1 Database creation

Overview

A Zabbix database must be created during the installation of Zabbix server or proxy.

This section provides instructions for creating a Zabbix database. A separate set of instructions is available for each supported database.

UTF-8 is the only encoding supported by Zabbix. It is known to work without any security flaws. Users should be aware that there are known security issues if using some of the other encodings.

If installing from Zabbix Git repository, you need to run:

$ make dbschema

prior to proceeding to the next steps.

MySQL

Character set utf8 and utf8_bin collation is required for Zabbix server/proxy to work properly with MySQL database.

shell> mysql -uroot -p<password>
       mysql> create database zabbix character set utf8 collate utf8_bin;
       mysql> create user 'zabbix'@'localhost' identified by '<password>';
       mysql> grant all privileges on zabbix.* to 'zabbix'@'localhost';
       mysql> quit;

If you are installing from Zabbix packages, stop here and continue with instructions for RHEL/CentOS or Debian/Ubuntu to import the data into the database.

If you are installing Zabbix from sources, proceed to import the data into the database. For a Zabbix proxy database, only schema.sql should be imported (no images.sql nor data.sql):

shell> cd database/mysql
       shell> mysql -uzabbix -p<password> zabbix < schema.sql
       # stop here if you are creating database for Zabbix proxy
       shell> mysql -uzabbix -p<password> zabbix < images.sql
       shell> mysql -uzabbix -p<password> zabbix < data.sql

PostgreSQL

You need to have database user with permissions to create database objects. The following shell command will create user zabbix. Specify password when prompted and repeat password (note, you may first be asked for sudo password):

shell> sudo -u postgres createuser --pwprompt zabbix

Now we will set up the database zabbix (last parameter) with the previously created user as the owner (-O zabbix).

shell> sudo -u postgres createdb -O zabbix -E Unicode -T template0 zabbix

If you are installing from Zabbix packages, stop here and continue with instructions for RHEL/CentOS or Debian/Ubuntu to import the initial schema and data into the database.

If you are installing Zabbix from sources, proceed to import the initial schema and data (assuming you are in the root directory of Zabbix sources). For a Zabbix proxy database, only schema.sql should be imported (no images.sql nor data.sql).

shell> cd database/postgresql
       shell> cat schema.sql | sudo -u zabbix psql zabbix
       # stop here if you are creating database for Zabbix proxy
       shell> cat images.sql | sudo -u zabbix psql zabbix
       shell> cat data.sql | sudo -u zabbix psql zabbix

The above commands are provided as an example that will work in most of GNU/Linux installations. You can use different commands, e. g. "psql -U <username>" depending on how your system/database are configured. If you have troubles setting up the database please consult your Database administrator.

TimescaleDB

Instructions for creating and configuring TimescaleDB are provided in a separate section.

Oracle

We assume that a zabbix database user with password password exists and has permissions to create database objects in ORCL service located on the host Oracle database server with a user shell user having write access to /tmp directory. Zabbix requires a Unicode database character set and a UTF8 national character set. Check current settings:

sqlplus> select parameter,value from v$nls_parameters where parameter='NLS_CHARACTERSET' or parameter='NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET';

If you are creating a database for Zabbix server you need to have images from Zabbix sources on the host where Oracle is running. Copy them to a directory /tmp/zabbix_images on the Oracle host:

shell> cd /path/to/zabbix-sources
       shell> ssh user@oracle_host "mkdir /tmp/zabbix_images"
       shell> scp -r misc/images/png_modern user@oracle_host:/tmp/zabbix_images/

Now prepare the database:

shell> cd /path/to/zabbix-sources/database/oracle
       shell> sqlplus zabbix/password@oracle_host/ORCL
       sqlplus> @schema.sql
       # stop here if you are creating database for Zabbix proxy
       sqlplus> @images.sql
       sqlplus> @data.sql

Please set the initialization parameter CURSOR_SHARING=FORCE for best performance.

Now the temporary directory can be removed:

shell> ssh user@oracle_host "rm -rf /tmp/zabbix_images"

SQLite

Using SQLite is supported for Zabbix proxy only!

If using SQLite with Zabbix proxy, database will be automatically created if it does not exist.

shell> cd database/sqlite3
       shell> sqlite3 /var/lib/sqlite/zabbix.db < schema.sql

Return to the installation section.

Additional patches

In some cases, Zabbix might generate non-optimized queries to the database. This may happen, for example, as a result of using an older database version.
Additional DB patches are available for resolving such issues on the specific database or, sometimes, a specific database version. See [Known issues|/manual/installation/known_issues#slow-mysql-queries] for the list of known problems and available patches.

Documentation