Visualizing Your Infrastructure: A Deep Dive into Zabbix Maps

Good morning everyone, Dimitri Bellini here, and welcome back to Quadrata – your go-to channel for open source and IT solutions! Today, I want to dive into a feature of our good friend Zabbix that we haven’t explored much yet: Zabbix Maps.

Honestly, I was recently working on some maps, and while it might not always be the most glamorous part of Zabbix, it sparked an idea: why not share what these maps are truly capable of, and perhaps more importantly, what they aren’t?

What Zabbix Maps REALLY Are: Your Digital Synoptic Panel

Think of Zabbix Maps as the modern, digital equivalent of those old-school synoptic panels with blinking lights. They provide a powerful graphical way to represent your infrastructure and its status directly within Zabbix. Here’s what you can achieve:

• Real-time Host Status: Instantly see the overall health of your hosts based on whether they have active problems.
• Real-time Event Representation: Visualize specific problems (triggers) directly on the map. Imagine a specific light turning red only when a critical service fails.
• Real-time Item Metrics: Display actual data values (like temperature, traffic throughput, user counts) directly on your map, making data much more intuitive and visually appealing.

The core idea is to create a custom graphical overview tailored to your specific infrastructure, giving you an immediate understanding of what’s happening at a glance.

Clearing Up Misconceptions: What Zabbix Maps Are NOT

It’s crucial to understand the limitations to use maps effectively. Often, people hope Zabbix Maps will automatically generate network topology diagrams.

• They are NOT Automatic Network Topology Maps: While you *could* manually build something resembling a network diagram, Zabbix doesn’t automatically discover devices and map their connections (who’s plugged into which switch port, etc.). Tools that attempt this often rely on protocols like Cisco’s CDP or the standard LLDP (both usually SNMP-based), which aren’t universally available across all devices. Furthermore, in large environments (think thousands of hosts and hundreds of switches), automatically generated topology maps quickly become an unreadable mess of tiny icons and overlapping lines. They might look cool initially but offer little practical value day-to-day.
• They are NOT Application Performance Monitoring (APM) Relationship Maps (Yet!): Zabbix Maps don’t currently visualize the intricate relationships and data flows between different application components in the way dedicated APM tools do. While Zabbix is heading towards APM capabilities, the current map function isn’t designed for that specific purpose.

For the nitty-gritty details, I always recommend checking the official Zabbix documentation – it’s an invaluable resource.

Building Blocks of a Zabbix Map

When constructing your map, you have several element types at your disposal:

• Host: Represents a monitored device. Its appearance can change based on problem severity.
• Trigger: Represents a specific problem condition. You can link an icon’s appearance directly to a trigger’s state.
• Map: Allows you to create nested maps. The icon for a sub-map can reflect the most severe status of the elements within it – great for drilling down!
• Image: Use custom background images or icons to make your map visually informative and appealing.
• Host Group: Automatically display all hosts belonging to a specific group within a defined area on the map.
• Shape: Geometric shapes (rectangles, ellipses) that can be used for layout, grouping, or, importantly, displaying text and real-time data.
• Link: Lines connecting elements. These can change color or style based on a trigger’s status, often used to represent connectivity or dependencies.

Zabbix also provides visual cues like highlighting elements with problems or showing small triangles to indicate a recent status change, helping you focus on what needs attention.

Bringing Maps to Life with Real-Time Data

One of the most powerful features is embedding live data directly onto your map. Instead of just seeing if a server is “up” or “down,” you can see its current CPU load, network traffic, or application-specific metrics.

This is typically done using Shapes and a specific syntax within the shape’s label. In Zabbix 6.x and later, the syntax looks something like this:

{?last(/Your Host Name/your.item.key)}

This tells Zabbix to display the last received value for the item your.item.key on the host named Your Host Name. You can add descriptive text around it, like:

CPU Load: {?last(/MyWebServer/system.cpu.load[,avg1])}

Zabbix is smart enough to often apply the correct unit (like Bps, %, °C) automatically if it’s defined in the item configuration.

Let’s Build a Simple Map (Quick Guide)

Here’s a condensed walkthrough based on what I demonstrated in the video (using Zabbix 6.4):

1. Navigate to Maps: Go to Monitoring -> Maps.
2. Create New Map: Click “Create map”. Give it a name (e.g., “YouTube Test”), set dimensions, and optionally choose a background image.
   • Tip: You can upload custom icons and background images under Administration -> General -> Images. I uploaded custom red/green icons and a background for the demo.

3. Configure Map Properties: Decide on options like “Icon highlighting” (the colored border around problematic hosts) and “Mark elements on trigger status change” (the triangles for recent changes). You can also filter problems by severity or hide labels if needed. Click “Add”.
4. Enter Constructor Mode: Open your newly created map and click “Constructor”.
5. Add a Trigger-Based Icon:

   • Click “Add element” (defaults to a server icon).
   • Click the new element. Change “Type” to “Trigger”.
   • Under “Icons”, select your custom “green” icon for the “Default” state and your “red” icon for the “Problem” state.
   • Click “Add” next to “Triggers” and select the specific trigger you want this icon to react to.
   • Click “Apply”. Position the icon on your map.

6. Add Real-Time Data Display:

   • Click “Add element” and select “Shape” (e.g., Rectangle).
   • Click the new shape. In the “Label” field, enter your data syntax, e.g., Temp: {?last(/quadrata-test-host/test.item)} (replace with your actual host and item key).
   • Customize font size, remove the border (set Border width to 0), etc.
   • Click “Apply”. Position the shape.
   • Important: In the constructor toolbar, toggle “Expand macros” ON to see the live data instead of the syntax string.

7. Refine and Save: Adjust element positions (you might want to turn off “Snap to grid” for finer control). Remove default labels if they clutter the view (Map Properties -> Map element label type -> Nothing). Click “Update” to save your changes.

Testing with `zabbix_sender`

A fantastic tool for testing maps (especially with trapper items) is the zabbix_sender command-line utility. It lets you manually push data to Zabbix items.

Install the `zabbix-sender` package if you don’t have it. The basic syntax is:

zabbix_sender -z -s -k -o

For example:

zabbix_sender -z 192.168.1.100 -s quadrata-test-host -k test.item -o 25

Sending a value that crosses a trigger threshold will change your trigger-linked icon on the map. Sending a different value will update the real-time data display.

Wrapping Up

So, there you have it – a look into Zabbix Maps. They aren’t magic topology generators, but they are incredibly flexible and powerful tools for creating meaningful, real-time visual dashboards of your infrastructure’s health and performance. By combining different elements, custom icons, backgrounds, and live data, you can build truly informative synoptic views.

Don’t be afraid to experiment! Start simple and gradually add complexity as you get comfortable.