Installation and initial configuration of the Zabbix 6 monitoring server on Ubuntu Server

PHP and PHP-FPM

The zabbix interface is developed in PHP. Оur web server must process scripts written in it. Zabbix version 6 requires PHP version 7.2 or higher.

Install php and necessary components:

apt install php php-fpm php-mysql php-pear php-cgi php-common php-ldap php-mbstring php-snmp php-gd php-xml php-bcmath

To configure php, open the file:

vi /etc/php/7.4/fpm/php.ini

* where 7.4 is the PHP version. In your case it might be a different version. You can check with the php -v command.

Edit the following parameters:

date.timezone = “Europe/Berlin”

max_execution_time = 300

post_max_size = 16M

max_input_time = 300

max_input_vars = 10000

* Where:

date.timezone – time zone. In our example, Moscow time is set.

max_execution_time – allowed script execution time. If the script takes longer to run, the system will abort it.

post_max_size – the maximum amount of data transfer using the POST method.

max_input_time – is the time in seconds that PHP should take to parse GET and POST inputs.

max_input_vars – limited number of input variables that can be passed to the server in one request.

Allow php-fpm to run and restart it:

systemctl enable php7.4-fpm

systemctl restart php7.4-fpm

NGINX + PHP

In order for NGINX to process PHP, open the configuration file:

vi /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

In the location section, add the index parameter:

index index.php;

Inside the server section, add the following:

      location ~ \.php$ {

              set $root_path /var/www/html;

                 fastcgi_buffer_size 32k;

                 fastcgi_buffers 4 32k;

                 fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;

                 fastcgi_index index.php;

                 fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $root_path$fastcgi_script_name;

                 include fastcgi_params;

              fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_ROOT $root_path;

      }

* where /var/www/html is the root path for storing scripts; /run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock is the path to the php-fpm socket file (the exact location of the file can be found in the configuration file /etc/php/7.4/fpm/pool.d/www.conf).

Checking nginx settings:

nginx -t

And reload it:

systemctl restart nginx

Create index.php with the following content:

vi /var/www/html/index.php

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Open a web browser and follow the link http://<server IP address>/ – now we should see a summary of PHP and its settings.

The web server is ready to work with Zabbix Web.

Installing and configuring the Zabbix server

Let’s move on to installing the Zabbix server itself.

Installation

First, let’s install the repository of the latest version of Zabbix. To do this, go to the page https://repo.zabbix.com/zabbix/ and go to the section with the latest package version – then go to ubuntu/pool/main/z/zabbix-release/ – copy the link to the latest release version:

Please note that you need to copy the link to the file for your version of Ubuntu – in our example it is 20.04. You can view your version of the operating system with the command:

cat /etc/os-release | grep VERSION_ID

Download the repository file with the command:

wget https://repo.zabbix.com/zabbix/6.3/ubuntu/pool/main/z/zabbix-release/zabbix-release_6.3-3%2Bubuntu18.04_all.deb

Install it:

dpkg -i zabbix-release_*.deb

Update package lists:

apt update

Install the server by entering the command:

apt install zabbix-server-mysql zabbix-frontend-php zabbix-get zabbix-sql-scripts

Database setup

We enter the shell for entering sql commands:

mysql -uroot -p

We create a database:

> CREATE DATABASE zabbix DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT COLLATE utf8_bin;

* we have created a zabbix database.

Create a user to connect and work with the created database:

> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON zabbix.* TO zabbix@localhost IDENTIFIED BY ‘zabbixpassword’;

* in this example, we have created a zabbix user with access to the zabbix database and the password zabbixpassword.

Exit the sql shell:

> \q

As part of zabbix, there is a ready-made schema for the MySQL / MariaDB or postgreSQL DB. In our case, we need MySQL.

To apply the scheme, go to the directory:

cd /usr/share/zabbix-sql-scripts/mysql

In previous versions of Zabbix, the path to the database dump was /usr/share/doc/zabbix-sql-scripts/mysql. If we could not find the desired directory with the dump, you can try to search with the command:

find / -type f -iname server.sql.gz

Unpack the archive with the database dump:

gunzip server.sql.gz

Restoring the base of their dump:

mysql -u root -p zabbix <server.sql

* after entering the command, the system will ask for a password. You must enter the password that we set after installing MariaDB.

Setting up zabbix

Open the zabbix configuration file

vi /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf

We add a line

DBPassword=zabbixpassword

* we configure the serverl to connect to the database with the password zabbixpassword, which was set when creating the database for zabbix.

And check the following lines:

DBName=zabbix

DBUser=zabbix

* the database and username must be zabbix (as we created in MariaDB).

Create a directory to include configuration files (for some reason, it may not be created during installation):

mkdir /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf.d

Starting zabbix-server

We allow autostart of the monitoring server

systemctl enable zabbix-server

After we start the zabbix server itself

systemctl start zabbix-server

Setting up nginx

When installing zabbix-web, the files are copied to the /usr/share/zabbix directory. Our web server works with the /var/www/html directory.

To change it, open nginx config file:

vi /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Edit the root and set $root_path parameters:

root /usr/share/zabbix

location ~ \.php$ {

  set $root_path /usr/share/zabbix;

}

Restart nginx

systemctl restart nginx

Completion of Zabbix server installation

Open a browser and navigate to http://<server IP address>/ – the Zabbix Web installation page will open.

Select the desired installation language and click on Next Step

If the list of languages does not contain the one we need, set the locales:

dpkg-reconfigure locales

And restart the PHP handler, in our case:

systemctl restart php7.4-fpm

Reload the installation page and select the desired language.

In the next window, we carefully look at the results of checking our web server – on the right we should see everything OK. If this is not the case, check the settings and fix the warnings and errors, then restart the F5 page to re-check the settings.

When all the results are OK, click on Next Step

In the next window, we leave the database connection settings as they are – we additionally enter the password that was set when creating the zabbix user. Then click Next Step:

Enter the password for the Zabbix user

* in our case, the password was zabbixpassword;

In the next window, leave everything as it is:

… and click Next Step.

In the last window, we check the settings and click Next Step.

Installation is completed – click Finish

In the window that opens, enter the Admin login and the password zabbix (by default).

Zabbix agent

As an example, let’s install zabbix agent on our server. We will also set up an encrypted connection between the server and the agent.

Installing and connecting the agent

As we have already installed the repository, the agent is installed with the command:

apt install zabbix agent

Let’s open the configuration file:

vi /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf

Edit the following option:

Server=127.0.0.1

* in this example, we specify the Zabbix server to the agent – we can specify its name or IP address.

We allow autostart of the agent and restart it:

systemctl enable zabbix-agent

systemctl restart zabbix-agent

Go to the server control panel. Open Monitoring – Hosts. We should see a single Zabbix Server node.

And on the right should be the ZBX availability status:

The agent is up and running.

Enable Encryption

To secure data transfer between the server and the agent, set up encryption using the PSK key.

On the agent, open the configuration file:

vi /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf

Change 4 options:

TLSConnect=psk

TLSAccept=psk

TLSPSKIdentity=PSK 001

TLSPSKFile=/etc/zabbix/agent_key.psk

Generate the key:

openssl rand -hex 32 > /etc/zabbix/agent_key.psk

Let’s see its contents:

cat /etc/zabbix/agent_key.psk

Save because we will need it.

Restarting the agent:

systemctl restart zabbix-agent

Go to the Zabbix web control panel. In the list of Hosts click on our server with the agent installed.

Go to the Encryption tab. We select the connection with PKS, check the box for PSK only, enter the identifier (which was set when configuring the agent in the TLSPSKIdentity parameter), enter the key itself, which was generated in the agent console.

Click Update to apply the settings.

After a couple of minutes, our connection state with the agent should be something like this:

Encryption is set.