7 Standardized templates for network devices

Overview

In order to provide monitoring for network devices such as switches and routers, we have created two so-called models: for the network device itself (its chassis basically) and for network interface.

Since Zabbix 3.4 templates for many families of network devices are provided. All templates cover (where possible to get these items from the device):

• Chassis fault monitoring (power supplies, fans and temperature, overall status)
• Chassis performance monitoring (CPU and memory items)
• Chassis inventory collection (serial numbers, model name, firmware version)
• Network interface monitoring with IF-MIB and EtherLike-MIB (interface status, interface traffic load, duplex status for Ethernet)

These templates are available:

• In new installations - in Data collection → Templates;
• If you are upgrading from previous versions, you can find these templates in the zabbix/templates directory of the downloaded latest Zabbix version. While in Data collection → Templates you can import them manually from this directory.

If you are importing the new out-of-the-box templates, you may want to also update the @Network interfaces for discovery global regular expression to:

Result is FALSE: ^Software Loopback Interface
       Result is FALSE: ^(In)?[lL]oop[bB]ack[0-9._]*$
       Result is FALSE: ^NULL[0-9.]*$
       Result is FALSE: ^[lL]o[0-9.]*$
       Result is FALSE: ^[sS]ystem$
       Result is FALSE: ^Nu[0-9.]*$

to filter out loopbacks and null interfaces on most systems.

Devices

List of device families for which templates are available:

Template design

Templates were designed with the following in mind:

• User macros are used as much as possible so triggers can be tuned by the user;
• Low-level discovery is used as much as possible to minimize the number of unsupported items;
• All templates depend on Template ICMP Ping so all devices are also checked by ICMP;
• Items don't use any MIBs - SNMP OIDs are used in items and low-level discoveries. So it's not necessary to load any MIBs into Zabbix for templates to work;
• Loopback network interfaces are filtered when discovering as well as interfaces with ifAdminStatus = down(2)
• 64bit counters are used from IF-MIB::ifXTable where possible. If it is not supported, default 32bit counters are used instead.

All discovered network interfaces have a trigger that monitors its operational status (link), for example:

 {$IFCONTROL:"{#IFNAME}"}=1 and last(/Alcatel Timetra TiMOS SNMP/net.if.status[ifOperStatus.{#SNMPINDEX}])=2 and (last(/Alcatel Timetra TiMOS SNMP/net.if.status[ifOperStatus.{#SNMPINDEX}],#1)<>last(/Alcatel Timetra TiMOS SNMP/net.if.status[ifOperStatus.{#SNMPINDEX}],#2))

• If you do no want to monitor this condition for a specific interface create a user macro with context with the value 0. For example:

where Gi0/0 is {#IFNAME}. That way the trigger is not used any more for this specific interface.

• You can also change the default behavior for all triggers not to fire and activate this trigger only to limited number of interfaces like uplinks:

Tags

• Performance – device family MIBs provide a way to monitor CPU and memory items;
• Fault - device family MIBs provide a way to monitor at least one temperature sensor;
• Inventory – device family MIBs provide a way to collect at least the device serial number and model name;
• Certified – all three main categories above are covered.