Zabbix server

Martem Zabbix Server

Intro

There is a Zabbix server PC located in the "server room" (near the fridge). Zabbix software itself is run in a VMware virtual machine on that PC in the background. It is started at system boot from /etc/rc.local by the line.

vmrun -T player start /zabbix/Zabbix/Zabbix2.4.vmx nogui &

Note that for some reason running that line in text mode (no gui) (f.ex. Ctrl + Alt + F1) won't work. The process will be seen in the background. but the vm won't respond (You will be unable to ping 10.0.0.177 - static ip assigned to the virtual machine).

Zabbix server info

IP: 10.0.0.159

Has tightvnc installed which is run at system boot. Script location: /etc/init/vncserver

vnc port: 5901

This machine has 2x2TB HDD in RAID1+0 far fetched layout with LVM.

roland@zabbixsrv:~$ lsblk
NAME                                       MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE   MOUNTPOINT
sda                                          8:0    0   1.8T  0 disk   
|-sda1                                       8:1    0     1M  0 part   
|-sda2                                       8:2    0    14G  0 part   
| `-md1                                      9:1    0    14G  0 raid10 [SWAP]
`-sda3                                       8:3    0   1.8T  0 part   
  `-md0                                      9:0    0   1.8T  0 raid10 
    |-zabbix-root (dm-0)                   252:0    0  46.6G  0 lvm    /
    |-zabbix-home (dm-1)                   252:1    0 139.7G  0 lvm    /home
    |-zabbix-var (dm-2)                    252:2    0 139.7G  0 lvm    /var
    |-zabbix-tmp (dm-3)                    252:3    0  18.6G  0 lvm    /tmp
    `-zabbix-zabbix_virtual_machine (dm-4) 252:4    0   200G  0 lvm    /zabbix
sdb                                          8:16   0   1.8T  0 disk   
|-sdb1                                       8:17   0     1M  0 part   
|-sdb2                                       8:18   0    14G  0 part   
| `-md1                                      9:1    0    14G  0 raid10 [SWAP]
`-sdb3                                       8:19   0   1.8T  0 part   
  `-md0                                      9:0    0   1.8T  0 raid10 
    |-zabbix-root (dm-0)                   252:0    0  46.6G  0 lvm    /
    |-zabbix-home (dm-1)                   252:1    0 139.7G  0 lvm    /home
    |-zabbix-var (dm-2)                    252:2    0 139.7G  0 lvm    /var
    |-zabbix-tmp (dm-3)                    252:3    0  18.6G  0 lvm    /tmp
    `-zabbix-zabbix_virtual_machine (dm-4) 252:4    0   200G  0 lvm    /zabbix

At first the idea was to migrate zabbix from its virtual machine to this PC so the root /home /var and /tmp logical volumes were made with their sepicific sizes. Later it was decided that zabbix will run in its virtual machine, so 200GB /zabbix logical volume was made and everything related to the vm is stored there.

General Info

roland@zabbixsrv:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS
Release:        12.04
Codename:       precise
roland@zabbixsrv:~$ uname -a
Linux zabbixsrv 3.2.0-75-generic #110-Ubuntu SMP Tue Dec 16 19:11:55 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Known issues

Right after the installation update command was run, which successfully updated the kernel version from 3.2.0.75 to 3.2.0.76 and as usual grub boot loader was updated accordingly (3.2.0.76 as default and 3.2.0.75 was moved to the previous versions subcategory). After that the system stopped booting giving a black screen with no errors. After manually booting to the old kernel version I modified /boot/grub/grub.cfg file and set the default boot option from 0 (the first one on the list) to "2>0", which means first option in the third item (a subcategory in our case). This means that the older version is being loaded at the moment. Such modification isn't dynamic, as soon as some one updates to a newer kernel, the not working 3.2.0.76 will be as the first option in the third item and the system might not boot again.

Zabbix virtual machine info

All the files related to zabbix virtual machine are located at /zabbix

The software used to run the virtual machine:

VMware-Workstation-Full-11.0.0-2305329.x86_64

Install binary should be located at /home/roland

Using WMware Player + WMware VIX utilities as suggested in most tutorials gave an error, because of misconfigurations in some conf file. It seemed like the latest versions were buggy at that time.

General Info

IP: 10.0.0.177

martem@zabbix:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS
Release:        12.04
Codename:       precise
martem@zabbix:~$ uname -a
Linux zabbix 3.2.0-63-generic #95-Ubuntu SMP Thu May 15 23:05:57 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Zabbix server info

Changelog

13.02.2015 Disabled Discovery and related Actions. Inconvenient and buggy 
16.02.2015 Enabled Discovery and related actions, but added additional action step to remove discovered host from Discovered hosts group, which seems to solve some problems.
17.02.2015 Disabled discovery and related Actions.

MarkTomm 16. veebruar 2015, kell 15:38 (EET)