4 Proxy

Overview

Zabbix proxy is a process that may collect monitoring data from one or more monitored devices and send the information to the Zabbix server, essentially working on behalf of the server. All collected data is buffered locally and then transferred to the Zabbix server the proxy belongs to.

Deploying a proxy is optional, but may be very beneficial to distribute the load of a single Zabbix server. If only proxies collect data, processing on the server becomes less CPU and disk I/O hungry.

A Zabbix proxy is the ideal solution for centralized monitoring of remote locations, branches and networks with no local administrators.

Zabbix proxy requires a separate database.

See also: Using proxies in a distributed environment

Running proxy

If installed as package

Zabbix proxy runs as a daemon process. The proxy can be started by executing:

systemctl start zabbix-proxy

This will work on most of GNU/Linux systems. On other systems you may need to run:

/etc/init.d/zabbix-proxy start

Similarly, for stopping/restarting/viewing status of Zabbix proxy, use the following commands:

systemctl stop zabbix-proxy
       systemctl restart zabbix-proxy
       systemctl status zabbix-proxy

Start up manually

If the above does not work you have to start it manually. Find the path to the zabbix_proxy binary and execute:

zabbix_proxy

You can use the following command-line parameters with Zabbix proxy:

-c --config <file>              path to the configuration file
       -f --foreground                 run Zabbix proxy in foreground
       -R --runtime-control <option>   perform administrative functions
       -T --test-config                validate configuration file and exit
       -h --help                       give this help
       -V --version                    display version number

Examples of running Zabbix proxy with command-line parameters:

zabbix_proxy -c /usr/local/etc/zabbix_proxy.conf
       zabbix_proxy --help
       zabbix_proxy -V

Runtime control

Runtime control options:

Example of using runtime control to reload the proxy configuration cache:

zabbix_proxy -c /usr/local/etc/zabbix_proxy.conf -R config_cache_reload

Examples of using runtime control to gather diagnostic information:

# Gather all available diagnostic information in the proxy log file:
       zabbix_proxy -R diaginfo
       
       # Gather history cache statistics in the proxy log file:
       zabbix_proxy -R diaginfo=historycache

Example of using runtime control to reload the SNMP cache:

zabbix_proxy -R snmp_cache_reload  

Example of using runtime control to trigger execution of housekeeper

zabbix_proxy -c /usr/local/etc/zabbix_proxy.conf -R housekeeper_execute

Examples of using runtime control to change log level:

# Increase log level of all processes:
       zabbix_proxy -c /usr/local/etc/zabbix_proxy.conf -R log_level_increase
       
       # Increase log level of second poller process:
       zabbix_proxy -c /usr/local/etc/zabbix_proxy.conf -R log_level_increase=poller,2
       
       # Increase log level of process with PID 1234:
       zabbix_proxy -c /usr/local/etc/zabbix_proxy.conf -R log_level_increase=1234
       
       # Decrease log level of all http poller processes:
       zabbix_proxy -c /usr/local/etc/zabbix_proxy.conf -R log_level_decrease="http poller"

Process user

Zabbix proxy is designed to run as a non-root user. It will run as whatever non-root user it is started as. So you can run proxy as any non-root user without any issues.

If you will try to run it as 'root', it will switch to a hardcoded 'zabbix' user, which must be present on your system. You can only run proxy as 'root' if you modify the 'AllowRoot' parameter in the proxy configuration file accordingly.

Configuration file

See the configuration file options for details on configuring zabbix_proxy.

Proxy process types and threads

• agent poller - asynchronous poller process for passive checks with a worker thread
• availability manager - process for host availability updates
• configuration syncer - process for managing in-memory cache of configuration data
• data sender - proxy data sender
• discovery manager - manager process for discovery of devices
• discovery worker - process for handling discovery tasks from the discovery manager
• history syncer - history DB writer
• housekeeper - process for removal of old historical data
• http agent poller - asynchronous poller process for HTTP checks with a worker thread
• http poller - web monitoring poller
• icmp pinger - poller for icmpping checks
• ipmi manager - IPMI poller manager
• ipmi poller - poller for IPMI checks
• java poller - poller for Java checks
• odbc poller - poller for ODBC checks
• poller - normal poller for passive checks
• preprocessing manager - manager of preprocessing tasks with preprocessing worker threads
• preprocessing worker - thread for data preprocessing
• self-monitoring - process for collecting internal server statistics
• snmp poller - asynchronous poller process for SNMP checks with a worker thread (walk[OID] and get[OID] items only)
• snmp trapper - trapper for SNMP traps
• task manager - process for remote execution of tasks requested by other components (e.g. close problem, acknowledge problem, check item value now, remote command functionality)
• trapper - trapper for active checks, traps, proxy communication
• unreachable poller - poller for unreachable devices
• vmware collector - VMware data collector responsible for data gathering from VMware services

The proxy log file can be used to observe these process types.

Various types of Zabbix proxy processes can be monitored using the zabbix[process,<type>,<mode>,<state>] internal item.

Supported platforms

Zabbix proxy runs on the same list of supported platforms as Zabbix server.

Memory buffer

The memory buffer allows to store new data (item values, network discovery, host autoregistration) in the buffer and upload to Zabbix server without accessing the database. The memory buffer has been introduced for the proxy since Zabbix 7.0.

In installations before Zabbix 7.0 the collected data was stored in the database before uploading to Zabbix server. For these installations this remains the default behavior after upgrading to Zabbix 7.0.

For optimized performance, it is recommended to configure the use of memory buffer on the proxy. This is possible by modifying the value of ProxyBufferMode from "disk" (hardcoded default for existing installations) to "hybrid" (recommended) or "memory". It is also required to set the memory buffer size (ProxyMemoryBufferSize parameter).

In hybrid mode the buffer is protected from data loss by flushing unsent data to the database if the proxy is stopped, the buffer is full or data too old. When all values have been flushed into database, the proxy goes back to using memory buffer.

In memory mode, the memory buffer will be used, however, there is no protection against data loss. If the proxy is stopped, or the memory gets overfilled, the unsent data will be dropped.

The hybrid mode (ProxyBufferMode=hybrid) is applied to all new installations since Zabbix 7.0.

Additional parameters such as ProxyMemoryBufferSize and ProxyMemoryBufferAge define the memory buffer size and the maximum age of data in the buffer, respectively.

Note that with conflicting configuration the proxy will print an error and fail to start, for example, if:

• ProxyBufferMode is set to "hybrid" or "memory" and ProxyMemoryBufferSize is "0";
• ProxyBufferMode is set to "hybrid" or "memory" and ProxyLocalBuffer is not "0".

Locale

Note that the proxy requires a UTF-8 locale so that some textual items can be interpreted correctly. Most modern Unix-like systems have a UTF-8 locale as default, however, there are some systems where that may need to be set specifically.