Why Use Zabbix Templates?
There's nothing as tedious as setting up the same type of server over and over, adding the same Items and Triggers. In any environment, we tend to use the same types of servers because we've standardized on them. It could be in your house ("My family is all on Apple products") or at work ("We're a Linux and Windows shop"). So if you're setting up 20 laptops, it's the same Items and Triggers on each one. To handle this headache, Zabbix uses Templates to make the configuration easier. At the Host level, you can add Items and Triggers one by [...]
Why Use Zabbix Global Macros?
Once your Zabbix configuration starts to monitor for that a few hundred Items, you're going to be relying heavily on Templates. Along with using Templates to replicate the monitoring of more than one server, you probably need to start using Global Macros. The concept of a Template is "write once, use many", and Global Macros are very similar. An example might be a license key for an external service or the credentials for an internal service (there are better ways of storing secrets), perhaps a SQL database that is used just for Zabbix. Using these credentials and values scattered throughout [...]
Why is Rebooting Linux Pointless?
Spoiler alert: It's not pointless. I've taken a lot of flack over the years in saying that it's OK to reboot Linux. While you can read on the 'net how it's pointless to do so, a statement like that has too many nuances to be considered fact. A better statement would be to say that, in many cases, Linux doesn't need to be rebooted (it's not MS Windows, after all). Linux does an amazing job of recovering from runaway RAM issues and even out-of-disk issues. I've even seen CPU usage bring a Linux server to a standstill, only to have [...]
Getting your Unifi Router Failover working
One of my Unifi Gateways, a USG-Pro-4, is located in a house where the internet can go out in a storm. Since the internet is provided by Comcast, and it's just "household grade", there's not much I can complain about. But we've all experienced an outage just when you need it the most. My traditional way of dealing with this is yelling around the house, "Internet is out - everyone go on your hot spots". Typically it's back online in an hour or so, and then I have to make sure everyone has switched back over to the house WiFi. [...]
Unifi Console sees existing Devices as offline
With seemingly no changes, my network had a bad start to the day. Devices just started dropping off the Console, but the network was fully functioning. While not an emergency, as there wasn't a network outage, I was "blind" as the Console wasn't showing Devices, except for the USG4Pro itself and a few Clients. I waited for a good time (is there ever a good time), and I rebooted my USG4Pro, but this only had the situation worse as now nothing was showing up in the Console, and the connection to the 'net stopped. Now this was an emergency. I [...]
Why choose Zabbix?
If your network is complex enough to manage, you want to choose a solid monitoring tool. I like to look at these criteria when evaluating monitoring solutions: It's not difficult to set up. It doesn't have to be easy, but I don't want a setup that's so complex it makes me dread the task. Consistently presents me with easy to consume data that's normally a bother to get on my own. Flexible when my needs change, and if there's anything I've learned as an Admin, get ready for change. Has an active development cycle with a robust user community. Before [...]