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Exploring Zabbix 7.4 Beta 1: What’s New and What I’m Hoping For
By Dimitri Bellini18 Aprile, 2025Blog, Uncategorized

Exploring Zabbix 7.4 Beta 1: What’s New and What I’m Hoping For

Good morning everyone! Dimitri Bellini here, back on the Quadrata channel – your spot for everything Open Source and the IT topics I find fascinating (and hopefully, you do too!). Thanks for tuning in each week. If you haven’t already, please consider subscribing and hitting that like button; it really helps the channel!

This week, we’re diving into something exciting: the latest Zabbix 7.4 Beta 1 release. This is a short-term support (STS) version, meaning it’s packed with new features that pave the way for the next Long-Term Support (LTS) release, expected later this year. With Beta 1 out and release candidates already tagged in the repositories, the official 7.4 release feels very close – likely within Q2 2024. So, let’s break down what’s new based on this first beta.

Key Features Introduced in Zabbix 7.4 Beta 1

While we don’t have that dream dashboard I keep showing (maybe one day, Zabbix team!), Beta 1 brings several practical and technical improvements.

Performance and Internals: History Cache Management

A significant technical improvement is the enhanced management of the history cache. Sometimes, items become disabled (manually or via discovery) but still occupy space in the cache, potentially causing issues. Zabbix 7.4 introduces:

  • Automatic Aging: Zabbix will now automatically clean up these inactive items from the cache.

  • Manual Aging Command: For environments with many frequently disabled objects, you can now manually trigger this cleanup at runtime using a command. This helps free up resources and maintain stability.

  • Cache Content Analysis: For troubleshooting, there are now better tools to analyze cache content and adjust log verbosity in real-time, which is invaluable in critical production environments.

UI and Widget Enhancements

  • Item History Widget Sorting: The Item History widget (introduced in 7.0) gets a much-needed update. When displaying logs, you can now choose to show the newest entries first, making log analysis much more intuitive than the old default (oldest first).

  • Test Item Value Copy Button: A small but incredibly useful UI tweak! When testing items, especially those returning large JSON payloads, you no longer need to manually select the text. There’s now a dedicated copy icon. Simple, but effective!

  • User Notification Management: Finally! Users can now manage their own notification media types (like email addresses) directly from their user settings via a dedicated menu. Previously, this required administrator intervention.

New Monitoring Capabilities

  • New ICMP Ping Item (`icmpping`): A new item key for ICMP checks includes a crucial `retry` option. This helps reduce noise and potential engine load caused by transient network issues. Instead of immediately flagging an object as unreachable/reachable and potentially triggering unnecessary actions or internal retries, you can configure it to try, say, 3 times before marking the item state as unreachable. This should lead to more stable availability monitoring.

  • New Timestamp Functions & Macros: We have new functions (like `item.history.first_clock`) that return timestamps of the oldest/newest values within an evaluation period. While the exact use case isn’t immediately obvious to me (perhaps related to upcoming event correlation or specific Windows monitoring scenarios?), having more tools for time-based analysis is interesting. Additionally, new built-in timestamp macros are available for use in notifications.

Major Map Enhancements

Maps receive some fantastic updates in 7.4, making them much more powerful and visually appealing:

  • Item Value Link Indicators: This is huge! Previously, link status (color/style) could only be tied to triggers. Now, you can base link appearance on:

    • Static: Just a simple visual link.

    • Trigger Status: The classic method.

    • Item Value: Define thresholds for numeric item values (e.g., bandwidth usage) or specific strings for text items (e.g., “on”/”off”) to change the link’s color and line style. This opens up possibilities for visualizing performance directly on the map without relying solely on triggers.

  • Auto-Hiding Labels: Tired of cluttered maps with overlapping labels? You can now set labels to hide by default and only appear when you hover over the element. This drastically improves readability for complex maps.

  • Scalable Background Images: Map background images will now scale proportionally to fit the map widget size, preventing awkward cropping or stretching.

One thing I’d still love to see, maybe before the final 7.4 release, is the ability to have multiple links between two map objects (e.g., representing aggregated network trunks).

New Templates and Integrations

Zabbix continues to expand its out-of-the-box monitoring:

  • Pure Storage FlashArray Template: Monitoring for this popular enterprise storage solution is now included.

  • Microsoft SQL for Azure Template: Enhanced cloud monitoring capabilities.

  • MySQL/Oracle Agent 2 Improvements: Simplifications for running custom queries directly via the Zabbix Agent 2 plugins.

What I’m Hoping For (Maybe 7.4, Maybe Later?)

Looking at the roadmap and based on some code movements I’ve seen, here are a couple of features I’m particularly excited about and hope to see soon, possibly even in 7.4:

  • Nested Low-Level Discovery (LLD): This would be a game-changer for dynamic environments. Imagine discovering databases, and then, as a sub-task, discovering the tables within each database using discovery prototypes derived from the parent discovery. This structured approach would simplify complex auto-discovery scenarios (databases, Kubernetes, cloud resources). I have a strong feeling this might make it into 7.4.

  • Event Correlation: My big dream feature! The ability to intelligently link related events, identifying the root cause (e.g., a failed switch) and suppressing the symptoms (all the hosts behind it becoming unreachable). This would significantly reduce alert noise and help focus on the real problem. It’s listed on the roadmap, but whether it lands in 7.4 remains to be seen.

  • Alternative Backend Storage: Also on the roadmap is exploring alternative backend solutions beyond traditional SQL databases (like potentially TimescaleDB alternatives, though not explicitly named). This is crucial groundwork for Zabbix 8.0 and beyond, especially for handling the massive data volumes associated with full observability (metrics, logs, traces).

  • New Host Wizard: A guided wizard for adding new hosts is also in development, which should improve the user experience.

Wrapping Up

Zabbix 7.4 is shaping up to be another solid release, bringing valuable improvements to maps, performance, usability, and monitoring capabilities. The map enhancements based on item values and the history cache improvements are particularly noteworthy from this Beta 1.

I’ll definitely keep you updated as we get closer to the final release and if features like Nested LLD or Event Correlation make the cut!

What do you think? Are these features useful for you? What are you hoping to see in Zabbix 7.4 or the upcoming Zabbix 8.0? Let me know in the comments below – I’m always curious to hear your thoughts and often pass feedback along (yes, I’m known for being persistent with the Zabbix team, like Alexey Vladyshev!).

Don’t forget to check out the Quadrata YouTube channel for more content like this.

And if you’re not already there, join the conversation in the ZabbixItalia Telegram Channel – it’s a great place to connect with other Italian Zabbix users.

That’s all for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll catch you in the next one!

– Dimitri Bellini

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Taming the SNMP Beast: Custom Monitoring with Zabbix Discovery
By Dimitri Bellini31 Marzo, 2025Blog, Uncategorized

Taming the SNMP Beast: Custom Monitoring with Zabbix Discovery

Good morning everyone, and welcome back! It’s Dimitri Bellini here on Quadrata, your channel for open-source tech insights. Today, we’re diving back into the world of Zabbix, specifically tackling what many consider a ‘black beast’: SNMP monitoring.

SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) is incredibly common for monitoring network devices like routers and switches (think Mikrotik, Cisco), but it’s also used for applications and servers running SNMP daemons. Zabbix comes packed with pre-built templates for many SNMP devices, which makes life easy – apply the template, set a few parameters, and data starts flowing. But what happens when you have a device with no template, or you only have the manufacturer’s MIB file? That’s when things get trickier, and you need to build your monitoring from scratch.

In this post, I want to share my approach to creating new SNMP monitoring templates or discovering SNMP data when starting from zero. Let’s demystify this process together!

Understanding the SNMP Basics: MIBs and OIDs

Before jumping into Zabbix, we need to understand what we *can* monitor. This information lives in MIB (Management Information Base) files provided by the device vendor. These files define the structure of manageable data using OIDs (Object Identifiers) – unique numerical addresses for specific metrics or pieces of information.

Your Essential Toolkit: MIB Browser and snmpwalk

To explore these MIBs and test SNMP communication, I rely on a couple of key tools:

  • MIB Browser: I often use the iReasoning MIB Browser. It’s free, multi-platform (Java-based), and lets you load MIB files visually. You can navigate the OID tree, see descriptions, data types, and even potential values (which helps later with Zabbix Value Maps). For example, you can find the OID for interface operational status (ifOperStatus) and see that ‘1’ means ‘up’, ‘2’ means ‘down’, etc.

  • snmpwalk: This command-line utility (part of standard SNMP tools on Linux) lets you query a device directly. It’s crucial for verifying that the device responds and seeing the actual data returned for a specific OID.

Finding Your Way with OIDs

Let’s say we want to monitor network interfaces on a device (like the pfSense appliance I use in the video). Using the MIB browser, we find the OID for interface descriptions, often IF-MIB::ifDescr. We can then test this with snmpwalk:

snmpwalk -v2c -c public 192.168.1.1 IF-MIB::ifDescr

(Replace public with your device’s SNMP community string and 192.168.1.1 with its IP address. We’re using SNMP v2c here for simplicity, though v3 offers better security).

This command might return something like:


IF-MIB::ifDescr.1 = STRING: enc0

IF-MIB::ifDescr.2 = STRING: ovpns1

...

Sometimes, especially when Zabbix might not have the MIB loaded, it’s easier to work with the full numerical OID. Use the -On flag:

snmpwalk -v2c -c public -On 192.168.1.1 1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2

This will output the full numerical OIDs, like .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2.1, .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2.2, etc.

The Power of SNMP Indexes

Notice the numbers at the end of the OIDs (.1, .2)? These are **indexes**. SNMP often organizes data in tables. Think of it like a spreadsheet: each row represents an instance (like a specific interface or disk), identified by its index. Different columns represent different metrics (like description, status, speed, octets in/out) for that instance.

So, ifDescr.1 is the description for interface index 1, and ifOperStatus.1 (OID: .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.8.1) would be the operational status for that *same* interface index 1. This index is the key to correlating different pieces of information about the same logical entity.

Automating with Zabbix Low-Level Discovery (LLD)

Manually creating an item in Zabbix for every single interface and every metric (status, traffic in, traffic out…) is tedious and static. If a new interface appears, you have to add it manually. This is where Zabbix’s Low-Level Discovery (LLD) shines for SNMP.

LLD allows Zabbix to automatically find entities (like interfaces, disks, processors) based on SNMP indexes and then create items, triggers, and graphs for them using prototypes.

Setting Up Your Discovery Rule

Let’s create a discovery rule for network interfaces:

  1. Go to Configuration -> Templates -> Your Template -> Discovery rules -> Create discovery rule.

  2. Name: Something descriptive, e.g., “Network Interface Discovery”.

  3. Type: SNMP agent.

  4. Key: A unique key you define, e.g., net.if.discovery.

  5. SNMP OID: This is the core. Use the Zabbix discovery syntax: discovery[{#MACRO_NAME1}, OID1, {#MACRO_NAME2}, OID2, ...].

    • Zabbix automatically provides {#SNMPINDEX} representing the index found.

    • We define custom macros to capture specific values. For interface names, we can use {#IFNAME}.

    So, to discover interface names based on their index, the OID field would look like this:
    discovery[{#IFNAME}, 1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2]
    (Using the numerical OID for ifDescr).

  6. Configure other settings like update interval as needed.

Zabbix will periodically run this rule, perform an SNMP walk on the specified OID (ifDescr), and generate a list mapping each {#SNMPINDEX} to its corresponding {#IFNAME} value.

Pro Tip: Use the “Test” button in the discovery rule configuration! It’s incredibly helpful to see the raw data Zabbix gets and the JSON output with your macros populated before saving.

Creating Dynamic Items with Prototypes

Now that Zabbix can discover the interfaces, we need to tell it *what* to monitor for each one using Item Prototypes:

  1. Within your discovery rule, go to the “Item prototypes” tab -> Create item prototype.

  2. Name: Use the macros found by discovery for dynamic naming, e.g., Interface {#IFNAME}: Operational Status.

  3. Type: SNMP agent.

  4. Key: Must be unique per host. Use a macro to ensure this, e.g., net.if.status[{#SNMPINDEX}].

  5. SNMP OID: Specify the OID for the metric you want, appending the index macro. For operational status (ifOperStatus, numerical OID .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.8), use: 1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.8.{#SNMPINDEX}. Zabbix will automatically replace {#SNMPINDEX} with the correct index (1, 2, 3…) for each discovered interface.

  6. Type of information: Numeric (unsigned) for status codes.

  7. Units: N/A for status.

  8. Value mapping: Select or create a value map that translates the numerical status (1, 2, 3…) into human-readable text (Up, Down, Testing…). This uses the information we found earlier in the MIB browser.

  9. Configure other settings like update interval, history storage, etc.

Once saved, Zabbix will use this prototype to create an actual item for each interface discovered by the LLD rule. If a new interface appears on the device, Zabbix will discover it and automatically create the corresponding status item!

A Practical Example: Monitoring Disk Storage

We can apply the same logic to other SNMP data, like disk storage. In the video, I showed discovering disk types and capacities on my pfSense box.

Discovering Disk Types with Preprocessing

I created another discovery rule targeting the OID for storage types (e.g., from the HOST-RESOURCES-MIB or a vendor-specific MIB). This OID often returns numbers (like 3 for Hard Disk, 5 for Optical Disk).

To make the discovered macro more readable (e.g., {#DISKTYPE}), I used Zabbix’s **Preprocessing** feature within the discovery rule itself:

  • Add a preprocessing step of type “Replace”.

  • Find `^5$` (regex for the number 5) and replace with `Optical Disk`.

  • Add another step to find `^3$` and replace with `Hard Disk`.

Now, the {#DISKTYPE} macro will contain “Hard Disk” or “Optical Disk” instead of just a number.

Monitoring Disk Capacity with Unit Conversion

Then, I created an item prototype for disk capacity:

  • Name: `Disk {#DISKTYPE}: Capacity`

  • Key: `storage.capacity[{#SNMPINDEX}]`

  • SNMP OID: `[OID_for_storage_size].{#SNMPINDEX}`

  • Units: `B` (Bytes)

  • Preprocessing (in the Item Prototype): The SNMP device reported capacity in Kilobytes (or sometimes in allocation units * block size). To normalize it to Bytes, I added a “Custom multiplier” preprocessing step with a value of `1024`.

Putting It All Together

By combining MIB exploration, `snmpwalk` testing, Zabbix LLD rules with custom macros, and item prototypes with appropriate OIDs and preprocessing, you can build powerful, dynamic SNMP monitoring for almost any device, even without off-the-shelf templates.

It might seem a bit daunting initially, especially understanding the OID structure and LLD syntax, but once you grasp the concept of indexes and macros, it becomes quite manageable. The key is to break it down: find the OIDs, test them, set up discovery, and then define what data to collect via prototypes.

I hope this walkthrough helps demystify custom SNMP monitoring in Zabbix! It’s a powerful skill to have when dealing with diverse infrastructure.

What are your biggest challenges with SNMP monitoring? Have you built custom LLD rules? Share your experiences, questions, or tips in the comments below! I’ll do my best to answer any doubts you might have.

And if you have more Zabbix questions, feel free to join the Italian Zabbix community on Telegram: Zabbix Italia.

If you found this post helpful, please give the original video a ‘Like’ on YouTube, share this post, and subscribe to Quadrata for more open-source and Zabbix content.

Thanks for reading, and see you next week!

– Dimitri Bellini

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Automate Your Zabbix Reporting with Scheduled Reports: A Step-by-Step Guide
By Dimitri Bellini11 Marzo, 2025Blog, Uncategorized

Automate Your Zabbix Reporting with Scheduled Reports: A Step-by-Step Guide

Hey everyone, Dimitri Bellini here from Quadrata, your go-to channel for open source and IT insights! It’s fantastic to have you back with me. If you’re enjoying the content and haven’t subscribed yet, now’s a great time to hit that button and help me bring you even more valuable videos. 😉

Today, we’re diving deep into a Zabbix feature that’s been around for a while but is now truly shining – Scheduled Reports. Recently, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about this from clients, and it made me realize it’s time to shed light on this often-overlooked functionality. So, let’s talk about automating those PDF reports from your Zabbix dashboards.

Why Scheduled Reports? The Power of Automated Insights

Scheduled reports might not be brand new to Zabbix (they’ve been around since version 5.2!), but honestly, I wasn’t completely sold on them until recently. In older versions, they felt a bit… incomplete. But with Zabbix 7 and especially 7.2, things have changed dramatically. Now, in my opinion, scheduled reports are becoming a genuinely useful tool.

What are we talking about exactly? Essentially, scheduled reports are a way to automatically generate PDFs of your Zabbix dashboards and have them emailed to stakeholders – think bosses, team leads, or anyone who needs a regular overview without logging into Zabbix directly. We all know that stakeholder, right? The one who wants to see a “green is good” PDF report every Monday morning (or Friday afternoon!). While dashboards are great for real-time monitoring, scheduled reports offer that convenient, digestible summary for those who need a quick status update.

Sure, everyone *could* log into Zabbix and check the dashboards themselves. But let’s be real, sometimes pushing the information directly to them in a clean, professional PDF format is just more efficient and impactful. And that’s where Zabbix Scheduled Reports come in!

Key Features of Zabbix Scheduled Reports

Let’s break down the main advantages of using scheduled reports in Zabbix:

    • Automation: Define parameters to automatically send specific dashboards on a schedule (daily, weekly, monthly) to designated users.
    • Customization: Leverage your existing Zabbix dashboards. The reports are generated directly from the dashboards you design with widgets.
    • PDF Format: Reports are generated in PDF, the universally readable and versatile format.
    • Access Control: Control who can create and manage scheduled reports using user roles and permissions within Zabbix (Admin and Super Admin roles with specific flags).

For more detailed information, I highly recommend checking out the official Zabbix documentation and the Zabbix blog post about scheduled reports. I’ll include links in the description below for your convenience!

Setting Up Zabbix Scheduled Reports: A Step-by-Step Guide

Ready to get started? Here’s how to set up scheduled reports in Zabbix. Keep in mind, this guide is based on a simplified installation for demonstration purposes. For production environments, always refer to the official Zabbix documentation for best practices and advanced configurations.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure you have the following:

    • A running Zabbix server (version 7.0 or higher recommended, 7.2+ for the best experience).
    • Configured dashboards in Zabbix that you want to use for reports.
    • Email media type configured in Zabbix for sending reports.

Installation of Zabbix Web Service and Google Chrome

The magic behind Zabbix scheduled reports relies on a separate component: Zabbix Web Service. This service handles the PDF generation and needs to be installed separately. It also uses Google Chrome (or Chromium) in headless mode to take screenshots of your dashboards and convert them to PDF.

Here’s how to install them on a Red Hat-based system (like Rocky Linux) using YUM/DNF:

    1. Install Zabbix Web Service:
      sudo yum install zabbix-web-service

      Make sure you have the official Zabbix repository configured.

    1. Install Google Chrome Stable:
      sudo yum install google-chrome-stable

      This will install Google Chrome and its dependencies. Be aware that Chrome can pull in quite a few dependencies, which is why installing the web service on a separate, smaller machine can be a good idea for cleaner Zabbix server environments.

Configuring Zabbix Server

Next, we need to configure the Zabbix server to enable scheduled reports and point it to the web service.

    1. Edit the Zabbix Server Configuration File:
      sudo vi /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf
    1. Modify the following parameters:
        • StartReportWriters=1 (Change from 0 to 1 or more, depending on your reporting needs. Start with 1 for testing.)
        • WebServiceURL="http://localhost:10053/report" (Adjust the IP address and port if your web service is running on a different machine or port. 10053 is the default port for Zabbix Web Service).
    1. Restart Zabbix Server:
      sudo systemctl restart zabbix-server
    1. Start Zabbix Web Service:
      sudo systemctl start zabbix-web-service
    1. Enable Zabbix Web Service to start on boot:
      sudo systemctl enable zabbix-web-service

Configuring Zabbix Frontend

One last crucial configuration step in the Zabbix web interface!

    1. Navigate to Administration -> General -> GUI.
    1. Modify “Frontend URL”: Set this to the full URL of your Zabbix frontend (e.g., http://your_zabbix_server_ip/zabbix). This is essential for Chrome to access the dashboards correctly for PDF generation.
    1. Click “Update”.

Creating a Scheduled Report

Now for the fun part – creating your first scheduled report!

    1. Go to Reports -> Scheduled reports.
    1. Click “Create scheduled report”.
    1. Configure the report:
        • Name: Give your report a descriptive name (e.g., “Weekly Server Health Report”).
        • Dashboard: Select the dashboard you want to use for the report.
        • Period: Choose the time period for the report data (e.g., “Previous week”).
        • Schedule: Define the frequency (daily, weekly, monthly), time, and start/end dates for report generation.
        • Recipients: Add users or user groups who should receive the report via email. Make sure they have email media configured!
        • Generated report by: Choose if the report should be generated based on the permissions of the “Current user” (the admin creating the report) or the “Recipient” of the report.
        • Message: Customize the email message that accompanies the report (you can use Zabbix macros here).
    1. Click “Add”.

Testing and Troubleshooting

To test your setup, you can use the “Test” button next to your newly created scheduled report. If you encounter issues, double-check:

    • Email media configuration for recipients.
    • Zabbix Web Service and Google Chrome installation.
    • Zabbix server and web service configuration files.
    • Frontend URL setting.
    • Permissions: In the video, I encountered a permission issue related to the /var/lib/zabbix directory. You might need to create this directory and ensure the Zabbix user has write permissions if you face similar errors. sudo mkdir /var/lib/zabbix && sudo chown zabbix:zabbix /var/lib/zabbix

Why Zabbix 7.x Makes a Difference

I really started to appreciate scheduled reports with Zabbix 7.0 and 7.2. Why? Because these versions brought significant improvements:

    • Multi-page Reports: Finally, reports can span multiple pages, making them much more comprehensive.
    • Enhanced Dashboard Widgets: Zabbix 7.x introduced richer widgets like Top Hosts, Top Items, Pie charts, and Donut charts. These make dashboards (and therefore reports) far more visually appealing and informative.
    • Custom Widgets: With the ability to create custom widgets, you can tailor your dashboards and reports to very specific needs.

These enhancements make scheduled reports in Zabbix 7.x and above a truly valuable tool for delivering insightful and professional monitoring summaries.

Conclusion

Zabbix Scheduled Reports are a fantastic way to automate the delivery of key monitoring insights to stakeholders. While they’ve been around for a while, the improvements in Zabbix 7.x have made them significantly more powerful and user-friendly. Give them a try, experiment with your dashboards, and start delivering automated, professional PDF reports today!

I hope you found this guide helpful! If you did, please give this post a thumbs up (or share!) and let me know in the comments if you have any questions or experiences with Zabbix Scheduled Reports. Don’t forget to subscribe to Quadrata for more open source and IT tips and tricks.

And if you’re in the Zabbix community, be sure to join the ZabbixItalia Telegram channel – a great place to connect with other Zabbix users and get your questions answered. A big thank you for watching, and I’ll see you in the next video!

Bye from Dimitri!

P.S. Keep exploring Zabbix – there’s always something new and cool to discover!

Keywords: Zabbix, Scheduled Reports, PDF Reports, Automation, Dashboards, Monitoring, IT Reporting, Zabbix Web Service, Google Chrome, Tutorial, Guide, Dimitri Bellini, Quadrata, Zabbix 7.2, Zabbix 7.0, Open Source, IT Infrastructure, System Monitoring

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