Zabbix is the most popular monitoring manager (monitoring itself only are catci, zabbix is manager) in opensource and free software agains the nagios one.

In the wiki there are two approaches for its use, the professional one (for servers and deploys) and the fast and simple usage (for developers and/or enthusiasts):

Part 1 Pre-requisites: php, webserver and database

Part 2: zabbix

Zabbix depends on which type of database you will use, here we will show you how to doit with mysql, as more easy to use, for production is recommended posrgresql as in

1. install zabbix packages


apk add zabbix zabbix-mysql zabbix-webif zabbix-setup

2. Configure database mysql zabbix

Now we need to set up the zabbix database. Substitute '*********' in the example below for a real password:


mysql -u root -p -e "create database zabbix character set utf8 collate utf8_bin;"

mysql -u root -p -e "create user 'zabbix'@'localhost' identified by '*********';"

mysql -u root -p -e "grant all privileges on zabbix.* to 'zabbix'@'localhost';"

cat /usr/share/zabbix/database/mysql/schema.sql | mysql -uzabbix -p zabbix

cat /usr/share/zabbix/database/mysql/images.sql | mysql -uzabbix -p zabbix

cat /usr/share/zabbix/database/mysql/data.sql | mysql -uzabbix -p zabbix

3. Setup and configure web frontend

Create a softlink for the Zabbix web-frontend files:

rm /var/www/localhost/htdocs -R ln -s /usr/share/webapps/zabbix /var/www/localhost/htdocs

Edit PHP configuration to satisfy some zabbix requirements. Edit /etc/php7/php.ini and configure the following values at least:

Max_execution_time = 600
Expose_php = Off
Date.timezone = <insert your timezone here>
post_max_size = 32M
upload_max_filesize = 16M
max_input_time = 600
memory_limit = 256M

Also comment (doc_root & user_dir ) by putting # before these.

Configure the following entries in /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf, where DBPassword is the password chosen for the database above:

DBName=zabbix

# Database user

DBUser=zabbix

# Database password
# Comment this line if no password used

DBPassword=*********

FpingLocation=/usr/sbin/fping

Start Zabbix server:

rc-update add zabbix-server /etc/init.d/zabbix-server start

Fix permissions on conf directory.

chown -R lighttpd /usr/share/webapps/zabbix/conf

You should now be able to browse to the Zabbix frontend: http://yourservername/.

or

You should now be able to browse to the Zabbix setup frontend: http://yourserverip/instal.php.

Follow the setup instructions to configure Zabbix, supplying the database information used above.

After setup, login using: Login name: Admin Password:zabbix. (as described at http://www.zabbix.com/documentation/1.8/manual/installation)

Finally, Zabbix requires special permissions to use the fping binary.

chmod u+s /usr/sbin/fping

Install Zabbix Agent on Monitored Servers

Zabbix can monitor almost any operating system, including Alpine Linux hosts. Complete the following steps to install the Zabbix agent on Alpine Linux.

Note: Support to allow zabbix-agentd to view running processes on Alpine Linux has been added since linux-grsec-2.6.35.9-r2. Please ensure you have that kernel installed prior to attempting to run zabbix-agentd.

Ensure that the readproc group exists (support added since alpine-baselayout-2.0_rc1-r1), by adding the following line to /etc/group:

readproc:x:30:zabbix

Install the agent package:

apk add zabbix-agent

Edit the /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf file and configure at least the following option:

Server=<ip or hostname of zabbix server>
Hostname=<ip or hostname of zabbix agent>
ListenPort=10050

Start the zabbix-agent:

rc-update add zabbix-agentd /etc/init.d/zabbix-agentd start

In case you want to monitor using SNMP agent on remote machines you have to add these packages on zabbix server:

apk add net-snmp net-snmp-tools

And add these packages on remote machines:

apk add net-snmp

Optional: Crash course in adding hosts, checks, and notifications

Note: This is optional since it's not specific to Alpine Linux, but I wanted a couple notes for how to perform a simple check on a server that doesn't have the agent installed on it, and be notified on state changes.

Administration -> Media Types -> Email

Setup server, helo, email from address

Administration -> Users

Setup each user who'll get notified, make sure they have media type "Email" added with their address

Configuration -> Hosts -> Create host

In Linux Servers hostgroup
Define dns name, ip, connect by IP
If the machine is a simple networking device that will only be monitored using SNMP, add it to Template_SNMPv2_Device, and you're done.

Configuration -> Templates -> Create template

Give it a name (Template_Alpine_Linux_Infra_HTTP)
In Templates group

Configuration -> Templates -> Template_Alpine_Linux_Infra_HTTP -> Items

Create Item
Host: Template_Alpine_Linux_Infra_HTTP
Description: HTTP Basic Check
Type: Simple_check
Key: http,80

Configuration -> Templates -> Template_Alpine_Linux_Infra_HTTP -> Triggers

Create Trigger
Name: "HTTP Trigger"
Expression: {Template_Alpine_Linux_Infra_HTTP:http,80.last(0)}#1
Severity: High

Configuration -> Actions ->

Create Action
name: Email notifications
Event source: triggers
Default Subject: add "{HOST.DNS}:" to the beginning
Default message: add "{HOST.DNS}:" to the beginning
Conditions: make host have to be from "Linux Servers" hostgroup, and Template_Alpine_Linux_Infra_HTTP:HTTP trigger" is not 1
Email affected users