Zabbix 5.0, or What's New With Template Server by IPMI

You need to put the equipment under monitoring, and in your favorite Zabbix system there is no ready-made template for this type of equipment. Familiar situation? Everyone gets out of it in his own way. One administrator is looking for a solution on the Internet. The second is developing its own. And some will give up on this task. Now the Zabbix team with each new release expands the set of predefined templates in the system. For example, in the upcoming version 5.0, a new universal template for monitoring servers via IPMI will appear - Template Server by IPMI. Colleagues asked for help in debugging his work on equipment of various manufacturers. For us, this is still a unique opportunity to arrange a test drive for new functionality. We share the results.

What does the new template look like?

In order to monitor your server using this template, you need to create a “host” in the system with configured monitoring via IPMI and attach a Template Server by IPMI template to it (Fig. 1). There will be no detailed description of this operation: detailed instructions are in the official Zabbix documentation.

Fig. 1. Template Server Template by IPMI

Consider the principles of this template and its structure.

The basis of the template is the ipmitool utility. It allows you to get the necessary statistics from the equipment through IPMI. Using the functionality of this utility and obtaining all the necessary data is now available to the user via the web interface using the IPMI agent data element type and the special ipmi.get key. This was only possible thanks to the appearance of the ipmi.get key in the new version.

In the Template Server by IPMI template, the Item Get IPMI sensors data element is responsible for organizing the collection of information using this new functionality (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Item Get IPMI sensors item

As a result of the operation of the Item Get IPMI sensors data element, information on the state of equipment in a structured JSON format appears in the Zabbix system (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. An example of the result of the operation item Get IPMI sensors

In addition to the Item Get IPMI sensors data element, the template also has two Discrete sensors discovery detection rules (Fig. 4) and Threshold sensors discovery (Fig. 5). These discovery rules use the JSON resulting from the operation of the Item Get IPMI sensors data item to automatically create new data items and triggers. This is clearly seen in the figures below in the Master item section.

Fig. 4. Discrete sensors discovery rule

Fig. 5. Threshold sensors discovery rule

Why does the template use two detection rules, and not one?

Discrete sensors discovery enables the automatic creation of data elements that are of type string in their values. And the detection rule Threshold sensors discovery allows you to automatically create data elements that are of the type "number" in their values. Moreover, this rule can form up to 6 triggers for each data element (Fig. 6).

Values ​​for trigger conditions are taken from JSON, i.e. from the device itself. Triggers are created for 6 thresholds: lower dangerous, lower critical, lower non-critical, upper non-critical, upper critical, upper dangerous. If a value for a threshold is missing in JSON, a trigger is not created.

In an educated trigger, the threshold can be redefined at the Zabbix level. However, in our opinion, the most logical way to change a trigger is to convert it at the equipment level. How to do this is usually indicated in the instructions for the device.

Fig. 6. 6 prototype triggers for detection rules Threshold sensors discovery

We harness and go.

To test the Template Server by IPMI template, we selected servers from three manufacturers: IBM, HP and Huawei. A few minutes after the connection, the results shown in the table were obtained from them.

Table 1. Template Server by IPMI Test Results

Equipment manufacturer	Equipment model	Number of automatically created data items	Number of Triggers Automatically Created
HP	ProLiant DL360 G5	twenty	24
Huawei	1288H V5	175	56
Ibm	System x	139	27

All equipment was successfully able to get up to monitoring using a new template and a new ipmi.key.

Most of the data we were able to get from Huawei equipment, and least of all - from HP. The reason for this lies in the difference in the hardware of the devices and is not related to the quality of work of the new template.

In the screenshots below you can see the data elements and triggers automatically created by the template.

Fig. 7. Data Elements Automatically Created by the Template

Fig. 8. Triggers automatically created by the template.

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Template Server by IPMI proved to be the best. It turned out to be easy to use and, most importantly, “universal.”

The Template Server by IPMI template will be included in the list of base templates of Zabbix version 5.0. For our part, we strongly support this approach of the manufacturer. Even if specialists are forced to create their own specialized templates, we recommend taking as a basis the approaches laid down by the manufacturer itself and observed in Template Server by IPMI. First, use automatic item detection using the master item. And secondly, apply automatic trigger detection using the master item in cases where this is possible.

Well and look forward to the release of Zabbix 5.0 soon!

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