Zabbix 6 is like a continuation of Zabbix 5, as this time around we aren't looking at big UI changes. However, in Zabbix 6, you will still find a lot of improvements, both to the UI and core components. For example, the introduction of high availability for the Zabbix server. We will detail all of the important changes throughout the book.

In this chapter, we will install the Zabbix server and explore the Zabbix UI to get you familiar with it. We will go over finding your hosts, triggers, dashboards, and more to make sure you feel confident diving into the deeper material later on in this book. The Zabbix UI has a lot of options to explore, so if you are just getting started, don't get overwhelmed. It's quite structurally built and once you get the hang of it, I am confident you will find your way without issues. You will learn all about these subjects in the following recipes:

• Installing...

We'll be starting this chapter with an empty Linux (virtual) machine. Feel free to choose a RHEL- or Debian-based Linux distribution. We will then set up a Zabbix server from scratch on this host.

So before jumping in, make sure you have your Linux host at the ready.

Before doing anything within Zabbix, we need to install it and get ready to start working with it. In this recipe, we are going to discover how to install Zabbix server 6.

Getting ready

Before we actually install the Zabbix server, we are going to need to fulfill some prerequisite requirements. We will be using MariaDB mostly throughout this book. MariaDB is popular and a lot of information is available on the use of it with Zabbix.

At this point, you should have a prepared Linux server in front of you running either a RHEL- or Debian-based distribution. I'll be installing CentOS and Ubuntu 20.04 on my server; let's call them lar-book-centos and lar-book-ubuntu.

When you have your server ready, we can start the installation process.

How to do it…

1. Let's start by adding the Zabbix 6.0 repository to our system.

For RHEL-based systems:

rpm -Uvh https://repo.zabbix.com/zabbix/6.0/rhel/8/x86_64/zabbix-release...

The Zabbix frontend is the face of our server. It's where we will configure all of our hosts, templates, dashboards, maps, and everything else. Without it, we would be blind to what's going on, on the server side. So, let's set up our Zabbix frontend in this recipe.

Getting ready

We are going to set up the Zabbix frontend using Apache. Before starting with this recipe, make sure you are running the Zabbix server on a Linux distribution of your choice. I'll be using the lar-book-centos and lar-book-ubuntu hosts in these recipes to show the setup process on CentOS 8 and Ubuntu 20.

How to do it…

1. Let's jump right in and install the frontend. Issue the following command to get started.

For RHEL-based systems:

dnf install zabbix-web-mysql zabbix-apache-conf 

For Ubuntu systems:

apt install zabbix-frontend-php zabbix-apache-conf 

Tip

Don't forget to allow ports 80 and 443 in your firewall...

Zabbix 6 is here, with one of the most anticipated features of all time. High availability will bring your Zabbix setup to the next level by making sure that if one of your Zabbix servers is having issues, another one will take over.

A great thing about this implementation is that it supports an easy proprietary way to put one to many Zabbix servers in a cluster. A great way of making sure your monitoring stays in the air at all times (or at least as much as possible).

Now I do have to be honest, we cannot do anything like load balancing yet. But that is included on the Zabbix roadmap using the Zabbix proxies in a later version. Keep an eye out for any updates regarding that here:

https://www.zabbix.com/roadmap

Getting ready

Before getting started, please note that creating a high availability setup is considered an advanced topic. It might be more difficult than other recipes in this chapter.

For this setup, we will need three...

If this is your first time using Zabbix, congratulations on getting to the UI. If you are a returning Zabbix user, there have been some changes to the Zabbix 6 UI that you might notice. We'll be going over some of the different elements that we can find in the Zabbix frontend so that during this book, you'll feel confident in finding everything you need.

Getting ready

To get started with the Zabbix UI, all we need to do is log in to the frontend. You will be served with the following page at the IP on which your server is running the Zabbix frontend:

Figure 1.16 – The Zabbix login screen

Make sure you log in to the Zabbix frontend with the default credentials:

• Username: Admin
• Password: zabbix

  Tip

  Just like in Linux, Zabbix is case-sensitive in most places. When entering your username, make sure to include the right cases; otherwise, you won't be able to log in!

How to do it…

After...

Navigating the Zabbix frontend is easier than it looks at first glance, especially with some of the amazing changes made to the UI starting from Zabbix 5.0. Let's explore the Zabbix navigational UI some more in this recipe by looking at the navigation bar and what it has to offer.

Getting ready

Now that we've seen the first page after logging in with the default dashboard, it is time to start navigating through the Zabbix UI and see some of the other pages available. We'll move through the sidebar and explore the pages available in our Zabbix installation so that when we start monitoring our networks and applications, we know where we can find everything.

So, before continuing, make sure you have the Zabbix server ready as set up in the previous recipes.

How to do it…

The Zabbix navigation bar is the gateway to all of our powerful tools and configuration settings. Zabbix uses a left-side navigation bar to keep our UI as clean...