Table of Contents
3 Agent
Overview
Áú»¢¶Ä²© agent is deployed on a monitoring target to actively monitor local resources and applications (hard drives, memory, processor statistics etc).
The agent gathers operational information locally and reports data to Áú»¢¶Ä²© server for further processing. In case of failures (such as a hard disk running full or a crashed service process), Áú»¢¶Ä²© server can actively alert the administrators of the particular machine that reported the failure.
Áú»¢¶Ä²© agents are extremely efficient because of use of native system calls for gathering statistical information.
Passive and active checks
Áú»¢¶Ä²© agents can perform passive and active checks.
In a passive check the agent responds to a data request. Áú»¢¶Ä²© server (or proxy) asks for data, for example, CPU load, and Áú»¢¶Ä²© agent sends back the result.
Active checks require more complex processing. The agent must first retrieve a list of items from Áú»¢¶Ä²© server for independent processing. Then it will periodically send new values to the server.
Whether to perform passive or active checks is configured by selecting the respective monitoring item type. Áú»¢¶Ä²© agent processes items of type 'Áú»¢¶Ä²© agent' or 'Áú»¢¶Ä²© agent (active)'.
Supported platforms
Áú»¢¶Ä²© agent is supported for:
- Linux
- IBM AIX
- FreeBSD
- NetBSD
- OpenBSD
- HP-UX
- Mac OS X
- Solaris: 8, 9, 10, 11
- Windows: all desktop and server versions since 2000
Installation
See installation instructions for Áú»¢¶Ä²© agent.
In general, 32bit Áú»¢¶Ä²© agents will work on 64bit systems, but may fail in some cases.
Running agent processes
Áú»¢¶Ä²© agent is run on the host being monitored.
Áú»¢¶Ä²© agent on UNIX runs as a daemon process. To start the agent (standalone daemon), execute:
Áú»¢¶Ä²© agent on Windows runs as a Windows service. You can run a single instance of Áú»¢¶Ä²© agent or multiple instances of the agent on a host. A single instance can use the default configuration file or a configuration file specified in the command line. In case of multiple instances each agent instance must have its own configuration file (one of the instances can use the default configuration file).
The following command line parameters can be used with Áú»¢¶Ä²© agent:
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| UNIX and Windows agent | |
| -c --config <config-file> | Absolute path to the configuration file. You may use this option to specify a configuration file that is not the default one. On UNIX, default is /usr/local/etc/zabbix_agentd.conf or as set by compile-time variables --sysconfdir or --prefix On Windows, default is c:\zabbix_agentd.conf |
| -p --print | Print known items and exit. Note: To return user parameter results as well, you must specify the configuration file (if it is not in the default location). |
| -t --test <item key> | Test specified item and exit. Note: To return user parameter results as well, you must specify the configuration file (if it is not in the default location). |
| -h --help | Display help information |
| -V --version | Display version number |
| Windows agent only | |
| -m --multiple-agents | Use multiple agent instances (with -i,-d,-s,-x functions). To distinguish service names of instances, each service name will include the Hostname value from the specified configuration file. |
| Windows agent only (functions) | |
| -i --install | Install Áú»¢¶Ä²© Windows agent as service |
| -d --uninstall | Uninstall Áú»¢¶Ä²© Windows agent service |
| -s --start | Start Áú»¢¶Ä²© Windows agent service |
| -x --stop | Stop Áú»¢¶Ä²© Windows agent service |
See more details on installing and running Áú»¢¶Ä²© agent on Windows.
Specific examples of using command line parameters:
- printing all built-in agent items with values
- testing a user parameter with "mysql.ping" key defined in the specified configuration file
- installing a "Áú»¢¶Ä²© Agent" service for Windows using the default path to configuration file c:\zabbix_agentd.conf
- installing a "Áú»¢¶Ä²© Agent [Hostname]" service for Windows using the configuration file zabbix_agentd.conf located in the same folder as agent executable and make the service name unique by extending it by Hostname value from the config file
shell> zabbix_agentd --print
shell> zabbix_agentd -t "mysql.ping" -c /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf
shell> zabbix_agentd.exe -i
shell> zabbix_agentd.exe -i -m -c zabbix_agentd.confProcess user
Áú»¢¶Ä²© agent on UNIX is designed to run as a non-root user. It will run as whatever non-root user it is started as. So you can run agent as any non-root user without any issues.
If you will try to run it as 'root', it will switch to a hardcoded 'zabbix' user, which must be present on your system. You can only run agent as 'root' if you modify the 'AllowRoot' parameter in the agent configuration file accordingly.
Locale
Note that the agent requires a UTF-8 locale so that some textual agent items can return the expected content. Most modern Unix-like systems have a UTF-8 locale as default, however, there are some systems where that may need to be set specifically.
Configuration file
For details on configuring Áú»¢¶Ä²© agent see the configuration file options for zabbix_agentd or Windows agent.