Zabbix 2.2+ comes with support of loadable modules for extending Zabbix agent and server without sacrificing performance.
A loadable module is basically a shared library used by Zabbix server or agent and loaded on startup. The library should contain certain functions, so that a Zabbix process may detect that the file is indeed a module it can load and work with.
I have created a module to query the VmBix daemon, used to monitor a VMWare infrastructure with Zabbix.
Get the latest version here By default, the packages will create a /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.d/modules.conf file to enable the module. Configure it for the server or the proxy if needed (see the Configure section).
You need to download the Zabbix source and configure the environment :
cd <source_zabbix>
For Zabbix 2.4.x :
./configure
For Zabbix 3+ :
./configure --with-openssl
Then :
cd <source_zabbix>/src/modules/
And you should create a new directory with this git repo content :
git clone https://github.com/dav3860/vmbix_zabbix_module.git
cd vmbix_zabbix_module
After that, compile the module :
make vmbix-2.4
make vmbix-3.0
make vmbix-3.2
This will create the vmbix.so file. Put it into a /usr/lib/zabbix/modules directory for example.
For an agent : /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf
For a server : /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf
For a proxy : /etc/zabbix/zabbix_proxy.conf
LoadModulePath=/usr/lib/zabbix/modules
LoadModule=vmbix.so
By default, the packages will create a /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.d/modules.conf file with parameters above.
And restart the agent or server/proxy.
By default, the module will query VmBix on localhost and port 12050. You can create a configuration file /etc/zabbix/vmbix_module.conf if you want to change this. A sample configuration file is provided.
You can test it like this for example if you configured a Zabbix agent to load the module :
[TEST zbx_vmbix]# zabbix_agentd -t vmbix[version]
2.3.0.59
[TEST zbx_vmbix]# zabbix_agentd -t vmbix[vm.guest.os,VM01]
vmbix[vm.guest.os,VM01] [s|Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (64 bits)]
Or if VmBix is configured to use the UUID to reference the objects (useuuid parameter) :
[TEST zbx_vmbix]# zabbix_agentd -t "vmbix[vm.discovery,*]"
{
"data": [
{
"{#VIRTUALMACHINE}": "VM01",
"{#UUID}": "4214811c-1bab-f0fb-363b-9698a2dc607c"
},
{
"{#VIRTUALMACHINE}": "VM01",
"{#UUID}": "4214c939-18f1-2cd5-928a-67d83bc2f503"
}
]
}
[TEST zbx_vmbix]# zabbix_agentd -t vmbix[vm.guest.os,4214811c-1bab-f0fb-363b-9698a2dc607c]
vmbix[vm.guest.os,VM01] [s|Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (64 bits)]
Sample templates using this loadable module are provided in the VmBix repository.