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      How To Install Nagios 4 and Monitor Your Servers on Ubuntu 18.04


      The author selected the Open Source Initiative to receive a donation as part of the Write for DOnations program.

      Introduction

      Nagios is a popular open-source monitoring system. It keeps an inventory of your servers and monitors them so you know your critical services are up and running. Using a monitoring system like Nagios is an essential tool for any production environment, because by monitoring uptime, CPU usage, or disk space, you can head off problems before they occur, or before your users call you.

      In this tutorial, you’ll install Nagios 4 and configure it so you can monitor host resources via Nagios’ web interface. You’ll also set up the Nagios Remote Plugin Executor (NRPE), which runs as an agent on remote hosts so you can monitor their resources.

      Prerequisites

      To follow this tutorial, you will need:

      • Two Ubuntu 18.04 servers set up by following our Initial Server Setup Guide for Ubuntu 18.04, including a non-root user with sudo privileges and a firewall configured with ufw. On one server, you will install Nagios; this tutorial will refer to this as the Nagios server. It will monitor your second server; this second server will be referred to as the second Ubuntu server.
      • The server that will run the Nagios server needs Apache and PHP installed. Follow this guide to configure those on one of your servers. You can skip the MySQL steps in that tutorial.

      Typically, Nagios runs behind a hardware firewall or VPN. If your Nagios server is exposed to the public internet, you should secure the Nagios web interface by installing a TLS/SSL certificate. This is optional but strongly encouraged. You can follow the Let’s Encrypt on Ubuntu 18.04 guide to obtain the free TLS/SSL certificate.

      This tutorial assumes that your servers have private networking enabled so that monitoring happens on the private network rather than the public network. If you don’t have private networking enabled, you can still follow this tutorial by replacing all the references to private IP addresses with public IP addresses.

      Step 1 — Installing Nagios 4

      There are multiple ways to install Nagios, but you’ll install Nagios and its components from source to ensure you get the latest features, security updates, and bug fixes.

      Log in to your server that runs Apache. In this tutorial, we’ll call this the Nagios server:

      • ssh sammy@your_nagios_server_ip

      Because you’re building Nagios and its components from source, you must install a few development libraries to complete the build, including compilers, development headers, and OpenSSL.

      Update your package lists to ensure you can download the latest versions of the prerequisites:

      Then install the required packages:

      • sudo apt install autoconf gcc make unzip libgd-dev libmcrypt-dev libssl-dev dc snmp libnet-snmp-perl gettext

      With the prerequisites installed, you can install Nagios itself. Download the source code for the latest stable release of Nagios Core. Go to the Nagios downloads page, and click the Skip to download link below the form. Copy the link address for the latest stable release so you can download it to your Nagios server.

      Download the release to your home directory with the curl command:

      • cd ~
      • curl -L -O https://github.com/NagiosEnterprises/nagioscore/archive/nagios-4.4.4.tar.gz

      Extract the Nagios archive:

      • tar zxf nagios-4.4.4.tar.gz

      Then change to the extracted directory:

      • cd nagioscore-nagios-4.4.4

      Before building Nagios, run the configure script and specify the Apache configs directory:

      • ./configure --with-httpd-conf=/etc/apache2/sites-enabled

      Note: If you want Nagios to send emails using Postfix, you must install Postfix and configure Nagios to use it by adding --with-mail=/usr/sbin/sendmail to the configure command. We won't cover Postfix in this tutorial, but if you choose to use Postfix and Nagios later, you'll need to reconfigure and reinstall Nagios to use Postfix support.

      You'll see the following output from the configure command:

      Output

      *** Configuration summary for nagios 4.4.4 2019-07-29 ***: General Options: ------------------------- Nagios executable: nagios Nagios user/group: nagios,nagios Command user/group: nagios,nagios Event Broker: yes Install ${prefix}: /usr/local/nagios Install ${includedir}: /usr/local/nagios/include/nagios Lock file: /run/nagios.lock Check result directory: /usr/local/nagios/var/spool/checkresults Init directory: /lib/systemd/system Apache conf.d directory: /etc/apache2/sites-enabled Mail program: /bin/mail Host OS: linux-gnu IOBroker Method: epoll Web Interface Options: ------------------------ HTML URL: http://localhost/nagios/ CGI URL: http://localhost/nagios/cgi-bin/ Traceroute (used by WAP): Review the options above for accuracy. If they look okay, type 'make all' to compile the main program and CGIs.

      Now compile Nagios with this command:

      Next create a nagios user and nagios group. They will be used to run the Nagios process:

      • sudo make install-groups-users

      Now run these make commands to install Nagios binary files, service files, and its sample configuration files:

      • sudo make install
      • sudo make install-daemoninit
      • sudo make install-commandmode
      • sudo make install-config

      You'll use Apache to serve Nagios' web interface, so run the following to install the Apache configuration files and configure its settings:

      • sudo make install-webconf

      Enable the Apache rewrite and cgi modules with the a2enmod command:

      • sudo a2enmod rewrite
      • sudo a2enmod cgi

      In order to issue external commands via the web interface to Nagios, add the web server user, www-data, to the nagios group:

      • sudo usermod -a -G nagios www-data

      Use the htpasswd command to create an admin user called nagiosadmin that can access the Nagios web interface:

      • sudo htpasswd -c /usr/local/nagios/etc/htpasswd.users nagiosadmin

      Enter a password at the prompt. Remember this password, as you will need it to access the Nagios web interface.

      Warning: If you create a user with a name other than nagiosadmin, you will need to edit /usr/local/nagios/etc/cgi.cfg and change all the nagiosadmin references to the user you created.

      Restart Apache to load the new Apache configuration:

      • sudo systemctl restart apache2

      You've now installed Nagios. But for this to work, it is necessary to install the Nagios Plugins, which you'll cover in the next step.

      Step 2 — Installing the Nagios Plugins

      Nagios needs plugins to operate properly. The official Nagios Plugins package contains over 50 plugins that allow you to monitor basic services such as uptime, disk usage, swap usage, NTP, and others.

      Let's install the the plugins bundle.

      You can find the latest version of the Nagios Plugins on the official site.

      Download it to your home directory with curl:

      • cd ~
      • curl -L -O https://nagios-plugins.org/download/nagios-plugins-2.2.1.tar.gz

      Extract the NRPE archive and navigate into the extracted directory:

      • tar zxf nagios-plugins-<^>2.2.1<^.tar.gz
      • cd nagios-plugins-2.2.1

      Next configure their installation:

      Now build and install the plugins:

      Now the plugins are installed, but you need one more plugin for monitoring remote servers. Let's install it next.

      Step 3 — Installing the check_nrpe Plugin

      Nagios monitors remote hosts using the Nagios Remote Plugin Executor, or NRPE. It consists of two pieces:

      • The check_nrpe plugin that the Nagios server uses.
      • The NRPE daemon, which runs on the remote hosts and sends data to the Nagios server.

      Let's install the check_nrpe plugin on our Nagios server.

      Find the download URL for the latest stable release of NRPE at the GitHub page.

      Download it to your home directory with curl:

      • cd ~
      • curl -L -O https://github.com/NagiosEnterprises/nrpe/releases/download/nrpe-3.2.1/nrpe-3.2.1.tar.gz

      Extract the NRPE archive:

      • tar zxf nrpe-3.2.1.tar.gz

      Then change to the extracted directory:

      Configure the check_nrpe plugin:

      Now build and install check_nrpe plugin:

      • make check_nrpe
      • sudo make install-plugin

      Let's configure the Nagios server next.

      Step 4 — Configuring Nagios

      Now let's perform the initial Nagios configuration, which involves editing some configuration files. You only need to perform this section once on your Nagios server.

      Open the main Nagios configuration file in your preferred text editor. Here, you'll use nano:

      • sudo nano /usr/local/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg

      Find this line in the file:

      /usr/local/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg

      ...
      #cfg_dir=/usr/local/nagios/etc/servers
      ...
      

      Uncomment this line by deleting the # character from the front of the line:

      /usr/local/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg

      cfg_dir=/usr/local/nagios/etc/servers
      

      Save and close nagios.cfg by pressing CTRL+X, followed by Y, and then ENTER (if you're using nano).

      Now create the directory that will store the configuration file for each server that you will monitor:

      • sudo mkdir /usr/local/nagios/etc/servers

      Open the Nagios contacts configuration in your text editor:

      • sudo nano /usr/local/nagios/etc/objects/contacts.cfg

      Find the email directive and replace its value with your own email address:

      /usr/local/nagios/etc/objects/contacts.cfg

      ...
      define contact{
              contact_name                    nagiosadmin             ; Short name of user
              use                             generic-contact         ; Inherit default values from generic-contact template (defined above)
              alias                           Nagios Admin            ; Full name of user
              email                           your_email@your_domain.com        ; <<***** CHANGE THIS TO YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS ******
      ...
      
      

      Save and exit the editor.

      Next, add a new command to your Nagios configuration that lets you use the check_nrpe command in Nagios service definitions. Open the file /usr/local/nagios/etc/objects/commands.cfg in your editor:

      • sudo nano /usr/local/nagios/etc/objects/commands.cfg

      Add the following to the end of the file to define a new command called check_nrpe:

      /usr/local/nagios/etc/objects/commands.cfg

      ...
      define command{
              command_name check_nrpe
              command_line $USER1$/check_nrpe -H $HOSTADDRESS$ -c $ARG1$
      }
      

      This defines the name and specifies the command-line options to execute the plugin.

      Save and exit the editor.

      Then start Nagios and enable it to start when the server boots:

      • sudo systemctl start nagios

      Nagios is now running, so let's log in to its web interface.

      Step 5 — Accessing the Nagios Web Interface

      Open your favorite web browser, and go to your Nagios server by visiting http://nagios_server_public_ip/nagios.

      Enter the login credentials for the web interface in the popup that appears. Use nagiosadmin for the username, and the password you created for that user.

      After authenticating, you will see the default Nagios home page. Click on the Hosts link in the left navigation bar to see which hosts Nagios is monitoring:

      Nagios Hosts Page

      As you can see, Nagios is monitoring only "localhost", or itself.

      Let's monitor our other server with Nagios,

      Step 6 — Installing Nagios Plugins and NRPE Daemon on a Host

      Let's add a new host so Nagios can monitor it. You'll install the Nagios Remote Plugin Executor (NRPE) on the remote host, install some plugins, and then configure the Nagios server to monitor this host.

      Log in to the second server, which we'll call the second Ubuntu server:

      • ssh sammy@your_monitored_server_ip

      First create a nagios user which will run the NRPE agent:

      You'll install NRPE from source, which means you'll need the same development libraries you installed on the Nagios server in Step 1. Update your package sources and install the NRPE prerequisites:

      • sudo apt update
      • sudo apt install autoconf gcc libmcrypt-dev make libssl-dev wget dc build-essential gettext

      NRPE requires that Nagios Plugins is installed on the remote host. Let's install this package from source.

      Find the latest release of Nagios Plugins from the downloads page.

      Download Nagios Plugins to your home directory with curl:

      • cd ~
      • curl -L -O https://nagios-plugins.org/download/nagios-plugins-2.2.1.tar.gz

      Extract the Nagios Plugins archive and change to the extracted directory:

      • tar zxf nagios-plugins-2.2.1.tar.gz
      • cd nagios-plugins-2.2.1

      Before building Nagios Plugins, configure them with the following command:

      Now compile the plugins:

      Then install them by running:

      Next, install NRPE daemon. Find the download URL for the latest stable release of NRPE at the GitHub page just like you did in Step 3. Download the latest stable release of NRPE to your monitored server's home directory with curl:

      • cd ~
      • curl -L -O https://github.com/NagiosEnterprises/nrpe/releases/download/nrpe-3.2.1/nrpe-3.2.1.tar.gz

      Extract the NRPE archive with this command:

      • tar zxf nrpe-3.2.1.tar.gz

      Then change to the extracted directory:

      Configure NRPE:

      Now build and install NRPE and its startup script with these commands:

      • make nrpe
      • sudo make install-daemon
      • sudo make install-config
      • sudo make install-init

      Now, let's update the NRPE configuration file and add some basic checks that Nagios can monitor.

      First, let's monitor the disk usage of this server. Use the df -h command to look for the root filesystem. You'll use this filesystem name in the NRPE configuration:

      You'll see output similar to this:

      Output

      Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/vda1 25G 1.4G 23G 6% /

      Now open /usr/local/nagios/etc/nrpe.cfg file in your editor:

      • sudo nano /usr/local/nagios/etc/nrpe.cfg

      The NRPE configuration file is very long and full of comments. There are a few lines that you will need to find and modify:

      • server_address: Set to the private IP address of the monitored server.
      • allowed_hosts: Add the private IP address of your Nagios server to the comma-delimited list.
      • command[check_hda1]: Change /dev/hda1 to whatever your root filesystem is called.

      Locate these settings and alter them appropriately:

      /usr/local/nagios/etc/nrpe.cfg

      ...
      server_address=second_ubuntu_server_private_ip
      ...
      allowed_hosts=127.0.0.1,::1,your_nagios_server_private_ip
      ...
      command[check_vda1]=/usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_disk -w 20% -c 10% -p /dev/vda1
      ...
      

      Save and exit the editor. Now you can start NRPE:

      • sudo systemctl start nrpe.service

      Ensure that the service is running by checking its status:

      • sudo systemctl status nrpe.service

      You'll see the following output:

      Output

      ... Aug 01 06:28:31 client systemd[1]: Started Nagios Remote Plugin Executor. Aug 01 06:28:31 client nrpe[8021]: Starting up daemon Aug 01 06:28:31 client nrpe[8021]: Server listening on 0.0.0.0 port 5666. Aug 01 06:28:31 client nrpe[8021]: Server listening on :: port 5666. Aug 01 06:28:31 client nrpe[8021]: Listening for connections on port 5666 Aug 01 06:28:31 client nrpe[8021]: Allowing connections from: 127.0.0.1,::1,165.22.212.38

      Next, allow access to port 5666 through the firewall. If you are using UFW, configure it to allow TCP connections to port 5666 with the following command:

      You can learn more about UFW in How To Set Up a Firewall with UFW on Ubuntu 18.04.

      Now you can check the communication with the remote NRPE server. Run the following command on the Nagios server:

      • /usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_nrpe -H second_ubuntu_server_ip

      You'll see the following output:

      Output

      NRPE v3.2.1

      Repeat the steps in this section for each additional server you want to monitor.

      Once you are done installing and configuring NRPE on the hosts that you want to monitor, you will have to add these hosts to your Nagios server configuration before it will start monitoring them. Let's do that next.

      Step 7 — Monitoring Hosts with Nagios

      To monitor your hosts with Nagios, you'll add configuration files for each host specifying what you want to monitor. You can then view those hosts in the Nagios web interface.

      On your Nagios server, create a new configuration file for each of the remote hosts that you want to monitor in /usr/local/nagios/etc/servers/. Replace the highlighted word, monitored_server_host_name with the name of your host:

      • sudo nano /usr/local/nagios/etc/servers/your_monitored_server_host_name.cfg

      Add the following host definition, replacing the host_name value with your remote hostname, the alias value with a description of the host, and the address value with the private IP address of the remote host:

      /usr/local/nagios/etc/servers/your_monitored_server_host_name.cfg

      define host {
              use                             linux-server
              host_name                       your_monitored_server_host_name
              alias                           My client server
              address                         your_monitored_server_private_ip
              max_check_attempts              5
              check_period                    24x7
              notification_interval           30
              notification_period             24x7
      }
      

      With this configuration, Nagios will only tell you if the host is up or down. Let's add some services to monitor.

      First, add this block to monitor load average:

      /usr/local/nagios/etc/servers/your_monitored_server_host_name.cfg

      define service {
              use                             generic-service
              host_name                       your_monitored_server_host_name
              service_description             Load average
              check_command                   check_nrpe!check_load
      }
      

      The use generic-service directive tells Nagios to inherit the values of a service template called generic-service, which is predefined by Nagios.

      Next, add this block to monitor disk usage:

      /usr/local/nagios/etc/servers/your_monitored_server_host_name.cfg

      define service {
              use                             generic-service
              host_name                       your_monitored_server_host_name
              service_description             /dev/vda1 free space
              check_command                   check_nrpe!check_vda1
      }
      

      Now save and quit. Restart the Nagios service to put any changes into effect:

      • sudo systemctl restart nagios

      After several minutes, Nagios will check the new hosts and you'll see them in the Nagios web interface. Click on the Services link in the left navigation bar to see all of your monitored hosts and services.

      Nagios Services Page

      Conclusion

      You've installed Nagios on a server and configured it to monitor load average and disk usage of at least one remote machine.

      Now that you're monitoring a host and some of its services, you can start using Nagios to monitor your mission-critical services. You can use Nagios to set up notifications for critical events. For example, you can receive an email when your disk utilization reaches a warning or critical threshold, or a notification when your main website is down. This way you can resolve the situation promptly, or even before a problem occurs.



      Source link

      How To Install and Configure Zabbix to Securely Monitor Remote Servers on Ubuntu 18.04


      The author selected the Open Source Initiative to receive a donation as part of the Write for DOnations program.

      Introduction

      Zabbix is open-source monitoring software for networks and applications. It offers real-time monitoring of thousands of metrics collected from servers, virtual machines, network devices, and web applications. These metrics can help you determine the current health of your IT infrastructure and detect problems with hardware or software components before customers complain. Useful information is stored in a database so you can analyze data over time and improve the quality of provided services, or plan upgrades of your equipment.

      Zabbix uses several options for collecting metrics, including agentless monitoring of user services and client-server architecture. To collect server metrics, it uses a small agent on the monitored client to gather data and send it to the Zabbix server. Zabbix supports encrypted communication between the server and connected clients, so your data is protected while it travels over insecure networks.

      The Zabbix server stores its data in a relational database powered by MySQL, PostgreSQL, or Oracle. You can also store historical data in nosql databases like Elasticsearch and TimescaleDB. Zabbix provides a web interface so you can view data and configure system settings.

      In this tutorial, you will configure two machines. One will be configured as the server, and the other as a client that you’ll monitor. The server will use a MySQL database to record monitoring data and use Apache to serve the web interface.

      Prerequisites

      To follow this tutorial, you will need:

      • Two Ubuntu 18.04 servers set up by following the Initial Server Setup Guide for Ubuntu 18.04, including a non-root user with sudo privileges and a firewall configured with ufw. On one server, you will install Zabbix; this tutorial will refer to this as the Zabbix server. It will monitor your second server; this second server will be referred to as the second Ubuntu server.

      • The server that will run the Zabbix server needs Apache, MySQL, and PHP installed. Follow this guide to configure those on your Zabbix server.

      Additionally, because the Zabbix Server is used to access valuable information about your infrastructure that you would not want unauthorized users to access, it’s important that you keep your server secure by installing a TLS/SSL certificate. This is optional but strongly encouraged. You can follow the Let’s Encrypt on Ubuntu 18.04 guide to obtain the free TLS/SSL certificate.

      Step 1 — Installing the Zabbix Server

      First, you need to install Zabbix on the server where you installed MySQL, Apache, and PHP. Log into this machine as your non-root user:

      • ssh sammy@zabbix_server_ip_address

      Zabbix is available in Ubuntu’s package manager, but it’s outdated, so use the official Zabbix repository to install the latest stable version. Download and install the repository configuration package:

      • wget https://repo.zabbix.com/zabbix/4.2/ubuntu/pool/main/z/zabbix-release/zabbix-release_4.2-1+bionic_all.deb
      • sudo dpkg -i zabbix-release_4.2-1+bionic_all.deb

      You will see the following output:

      Output

      Selecting previously unselected package zabbix-release. (Reading database ... 61483 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack zabbix-release_4.2-1+bionic_all.deb ... Unpacking zabbix-release (4.2-1+bionicc) ... Setting up zabbix-release (4.2-1+bionicc) ...

      Update the package index so the new repository is included:

      Then install the Zabbix server and web frontend with MySQL database support:

      • sudo apt install zabbix-server-mysql zabbix-frontend-php

      Also, install the Zabbix agent, which will let you collect data about the Zabbix server status itself.

      • sudo apt install zabbix-agent

      Before you can use Zabbix, you have to set up a database to hold the data that the Zabbix server will collect from its agents. You can do this in the next step.

      Step 2 — Configuring the MySQL Database for Zabbix

      You need to create a new MySQL database and populate it with some basic information in order to make it suitable for Zabbix. You'll also create a specific user for this database so Zabbix isn't logging into MySQL with the root account.

      Log into MySQL as the root user using the root password that you set up during the MySQL server installation:

      Create the Zabbix database with UTF-8 character support:

      • create database zabbix character set utf8 collate utf8_bin;

      Then create a user that the Zabbix server will use, give it access to the new database, and set the password for the user:

      • grant all privileges on zabbix.* to zabbix@localhost identified by 'your_zabbix_mysql_password';

      Then apply these new permissions:

      That takes care of the user and the database. Exit out of the database console.

      Next you have to import the initial schema and data. The Zabbix installation provided you with a file that sets this up.

      Run the following command to set up the schema and import the data into the zabbix database. Use zcat since the data in the file is compressed.

      • zcat /usr/share/doc/zabbix-server-mysql/create.sql.gz | mysql -uzabbix -p zabbix

      Enter the password for the zabbix MySQL user that you configured when prompted.

      This command will not output any errors if it was successful. If you see the error ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for userzabbix@'localhost' (using password: YES) then make sure you used the password for the zabbix user and not the root user.

      In order for the Zabbix server to use this database, you need to set the database password in the Zabbix server configuration file. Open the configuration file in your preferred text editor. This tutorial will use nano:

      • sudo nano /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf

      Look for the following section of the file:

      /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf

      ### Option: DBPassword                           
      #       Database password. Ignored for SQLite.   
      #       Comment this line if no password is used.
      #                                                
      # Mandatory: no                                  
      # Default:                                       
      # DBPassword=
      

      These comments in the file explain how to connect to the database. You need to set the DBPassword value in the file to the password for your database user. Add this line below those comments to configure the database:

      /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf

      ...
      DBPassword=your_zabbix_mysql_password
      

      Save and close zabbix_server.conf by pressing CTRL+X, followed by Y and then ENTER if you're using nano.

      That takes care of the Zabbix server configuration. Next, you will make some modifications to your PHP setup in order for the Zabbix web interface to work properly.

      Step 3 — Configuring PHP for Zabbix

      The Zabbix web interface is written in PHP and requires some special PHP server settings. The Zabbix installation process created an Apache configuration file that contains these settings. It is located in the directory /etc/zabbix and is loaded automatically by Apache. You need to make a small change to this file, so open it up with the following:

      • sudo nano /etc/zabbix/apache.conf

      The file contains PHP settings that meet the necessary requirements for the Zabbix web interface. However, the timezone setting is commented out by default. To make sure that Zabbix uses the correct time, you need to set the appropriate timezone.

      /etc/zabbix/apache.conf

      ...
      <IfModule mod_php7.c>
          php_value max_execution_time 300
          php_value memory_limit 128M
          php_value post_max_size 16M
          php_value upload_max_filesize 2M
          php_value max_input_time 300
          php_value always_populate_raw_post_data -1
          # php_value date.timezone Europe/Riga
      </IfModule>
      

      Uncomment the timezone line, highlighted in the preceding code block, and change it to your timezone. You can use this list of supported time zones to find the right one for you. Then save and close the file.

      Now restart Apache to apply these new settings.

      • sudo systemctl restart apache2

      You can now start the Zabbix server.

      • sudo systemctl start zabbix-server

      Then check whether the Zabbix server is running properly:

      • sudo systemctl status zabbix-server

      You will see the following status:

      Output

      ● zabbix-server.service - Zabbix Server Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/zabbix-server.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled) Active: active (running) since Fri 2019-04-05 08:50:54 UTC; 3s ago Process: 16497 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/zabbix_server -c $CONFFILE (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS) ...

      Finally, enable the server to start at boot time:

      • sudo systemctl enable zabbix-server

      The server is set up and connected to the database. Next, set up the web frontend.

      Note: As mentioned in the Prerequisites section, it is recommended that you enable SSL/TLS on your server. You can follow this tutorial now to obtain a free SSL certificate for Apache on Ubuntu 18.04. After obtaining your SSL/TLS certificates, you can come back and complete this tutorial.

      Step 4 — Configuring Settings for the Zabbix Web Interface

      The web interface lets you see reports and add hosts that you want to monitor, but it needs some initial setup before you can use it. Launch your browser and go to the address http://zabbix_server_name/zabbix/. On the first screen, you will see a welcome message. Click Next step to continue.

      On the next screen, you will see the table that lists all of the prerequisites to run Zabbix.

      Prerequisites

      All of the values in this table must be OK, so verify that they are. Be sure to scroll down and look at all of the prerequisites. Once you've verified that everything is ready to go, click Next step to proceed.

      The next screen asks for database connection information.

      DB Connection

      You told the Zabbix server about your database, but the Zabbix web interface also needs access to the database to manage hosts and read data. Therefore enter the MySQL credentials you configured in Step 2 and click Next step to proceed.

      On the next screen, you can leave the options at their default values.

      Zabbix Server Details

      The Name is optional; it is used in the web interface to distinguish one server from another in case you have several monitoring servers. Click Next step to proceed.

      The next screen will show the pre-installation summary so you can confirm everything is correct.

      Summary

      Click Next step to proceed to the final screen.

      The web interface setup is complete! This process creates the configuration file /usr/share/zabbix/conf/zabbix.conf.php which you could back up and use in the future. Click Finish to proceed to the login screen. The default user is Admin and the password is zabbix.

      Before you log in, set up the Zabbix agent on your second Ubuntu server.

      Step 5 — Installing and Configuring the Zabbix Agent

      Now you need to configure the agent software that will send monitoring data to the Zabbix server.

      Log in to the second Ubuntu server:

      • ssh sammy@second_ubuntu_server_ip_address

      Then, just like on the Zabbix server, run the following commands to install the repository configuration package:

      • wget https://repo.zabbix.com/zabbix/4.2/ubuntu/pool/main/z/zabbix-release/zabbix-release_4.2-1+bionic_all.deb
      • sudo dpkg -i zabbix-release_4.2-1+bionic_all.deb

      Next, update the package index:

      Then install the Zabbix agent:

      • sudo apt install zabbix-agent

      While Zabbix supports certificate-based encryption, setting up a certificate authority is beyond the scope of this tutorial, but you can use pre-shared keys (PSK) to secure the connection between the server and agent.

      First, generate a PSK:

      • sudo sh -c "openssl rand -hex 32 > /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.psk"

      Show the key so you can copy it somewhere. You will need it to configure the host.

      • cat /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.psk

      The key will look something like this:

      Output

      12eb854dea38ac9ee7d1ded2d74cee6262b0a56710f6946f7913d674ab82cdd4

      Now edit the Zabbix agent settings to set up its secure connection to the Zabbix server. Open the agent configuration file in your text editor:

      • sudo nano /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf

      Each setting within this file is documented via informative comments throughout the file, but you only need to edit some of them.

      First you have to edit the IP address of the Zabbix server. Find the following section:

      /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf

      ...
      ### Option: Server
      #       List of comma delimited IP addresses (or hostnames) of Zabbix servers.
      #       Incoming connections will be accepted only from the hosts listed here.
      #       If IPv6 support is enabled then '127.0.0.1', '::127.0.0.1', '::ffff:127.0.0.1' are treated equally.
      #
      # Mandatory: no
      # Default:
      # Server=
      
      Server=127.0.0.1
      ...
      

      Change the default value to the IP of your Zabbix server:

      /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf

      ...
      Server=zabbix_server_ip_address
      ...
      

      Next, find the section that configures the secure connection to the Zabbix server and enable pre-shared key support. Find the TLSConnect section, which looks like this:

      /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf

      ...
      ### Option: TLSConnect
      #       How the agent should connect to server or proxy. Used for active checks.
      #       Only one value can be specified:
      #               unencrypted - connect without encryption
      #               psk         - connect using TLS and a pre-shared key
      #               cert        - connect using TLS and a certificate
      #
      # Mandatory: yes, if TLS certificate or PSK parameters are defined (even for 'unencrypted' connection)
      # Default:
      # TLSConnect=unencrypted
      ...
      

      Then add this line to configure pre-shared key support:

      /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf

      ...
      TLSConnect=psk
      ...
      

      Next, locate the TLSAccept section, which looks like this:

      /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf

      ...
      ### Option: TLSAccept
      #       What incoming connections to accept.
      #       Multiple values can be specified, separated by comma:
      #               unencrypted - accept connections without encryption
      #               psk         - accept connections secured with TLS and a pre-shared key
      #               cert        - accept connections secured with TLS and a certificate
      #
      # Mandatory: yes, if TLS certificate or PSK parameters are defined (even for 'unencrypted' connection)
      # Default:
      # TLSAccept=unencrypted
      ...
      

      Configure incoming connections to support pre-shared keys by adding this line:

      /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf

      ...
      TLSAccept=psk
      ...
      

      Next, find the TLSPSKIdentity section, which looks like this:

      /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf

      ...
      ### Option: TLSPSKIdentity
      #       Unique, case sensitive string used to identify the pre-shared key.
      #
      # Mandatory: no
      # Default:
      # TLSPSKIdentity=
      ...
      

      Choose a unique name to identify your pre-shared key by adding this line:

      /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf

      ...
      TLSPSKIdentity=PSK 001
      ...
      

      You'll use this as the PSK ID when you add your host through the Zabbix web interface.

      Then set the option that points to your previously created pre-shared key. Locate the TLSPSKFile option:

      /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf

      ...
      ### Option: TLSPSKFile
      #       Full pathname of a file containing the pre-shared key.
      #
      # Mandatory: no
      # Default:
      # TLSPSKFile=
      ...
      

      Add this line to point the Zabbix agent to your PSK file you created:

      /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf

      ...
      TLSPSKFile=/etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.psk
      ...
      

      Save and close the file. Now you can restart the Zabbix agent and set it to start at boot time:

      • sudo systemctl restart zabbix-agent
      • sudo systemctl enable zabbix-agent

      For good measure, check that the Zabbix agent is running properly:

      • sudo systemctl status zabbix-agent

      You will see the following status, indicating the agent is running:

      Output

      ● zabbix-agent.service - Zabbix Agent Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/zabbix-agent.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled) Active: active (running) since Fri 2019-04-05 09:03:04 UTC; 1s ago ...

      The agent will listen on port 10050 for connections from the server. Configure UFW to allow connections to this port:

      You can learn more about UFW in How To Set Up a Firewall with UFW on Ubuntu 18.04.

      Your agent is now ready to send data to the Zabbix server. But in order to use it, you have to link to it from the server's web console. In the next step, you will complete the configuration.

      Step 6 — Adding the New Host to the Zabbix Server

      Installing an agent on a server you want to monitor is only half of the process. Each host you want to monitor needs to be registered on the Zabbix server, which you can do through the web interface.

      Log in to the Zabbix Server web interface by navigating to the address http://zabbix_server_name/zabbix/.

      The Zabbix login screen

      When you have logged in, click on Configuration, and then Hosts in the top navigation bar. Then click the Create host button in the top right corner of the screen. This will open the host configuration page.

      Creating a host

      Adjust the Host name and IP address to reflect the host name and IP address of your second Ubuntu server, then add the host to a group. You can select an existing group, for example Linux servers, or create your own group. The host can be in multiple groups. To do this, enter the name of an existing or new group in the Groups field and select the desired value from the proposed list.

      Once you've added the group, click the Templates tab.

      Adding a template to the host

      Type Template OS Linux in the Search field and then click Add to add this template to the host.

      Next, navigate to the Encryption tab. Select PSK for both Connections to host and Connections from host. Then set PSK identity to PSK 001, which is the value of the TLSPSKIdentity setting of the Zabbix agent you configured previously. Then set PSK value to the key you generated for the Zabbix agent. It's the one stored in the file /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.psk on the agent machine.

      Setting up the encryption

      Finally, click the Add button at the bottom of the form to create the host.

      You will see your new host in the list. Wait for a minute and reload the page to see green labels indicating that everything is working fine and the connection is encrypted.

      Zabbix shows your new host

      If you have additional servers you need to monitor, log in to each host, install the Zabbix agent, generate a PSK, configure the agent, and add the host to the web interface following the same steps you followed to add your first host.

      The Zabbix server is now monitoring your second Ubuntu server. Now, set up email notifications to be notified about problems.

      Step 7 — Configuring Email Notifications

      Zabbix automatically supports several types of notifications: email, Jabber, SMS, etc. You can also use alternative notification methods, such as Telegram or Slack. You can see the full list of integrations here.

      The simplest communication method is email, and this tutorial will configure notifications for this media type.

      Click on Administration, and then Media types in the top navigation bar. You will see the list of all media types. Click on Email.

      Adjust the SMTP options according to the settings provided by your email service. This tutorial uses Gmail's SMTP capabilities to set up email notifications; if you would like more information about setting this up, see How To Use Google's SMTP Server.


      Note: If you use 2-Step Verification with Gmail, you need to generate an App Password for Zabbix. You don't need to remember it, you’ll only have to enter an App password once during setup. You will find instructions on how to generate this password in the Google Help Center.

      You can also choose the message format—html or plain text. Finally, click the Update button at the bottom of the form to update the email parameters.

      Setting up email

      Now, create a new user. Click on Administration, and then Users in the top navigation bar. You will see the list of users. Then click the Create user button in the top right corner of the screen. This will open the user configuration page.

      Creating a user

      Enter the new username in the Alias field and set up a new password. Next, add the user to the administrator's group. Type Zabbix administrators in the Groups field and select it from the proposed list.

      Once you've added the group, click the Media tab and click on the Add underlined link. You will see a pop-up window.

      Adding an email

      Enter your email address in the Send to field. You can leave the rest of the options at the default values. Click the Add button at the bottom to submit.

      Now navigate to the Permissions tab. Select Zabbix Super Admin from the User type drop-down menu.

      Finally, click the Add button at the bottom of the form to create the user.

      Now you need to enable notifications. Click on the Configuration tab, and then Actions in the top navigation bar. You will see a pre-configured action, which is responsible for sending notifications to all Zabbix administrators. You can review and change the settings by clicking on its name. For the purposes of this tutorial, use the default parameters. To enable the action, click on the red Disabled link in the Status column.

      Now you are ready to receive alerts. In the next step, you will generate one to test your notification setup.

      Step 8 — Generating a Test Alert

      In this step, you will generate a test alert to ensure everything is connected. By default, Zabbix keeps track of the amount of free disk space on your server. It automatically detects all disk mounts and adds the corresponding checks. This discovery is executed every hour, so you need to wait a while for the notification to be triggered.

      Create a temporary file that's large enough to trigger Zabbix's file system usage alert. To do this, log in to your second Ubuntu server if you're not already connected.

      • ssh sammy@second_ubuntu_server_ip_address

      Next, determine how much free space you have on the server. You can use the df command to find out:

      The command df will report the disk space usage of your file system, and the -h will make the output human-readable. You'll see output like the following:

      Output

      Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/vda1 25G 1.2G 23G 5% /

      In this case, the free space is 23GB. Your free space may differ.

      Use the fallocate command, which allows you to pre-allocate or de-allocate space to a file, to create a file that takes up more than 80% of the available disk space. This will be enough to trigger the alert:

      • fallocate -l 20G /tmp/temp.img

      After around an hour, Zabbix will trigger an alert about the amount of free disk space and will run the action you configured, sending the notification message. You can check your inbox for the message from the Zabbix server. You will see a message like:

      Output

      Problem started at 10:37:54 on 2019.04.05 Problem name: Free disk space is less than 20% on volume / Host: Second Ubuntu server Severity: Warning Original problem ID: 34

      You can also navigate to the Monitoring tab, and then Dashboard to see the notification and its details.

      Main dashboard

      Now that you know the alerts are working, delete the temporary file you created so you can reclaim your disk space:

      After a minute Zabbix will send the recovery message and the alert will disappear from main dashboard.

      Conclusion

      In this tutorial, you learned how to set up a simple and secure monitoring solution which will help you monitor the state of your servers. It can now warn you of problems, and you have the opportunity to analyze the processes occurring in your IT infrastructure.

      To learn more about setting up monitoring infrastructure, check out How To Install Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana (Elastic Stack) on Ubuntu 18.04 and How To Gather Infrastructure Metrics with Metricbeat on Ubuntu 18.04.



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