{"id":351,"date":"2023-10-05T15:26:20","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T14:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clouditblog.com\/?p=351"},"modified":"2026-01-13T21:45:44","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T21:45:44","slug":"zabbix-monitoring-my-home-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clouditblog.com\/?p=351","title":{"rendered":"Zabbix Monitoring my home lab"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I recently attended a Zabbix partner meeting in London (with Zabbix and their top UK partners presenting). This was ideal as it gave you plenty of opportunity to as questions and gain better insight in what you could do with Zabbix.<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">You may ask yourself what is Zabbix?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The all-in-one, open-source solution that lets you monitor anything. This platform is designed to monitor millions on metrics in real time, collected from tens of thousands of servers, virtual machines, network devices and applications &#8211; to name a but a few features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">This is how Zabbix described the event:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Zabbix Meeting the United Kingdom is designed to guide you through Zabbix solution and company, covering different examples from useful business-cases and Zabbix services. It will allow you to familiarize yourself with Zabbix principles, team, customers, and professional services that Zabbix and its partner provides in the United Kingdom.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Event Overview<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This slide presented caught my attention.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"543\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/6333e329-4807-49d4-8fa3-5d2768d63c53-1320-0000007d87aab5c4_file.jpg?resize=1024%2C543&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-348\" style=\"width:849px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/6333e329-4807-49d4-8fa3-5d2768d63c53-1320-0000007d87aab5c4_file.jpg?resize=1024%2C543&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/6333e329-4807-49d4-8fa3-5d2768d63c53-1320-0000007d87aab5c4_file.jpg?resize=300%2C159&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/6333e329-4807-49d4-8fa3-5d2768d63c53-1320-0000007d87aab5c4_file.jpg?resize=768%2C407&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/6333e329-4807-49d4-8fa3-5d2768d63c53-1320-0000007d87aab5c4_file.jpg?w=1268&amp;ssl=1 1268w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was impressed with the\u00a0number\u00a0of things you could monitor as you can see from the above\u00a0picture. The key takeaways for me from the event were\u00a0for me:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>You could deploy Zabbix proxies to remote sites (customer sites) that could communicate back to Zabbix server. Zabbix support unlimited\u00a0proxies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Control all Zabbix proxies from a single pane of glass.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Monitor behind the Firewall and DMZ<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>They say download and get started in 10 minutes.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Automatically discover and create your hosts in Zabbix.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>None of the data collected is transferred to Zabbix or any 3rdparty.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Data collection can be agentless and using Zabbix agent.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Data visualization network maps this was a big one for being able to see your whole network and where problem was in your network.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"808\" height=\"572\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/map.png?resize=808%2C572&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/map.png?w=808&amp;ssl=1 808w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/map.png?resize=300%2C212&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/map.png?resize=768%2C544&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 808px) 100vw, 808px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>They also talked about some case studies one of which was a clothing retailer who had Zabbix monitoring the door entry system which count the&nbsp;number&nbsp;of customers coming through the doors. On a normal day by 10am they would have say 1000 customers walk&nbsp;in to the shop. On this particular day IT noticed the door system was showing zero&nbsp;customers going into shop, so they called the store to check. The staff advised we had had no customers. They got one of the staff members to walk out of shop to see what was going on they noticed Scaffolding and building works was going on and had blocked the stores sign and visibility of shop entrance. So, they got a sign made up saying we are open as usual and put in front of building work, customers returned to store. They did mention more IT related case studies but this one just made me think what we can monitor or should be monitoring.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-vivid-red-color\">This was quite an unusual event in some ways as the partners and Zabbix were all sharing what they were doing in order to build the Zabbix community in the UK.<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">My own lab experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the Partners attending was Qnetix who are a UK based company that offers a managed Zabbix solution &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.qnetixmonitoring.com\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"www.qnetixmonitoring.com\">www.qnetixmonitoring.com<\/a>. They provided me a free trial of their Managed Zabbix Service.  Installation was easy and I was up and running in about 15 minutes.  They provide you with your own Zabbix instance (that they host) and a gateway appliance (VMware OVA in my case) that you deploy in your environment.  Qnetix also helped me get going and provided me with an overview of the Zabbix platform using my own systems &#8211; this is where is started to come to life for me on the power of what these guys have done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are some examples of my own home lab:<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"619\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/img_0242-1.jpg?resize=1024%2C619&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/img_0242-1-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C619&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/img_0242-1-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C181&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/img_0242-1-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C465&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/img_0242-1-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C929&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/img_0242-1-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1239&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/img_0242-1-scaled.jpg?resize=1568%2C949&amp;ssl=1 1568w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/img_0242-1-scaled.jpg?w=2280&amp;ssl=1 2280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Zabbix Proxy running in my home lab<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"456\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image.png?resize=1024%2C456&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-416\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image.png?resize=1024%2C456&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image.png?resize=300%2C134&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image.png?resize=768%2C342&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image.png?w=1412&amp;ssl=1 1412w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Zabbix monitoring VMWare in my home lab<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"622\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image-1.png?resize=1024%2C622&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-419\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image-1.png?resize=1024%2C622&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image-1.png?resize=300%2C182&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image-1.png?resize=768%2C466&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image-1.png?w=1278&amp;ssl=1 1278w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Zabbix monitoring my firewall performance in my home lab<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"482\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image-2.png?resize=1024%2C482&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image-2.png?resize=1024%2C482&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image-2.png?resize=300%2C141&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image-2.png?resize=768%2C361&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image-2.png?resize=1536%2C723&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.clouditblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image-2.png?w=1566&amp;ssl=1 1566w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Zabbix alerting (including via email) for key events happening in my home lab<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The team I dealt with at Qnetix were very good &#8211; both knowledgeable on Zabbix and VMware and very helpful in getting my Zabbix environment up and running. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Qnetix Special Offer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Qnetix have offered a six month free Zabbix hosting to UK VMUG members.  To get activated, go to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.qnetixmonitoring.com\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"www.qnetixmonitoring.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">www.qnetixmonitoring.com<\/a>, sign-up and quote <mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-vivid-red-color\"><strong>Homelab23<\/strong><\/mark> as the promo code.  I highly recommend you try this solution,  it works especially well with monitoring VMware private cloud platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-social-links is-layout-flex wp-block-social-links-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"wp-social-link wp-social-link-gravatar  wp-block-social-link\"><a rel=\"me\" href=\"https:\/\/gravatar.com\/greatinstantly82cbee8109\" class=\"wp-block-social-link-anchor\"><svg width=\"24\" height=\"24\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.1\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\"><path d=\"M10.8001 4.69937V10.6494C10.8001 11.1001 10.9791 11.5323 11.2978 11.851C11.6165 12.1697 12.0487 12.3487 12.4994 12.3487C12.9501 12.3487 13.3824 12.1697 13.7011 11.851C14.0198 11.5323 14.1988 11.1001 14.1988 10.6494V6.69089C15.2418 7.05861 16.1371 7.75537 16.7496 8.67617C17.3622 9.59698 17.6589 10.6919 17.595 11.796C17.5311 12.9001 17.1101 13.9535 16.3954 14.7975C15.6807 15.6415 14.711 16.2303 13.6325 16.4753C12.5541 16.7202 11.4252 16.608 10.4161 16.1555C9.40691 15.703 8.57217 14.9348 8.03763 13.9667C7.50308 12.9985 7.29769 11.8828 7.45242 10.7877C7.60714 9.69266 8.11359 8.67755 8.89545 7.89537C9.20904 7.57521 9.38364 7.14426 9.38132 6.69611C9.37899 6.24797 9.19994 5.81884 8.88305 5.50195C8.56616 5.18506 8.13704 5.00601 7.68889 5.00369C7.24075 5.00137 6.80979 5.17597 6.48964 5.48956C5.09907 6.8801 4.23369 8.7098 4.04094 10.6669C3.84819 12.624 4.34 14.5873 5.43257 16.2224C6.52515 17.8575 8.15088 19.0632 10.0328 19.634C11.9146 20.2049 13.9362 20.1055 15.753 19.3529C17.5699 18.6003 19.0695 17.241 19.9965 15.5066C20.9234 13.7722 21.2203 11.7701 20.8366 9.84133C20.4528 7.91259 19.4122 6.17658 17.892 4.92911C16.3717 3.68163 14.466 2.99987 12.4994 3C12.0487 3 11.6165 3.17904 11.2978 3.49773C10.9791 3.81643 10.8001 4.24867 10.8001 4.69937Z\" \/><\/svg><span class=\"wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text\">Gravatar<\/span><\/a><\/li><\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently attended a Zabbix partner meeting in London (with Zabbix and their top UK partners presenting). This was ideal as it gave you plenty of opportunity to as questions and gain better insight in what you could do with Zabbix. You may ask yourself what is Zabbix? The all-in-one, open-source solution that lets you monitor anything. This platform is designed to monitor millions on metrics in real time, collected from tens of thousands of servers, virtual machines, network devices and applications &#8211; to name a but a few features&#8230;.<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clouditblog.com\/?p=351\"><span class=\"more-text\">Continue reading<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clouditblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clouditblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clouditblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clouditblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clouditblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=351"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.clouditblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":457,"href":"https:\/\/www.clouditblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions\/457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clouditblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clouditblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clouditblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}