file systems, network interfaces, etc).
- set of definitions for automated discovery of low-level entities on a device.
- a metric with certain parameters as variables, ready for low-level discovery. After low-level discovery the variables are automatically substituted with the real discovered parameters and the metric automatically starts gathering data.
- a trigger with certain parameters as variables, ready for low-level discovery. After low-level discovery the variables are automatically substituted with the real discovered parameters and the trigger automatically starts evaluating data.
- a graph with certain parameters as variables, ready for low-level discovery. After low-level discovery the variables are automatically substituted with the real discovered parameters and the graph automatically starts displaying data.
- automated process whereby a Zabbix agent itself is registered as a host and started to monitor.