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August 20, 2018
What will Zabbix 4.0 bring to the table?
The new Zabbix version, which is expected to come out before the end of June, still in alpha state (do not use it in production!), apart from solving a lot of bugs and including some accesibility improvements it has some new interesting features. In this article we will point out some of them.
Force item check or the execution of a discovery rule
This feature seems to save us a lot of time preparing templates and testing new devices, as it enables the option to do not have to wait for the update interval of each item. BUT, be careful, since the configuration cache is still present, if we have changed anything in the item configuration, even if we press "Check now", configuration may not be update in the server until up to a minute has passed (o the configuration cache interval we had configured). But if instead of changing things in the web configuration, we are implementing an script in the agent side, this "Check now" will be very useful.
Force item check or the execution of a discovery rule
This feature seems to save us a lot of time preparing templates and testing new devices, as it enables the option to do not have to wait for the update interval of each item. BUT, be careful, since the configuration cache is still present, if we have changed anything in the item configuration, even if we press "Check now", configuration may not be update in the server until up to a minute has passed (o the configuration cache interval we had configured). But if instead of changing things in the web configuration, we are implementing an script in the agent side, this "Check now" will be very useful.
New monitoring item, HTTP/S agent
This is a long-waited feature in Zabbix. Until now, to obtain data from any API-based webservice or parse some website we had to use custom scripts based in tools and librarys like cURL or JSON or similar. But with this new item, it will not be necessary anymore, since it will be allow us, in a very flexible manner, to include all sort of JSON and XML petitions, over GET, POST, PUT and HEAD commands, with different authentication type and with SSL support.
This new item comes with a really interesting feature: the HTTP trappers. Configuring HTTP items as HTTP trappers and executing a little server (developed in Golang as curious fact) we will be able to fill these items from an external tool in "push" mode. This has lots of different applications, for instance, to monitor events in websites in the client side or to import events from other platforms. We love this feature!
On this line of improving Zabbix integration with other platforms, we find the option to export items, triggers and events in real time over a JSON file.
Support for inventory macros and other improvements in tags
Little by little, Zabbix is starting to explode the full potential of event tagging, allowing in this new version to use inventory macros as tags. This is very useful, for instance, to tag events automatically by type of operating system, location or type of monitored device.
Tags will also be used to fine tune permissions to user groups and tag filtering in problems menu has been as well improved, although it is still lacking of use negate filters (to show all the problems but the ones with a concrete tag).
Dashboards improvements
Currently, in order to show our dashboard in big screens at the office, we had the "full screen mode", which still left some unneede space at the top. Because of this, Zabbix 4.0 will have a kiosk mode, that really uses all the space:
This is a long-waited feature in Zabbix. Until now, to obtain data from any API-based webservice or parse some website we had to use custom scripts based in tools and librarys like cURL or JSON or similar. But with this new item, it will not be necessary anymore, since it will be allow us, in a very flexible manner, to include all sort of JSON and XML petitions, over GET, POST, PUT and HEAD commands, with different authentication type and with SSL support.
This new item comes with a really interesting feature: the HTTP trappers. Configuring HTTP items as HTTP trappers and executing a little server (developed in Golang as curious fact) we will be able to fill these items from an external tool in "push" mode. This has lots of different applications, for instance, to monitor events in websites in the client side or to import events from other platforms. We love this feature!
On this line of improving Zabbix integration with other platforms, we find the option to export items, triggers and events in real time over a JSON file.
Support for inventory macros and other improvements in tags
Little by little, Zabbix is starting to explode the full potential of event tagging, allowing in this new version to use inventory macros as tags. This is very useful, for instance, to tag events automatically by type of operating system, location or type of monitored device.
Tags will also be used to fine tune permissions to user groups and tag filtering in problems menu has been as well improved, although it is still lacking of use negate filters (to show all the problems but the ones with a concrete tag).
Dashboards improvements
Currently, in order to show our dashboard in big screens at the office, we had the "full screen mode", which still left some unneede space at the top. Because of this, Zabbix 4.0 will have a kiosk mode, that really uses all the space:
Following the idea of maximizing the used space, graphics widget have been also improved. This will be a good feature since the current graphics leave a lot of unuseful margins.
Other improvements
Apart from these features, Zabbix 4.0 will have several more less relevant improvements, like the option to associate more than email address to a user (using only one email for all the addresses), allowance of DNS name up to 255 characters long, more detailed messages of database failure, use of dialogs instead of pop-up windows and also the possibility to use almost 100% of the web interface using only the keyboard.
As soon as we get more news about Zabbix 4.0 and its awesome new features we will post about it and testing them if possible!
Other improvements
Apart from these features, Zabbix 4.0 will have several more less relevant improvements, like the option to associate more than email address to a user (using only one email for all the addresses), allowance of DNS name up to 255 characters long, more detailed messages of database failure, use of dialogs instead of pop-up windows and also the possibility to use almost 100% of the web interface using only the keyboard.
As soon as we get more news about Zabbix 4.0 and its awesome new features we will post about it and testing them if possible!
CEO & MANAGING DIRECTOR
Expert in IT monitoring, systems and networks.
Minerva is our enterprise-grade monitoring platform based on Zabbix and Grafana.
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