Install and configure Zabbix Server 4.4 on Debian 10 (Buster)

Introduction

“Zabbix is the ultimate enterprise-grade software designed to monitor millions of metrics collected from thousands of servers, virtual machines and network devices in real time.” It can monitor not only Linux but also Windows, Solaris, IBM AIX. . It has functions to monitor applications, services, databases, and more.

In this guide, we will install Zabbix Server in the latest Debian 10 (Buster). Please complete our work together.

The dependencies of this setting are:

Nginx web server
PHP with the required extension
MySQL / MariaDB database server

Step 1: Add Zabbix repository

sudo wget https://repo.zabbix.com/zabbix/4.4/debian/pool/main/z/zabbix-release/zabbix-release_4.4-1+buster_all.deb

sudo dpkg -i zabbix-release_4.4-1+buster_all.deb
sudo apt update

Step 2: Install Zabbix server

Zabbix comes with three components, a server, a proxy, and a front end. The proxy is optional.

Install Zabbix server

This will install the MariaDB database server for the Zabbix server.

sudo apt install zabbix-server-mysql

Check installed version by running

$ mariadb --version
mariadb  Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.3.22-MariaDB, for debian-linux-gnu (x86_64) using readline 5.2

Step 3: Configure and create Zabbix server database

Protect your database

Run the following command and say “Yes (Y) (Y)” to delete anonymous users, delete the test database and disable remote root login.

 $ sudo mysql_secure_installation
Enter current password for root (enter for none):
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y

Log in to MariaDB

sudo mysql -u root -p

Create Zabbix database and Zabbix user:

CREATE DATABASE zabbixdb character set utf8 collate utf8_bin;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON zabbixdb.* TO [email protected] IDENTIFIED by 'SafePassWord';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
QUIT;

Import data

Now, import the server’s initial schema and data using MySQL:

sudo zcat /usr/share/doc/zabbix-server-mysql/create.sql.gz | mysql -uuserzabbix -p zabbixdb

Step 3: Install Zabbix front end:

This will install Nginx and PHP.

sudo apt install zabbix-frontend-php zabbix-nginx-conf

Check the installed version of Nginx and PHP

$ nginx -v
nginx version: nginx/1.14.2

$ php -v
PHP 7.3.11-1~deb10u1 (cli) (built: Oct 26 2019 14:14:18) ( NTS )

Configure the PHP date.timezone parameter used by Zabbix in its settings

sudo vim /etc/php/7.3/fpm/php.ini

## Navigate till "Date" category 

[Date] 
; Defines the default timezone used by the date functions 
; http://php.net/date.timezone  
date.timezone =Africa/Nairobi  ## Set your timezone here as shown

Restart php-fpm

sudo systemctl restart php7.3-fpm

Start and enable Nginx

sudo systemctl enable nginx
sudo systemctl start nginx

Configure Nginx

Zabbix creates his own Nginx configuration file. Open and uncomment “Listen” and “name of server“Part as shown below

sudo vim /etc/nginx/conf.d/zabbix.conf

server {
        listen          80;                       ## Uncomment this part
        server_name     zabbix.computingforgeeks.com;    ## Uncomment this part too

change”defaultNginx files in Debian can listen on other ports so that they don’t conflict with Zabbix configured above.

sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

server {

        listen 82 default_server;      ## Change from 80 to 82
        listen [::]:82 default_server; ## Change from 80 to 82 as well

Change permissions on Zabbix root folder

sudo chmod -R 775 /usr/share/zabbix/

Restart Nginx

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Step 4: Configure database for Zabbix server

Open the Zabbix server configuration file and make the changes shown below. If you used different databases and user names, update them accordingly.

sudo vim /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf

DBHost=localhost
DBName=zabbixdb
DBUser=userzabbix
DBPassword=SafePassWord

Replace these values with the correct database settings.

Step 5: Install Zabbix Agent on Debian 10

The agent will monitor the server itself, but you can easily install

To install the agent, run

sudo apt -y install zabbix-agent

Start and enable Zabbix proxy and server

sudo systemctl enable zabbix-server zabbix-agent
sudo systemctl start zabbix-server zabbix-agent

Step 5: Set up Zabbix web interface

Open your favorite browser and enter the IP of your Zabbix server. My picture below

http://172.17.37.54

You should see a page similar to the one below. Click “Next step“.

Make sure all prerequisites are recorded as green OK and clickNext step“

Enter the database details we set up before and click “Next step“

Enter your Zabbix server details

View settings summary

Complete setup

Now let’s log in and enter the dashboard. The default username is “administrator“, Password is”zabbix“.allowable management After login, enter the tab page.

Navigation Administration> User> Administrator> Password> Change Password