Creating Zabbix connections

Before you begin

Before you create a Zabbix connection, complete the following steps:

• Install Zabbix v6.0
• Add and configure hosts in the Zabbix server

For more information about installing Zabbix and setting up host, see the Installation and the Quickstart sections in the Zabbix documentation.

To create a Zabbix connection, you must have the following information:

• Endpoint
• API token

Creating Zabbix connections

To create a Zabbix connection, complete the following steps:

1. Log in to IBM Cloud Pak Automation console.

2. Expand the navigation menu (four horizontal bars), then click Define > Data and tool connections.

3. On the Data and tool connections page, click Add connection.

4. From the list of available connections, find and click the Zabbix tile.

   Note: If you do not immediately see the connection that you want to create, you can filter the tiles by type of connection. Click the type of connection that you want in the Category section.

5. On the side-panel, review the instructions and when ready to continue, click Connect.

6. On the Add connection page, define the general connection details:

   • Name: Create a unique name for your connection.

     Note: Currently, the connection name field only supports alphanumeric characters and excludes spaces and other special characters.

   • Description (optional): Provide a description for your connection.

   • Endpoint: Both http and https urls will be supported by the endpoint (for example, http://<Zabbix-server-hostname>/zabbix/api_jsonrpc.php or https://<Zabbix-server-hostname>/api_jsonrpc.php). In this case you can enter the following endpoint for your connection:

     <protocol>://<Zabbix-server-hostname>/zabbix/api_jsonrpc.php

     where protocol is HTTP or HTTPS and zabbix is the path to api_jsonrpc.php file, which is located in the front-end directory.

   • Authentication type: Select between Username/Password or API token.

     • Username: Enter a username for the Zabbix connection.
     • Password: Enter a password for the Zabbix connection.
     • API token: Enter an API token for the connection.

   • Test Connection: Click Test connection.

     Note: After you click Test connection, wait for the test to succeed before you continue to the next step. It might take some time. If the test connection fails, verify your credentials, and ensure that the server is up and running. However, you can still move to the metric selection page.

   • Deployment options: Select one of the options, Local or Remote.

     • Local: This option deploys the connection in the same cluster where IBM Cloud Pak for Watson AIOps is installed.
     • Remote: This option deploys it in your chosen location. After you add the connection, you get a bootstrap command to finish the deployment.

7. Click Next.

8. Enter Collect metric data information:

   • Enable data collection: Toggle the switch to the on position. However, if you disable data flow, a new connection is created, but metrics are not collected.

   • Select templates: You can either select all templates or choose the templates that you want to apply to the hosts. Only templates that have metrics will be shown in the UI.

     • To select all templates, click Select all templates.
     • To clear all selection, click Unselect all templates.
     • To choose the required templates, select the checkbox of the templates you require from the drop-down list.

     Note: You must select templates appropriate to the hosts. This is because if an item from the template is not available for the host, the connector cannot pull data for that item.

     For more information about performance considerations for metric data collection, see Performance considerations for metric data collection.

   • Search and select the required metrics: After the templates are loaded, the filter table displays all the associated built-in metrics of the selected templates. These metrics are preselected. You can search through and change the selection, if required.

     • To select a metric, click the checkbox of the required metric.
     • To remove a selected metric, clear its corresponding checkbox.
     • To select or clear all selected metrics, click Built-in metrics name. Alternatively, you can click Select all or Unselect all on the filter table header.
     • To change the size of the page that lists the built-metrics, select a number from the Items per page list at the end of the table.
     • To navigate through the pages to see all the metrics, click the next page or previous page arrows.

   • Hosts: The hosts are preselected on the load itself. To undo the selection, clear the checkbox of the hostname from the drop-down list.

     Note: If any of the hosts are not available, a notification is displayed. Unselect the hosts that are not available or ensure that all hosts are working in the Zabbix target system before you create your Zabbix connection. If a host goes down after you create the connection, edit and remove the host in your connection.

     Note: Zabbix organizes hosts based on their IP address. Therefore, if two hosts have the same IP address, then selecting one of these hosts results in both hosts getting selected.

   • Base parallelism: Specify the number of requests that can run in parallel. The default value is 3.

   • History Span (minute): Enter a value in minutes. The value represents the time interval for live or historical data collection. The default value is 1.

   • Select historical or live data collection:

   Note: If you choose to collect only live data, you cannot collect historical data after the live data collection starts.

   • Live data collection: To collect live data, complete the following steps:

     • Only collect live data once the connection is established: Select the checkbox.
     • Connection interval in minutes for live metrics (1-60): Enter a value in minutes. The value represents the frequency at which data is sampled for live metrics. The default value is 5.

   • Historical data collection: If you do not select live data collection, then historical data metrics are automatically collected. To collect historical data, complete the following steps:

     • Start date and time: Select the start date from the calendar and enter the time in the hh:mm format (hours and minutes).

     Note: The start date must not exceed 31 days from the present as the maximum time period for historical data collection is 31 days. The recommended time period is two weeks.

     • Time zone: Select your time zone from the drop-down list.
     • End date and time: Click Add end date and select a date from the calendar. Also, enter the time in the hh:mm format (hours and minutes). If you want to remove an end date, click Remove end date.

     Note: If you do not set an end date, IBM Cloud Pak for Watson AIOps collects historical data from the specified start date and continues with live data collection. Therefore, you must specify the connection interval for live metrics.

     • Connection interval in minutes for live metrics (1-60): Enter a value in minutes. The value depicts the frequency at which data is sampled for live metrics. The default value is 5.

9. Click Done.

You created a Zabbix connection in your instance.

Enabling and disabling Zabbix connections

If you didn't enable your data collection during creation, you can enable your connection afterward. You can also disable a previously enabled connection the same way. To enable or disable a created connection, complete the following steps:

1. Log in to IBM Cloud Pak Automation console.

2. Expand the navigation menu (four horizontal bars), then click Define > Data and tool connections.

3. On the Manage connections tab of the Data and tool connections page, click the Zabbix connection type.

4. Click the connection that you want to enable or disable.

5. Set Enable data collection to On or Off to enable or disable log data collection. Disabling data collection for a connection does not delete the connection.

You enabled or disabled your connection. For more information about deleting a connection, see Deleting Zabbix connections.

Editing Zabbix connections

After you create your connection, your can edit the connection. For example, if you want to change the time interval of how often your job runs, you can edit it. To edit a connection, complete the following steps:

1. Log in to IBM Cloud Pak Automation console.

2. Expand the navigation menu (four horizontal bars), then click Define > Data and tool connections.

3. Click the Zabbix connection type on the Manage connections tab of the Data and tool connections page.

4. On the Zabbix connections page, click the name of the connection that you want to edit. Alternatively, you can click the options menu (three vertical dots) for the connection and click Edit. The connection configuration opens.

5. Edit your connection. Click Next to go through the connection configurationn pages. Click Save when you are done editing.

You edited your connection.

Deleting Zabbix connections

If you no longer need your zabbix connection and want to delete it entirely, you can delete the connection from the console.

To delete a connection, complete the following steps:

1. Log in to IBM Cloud Pak Automation console.

2. Expand the navigation menu (four horizontal bars), then click Define > Data and tool connections.

3. Click the Zabbix connection type on the Manage connections tab of the Data and tool connections page.

4. On the Zabbix connections page, click the options menu (three vertical dots) for the connection that you want to delete and click Delete.

5. Enter the name of the connection to confirm that you want to delete your connection. Then, click Delete.

Your connection is deleted.