Appendix 1. Reference commentary

Notation

Data types

The Zabbix API supports the following data types as input:

Type Description
boolean A boolean value, accepts either true or false.
flag The value is considered to be true if it is passed and not equal to null; otherwise, it is considered to be false.
integer A whole number.
float A floating point number.
string A text string.
text A longer text string.
timestamp A Unix timestamp.
array An ordered sequence of values, that is, a plain array.
object An associative array.
query A value which defines, what data should be returned.

Can be defined as an array of property names to return only specific properties, or as one of the predefined values:
extend - returns all object properties;
count - returns the number of retrieved records, supported only by certain subselects.

Zabbix API always returns values as strings or arrays only.

Property behavior

Some of the object properties are marked with short labels to describe their behavior. The following labels are used:

  • read-only - the value of the property is set automatically and cannot be defined or changed by the user, even in some specific conditions (e.g., read-only for inherited objects or discovered objects);
  • write-only - the value of the property can be set, but cannot be accessed after;
  • constant - the value of the property can be set when creating an object, but cannot be changed after;
  • supported - the value of the property is not required to be set, but is allowed to be set in some specific conditions (e.g., supported if type is set to "Simple check", "External check", "SSH agent", "TELNET agent", or "HTTP agent");
  • required - the value of the property is required to be set for all operations (except get operations) or in some specific conditions (e.g., required for create operations; required if operationtype is set to "global script" and opcommand_hst is not set).

For update operations a property is considered as "set" when setting it during the update operation.

Properties that are not marked with labels are optional.

Parameter behavior

Some of the operation parameters are marked with short labels to describe their behavior for the operation. The following labels are used:

  • read-only - the value of the parameter is set automatically and cannot be defined or changed by the user, even in some specific conditions (e.g., read-only for inherited objects or discovered objects);
  • write-only - the value of the parameter can be set, but cannot be accessed after;
  • supported - the value of the parameter is not required to be set, but is allowed to be set in some specific conditions (e.g., supported if status of Proxy object is set to "passive proxy");
  • required - the value of the parameter is required to be set.

Parameters that are not marked with labels are optional.

Reserved ID value "0"

Reserved ID value "0" can be used to filter elements and to remove referenced objects. For example, to remove a referenced proxy from a host, proxy_hostid should be set to 0 ("proxy_hostid": "0") or to filter hosts monitored by server option proxyids should be set to 0 ("proxyids": "0").

Common "get" method parameters

The following parameters are supported by all get methods:

Parameter Type Description
countOutput boolean Return the number of records in the result instead of the actual data.
editable boolean If set to true, return only objects that the user has write permissions to.

Default: false.
excludeSearch boolean Return results that do not match the criteria given in the search parameter.
filter object Return only those results that exactly match the given filter.

Accepts an object, where the keys are property names, and the values are either a single value or an array of values to match against.

Does not support properties of text data type.
limit integer Limit the number of records returned.
output query Object properties to be returned.

Default: extend.
preservekeys boolean Use IDs as keys in the resulting array.
search object Return results that match the given pattern (case-insensitive).

Accepts an object, where the keys are property names, and the values are strings to search for. If no additional options are given, this will perform a LIKE "%…%" search.

Supports only properties of string and text data type.
searchByAny boolean If set to true, return results that match any of the criteria given in the filter or search parameter instead of all of them.

Default: false.
searchWildcardsEnabled boolean If set to true, enables the use of "*" as a wildcard character in the search parameter.

Default: false.
sortfield string/array Sort the result by the given properties. Refer to a specific API get method description for a list of properties that can be used for sorting. Macros are not expanded before sorting.

If no value is specified, data will be returned unsorted.
sortorder string/array Order of sorting. If an array is passed, each value will be matched to the corresponding property given in the sortfield parameter.

Possible values:
ASC - (default) ascending;
DESC - descending.
startSearch boolean The search parameter will compare the beginning of fields, that is, perform a LIKE "…%" search instead.

Ignored if searchWildcardsEnabled is set to true.

Examples

User permission check

Does the user have permission to write to hosts whose names begin with "MySQL" or "Linux" ?

Request:

{
           "jsonrpc": "2.0",
           "method": "host.get",
           "params": {
               "countOutput": true,
               "search": {
                   "host": ["MySQL", "Linux"]
               },
               "editable": true,
               "startSearch": true,
               "searchByAny": true
           },
           "id": 1
       }

Response:

{
           "jsonrpc": "2.0",
           "result": "0",
           "id": 1
       }

Zero result means no hosts with read/write permissions.

Mismatch counting

Count the number of hosts whose names do not contain the substring "ubuntu"

Request:

{
           "jsonrpc": "2.0",
           "method": "host.get",
           "params": {
               "countOutput": true,
               "search": {
                   "host": "ubuntu"
               },
               "excludeSearch": true
           },
           "id": 1
       }

Response:

{
           "jsonrpc": "2.0",
           "result": "44",
           "id": 1
       }

Searching for hosts using wildcards

Find hosts whose name contains word "server" and have interface ports "10050" or "10071". Sort the result by host name in descending order and limit it to 5 hosts.

Request:

{
           "jsonrpc": "2.0",
           "method": "host.get",
           "params": {
               "output": ["hostid", "host"],
               "selectInterfaces": ["port"],
               "filter": {
                   "port": ["10050", "10071"]
               },
               "search": {
                   "host": "*server*"
               },
               "searchWildcardsEnabled": true,
               "searchByAny": true,
               "sortfield": "host",
               "sortorder": "DESC",
               "limit": 5
           },
           "id": 1
       }

Response:

{
           "jsonrpc": "2.0",
           "result": [
               {
                   "hostid": "50003",
                   "host": "WebServer-Tomcat02",
                   "interfaces": [
                       {
                           "port": "10071"
                       }
                   ]
               },
               {
                   "hostid": "50005",
                   "host": "WebServer-Tomcat01",
                   "interfaces": [
                       {
                           "port": "10071"
                       }
                   ]
               },
               {
                   "hostid": "50004",
                   "host": "WebServer-Nginx",
                   "interfaces": [
                       {
                           "port": "10071"
                       }
                   ]
               },
               {
                   "hostid": "99032",
                   "host": "MySQL server 01",
                   "interfaces": [
                       {
                           "port": "10050"
                       }
                   ]
               },
               {
                   "hostid": "99061",
                   "host": "Linux server 01",
                   "interfaces": [
                       {
                           "port": "10050"
                       }
                   ]
               }
           ],
           "id": 1
       }

Searching for hosts using wildcards with "preservekeys"

If you add the parameter "preservekeys" to the previous request, the result is returned as an associative array, where the keys are the id of the objects.

Request:

{
           "jsonrpc": "2.0",
           "method": "host.get",
           "params": {
               "output": ["hostid", "host"],
               "selectInterfaces": ["port"],
               "filter": {
                   "port": ["10050", "10071"]
               },
               "search": {
                   "host": "*server*"
               },
               "searchWildcardsEnabled": true,
               "searchByAny": true,
               "sortfield": "host",
               "sortorder": "DESC",
               "limit": 5,
               "preservekeys": true
           },
           "id": 1
       }

Response:

{
           "jsonrpc": "2.0",
           "result": {
               "50003": {
                   "hostid": "50003",
                   "host": "WebServer-Tomcat02",
                   "interfaces": [
                       {
                           "port": "10071"
                       }
                   ]
               },
               "50005": {
                   "hostid": "50005",
                   "host": "WebServer-Tomcat01",
                   "interfaces": [
                       {
                           "port": "10071"
                       }
                   ]
               },
               "50004": {
                   "hostid": "50004",
                   "host": "WebServer-Nginx",
                   "interfaces": [
                       {
                           "port": "10071"
                       }
                   ]
               },
               "99032": {
                   "hostid": "99032",
                   "host": "MySQL server 01",
                   "interfaces": [
                       {
                           "port": "10050"
                       }
                   ]
               },
               "99061": {
                   "hostid": "99061",
                   "host": "Linux server 01",
                   "interfaces": [
                       {
                           "port": "10050"
                       }
                   ]
               }
           },
           "id": 1
       }