Zabbix is an enterprise-class open source distributed monitoring solution.
Zabbix is software that monitors numerous parameters of a network and the health and integrity of servers. Zabbix uses a flexible notification mechanism that allows users to configure e-mail based alerts for virtually any event. This allows a fast reaction to server problems. Zabbix offers excellent reporting and data visualisation features based on the stored data. This makes Zabbix ideal for capacity planning.
For more information and related downloads for Zabbix components, please visit https://hub.docker.com/u/zabbix/ and https://zabbix.com
# What is Zabbix server?
Zabbix server is the central process of Zabbix software.
The server performs the polling and trapping of data, it calculates triggers, sends notifications to users. It is the central component to which Zabbix agents and proxies report data on availability and integrity of systems. The server can itself remotely check networked services (such as web servers and mail servers) using simple service checks.
These are the only official Zabbix server Docker images. They are based on Alpine Linux v3.12, Ubuntu 20.04 (focal), 22.04 (jammy), CentOS Stream 8 and Oracle Linux 8 images. The available versions of Zabbix server are:
Where `some-zabbix-server-pgsql` is the name you want to assign to your container, `some-postgres-server` is IP or DNS name of PostgreSQL server, `some-user` is user to connect to Zabbix database on PostgreSQL server, `some-password` is the password to connect to PostgreSQL server and `tag` is the tag specifying the version you want. See the list above for relevant tags, or look at the [full list of tags](https://hub.docker.com/r/zabbix/zabbix-server-pgsql/tags/).
The `docker exec` command allows you to run commands inside a Docker container. The following command line will give you a bash shell inside your `zabbix-server-pgsql` container:
When you start the `zabbix-server-pgsql` image, you can adjust the configuration of the Zabbix server by passing one or more environment variables on the `docker run` command line.
These variables are used by Zabbix server to connect to Zabbix database. With the `_FILE` variables you can instead provide the path to a file which contains the user / the password instead. Without Docker Swarm or Kubernetes you also have to map the files. Those are exclusive so you can just provide one type - either `POSTGRES_USER` or `POSTGRES_USER_FILE`!
In some setups, for example including [PgBouncer](https://www.pgbouncer.org), setting the `search_path` via connection parameters fails. If this variable is set to `"true"`, the image skips setting the `search_path` and trusts that the `search_path` of the Zabbix user is setup correctly in PostgreSQL database.
The variable is list of comma separated loadable Zabbix modules. It works with volume ``/var/lib/zabbix/modules``. The syntax of the variable is ``dummy1.so,dummy2.so``.
### `ZBX_DEBUGLEVEL`
The variable is used to specify debug level. By default, value is ``3``. It is ``DebugLevel`` parameter in ``zabbix_server.conf``. Allowed values are listed below:
- ``0`` - basic information about starting and stopping of Zabbix processes;
Default values of these variables are specified after equal sign.
The allowed variables are identical of parameters in official ``zabbix_server.conf``. For example, ``ZBX_LOGSLOWQUERIES`` = ``LogSlowQueries``.
Please use official documentation for [``zabbix_server.conf``](https://www.zabbix.com/documentation/current/manual/appendix/config/zabbix_server) to get more information about the variables.
## Allowed volumes for the Zabbix server container
### ``/usr/lib/zabbix/alertscripts``
The volume is used for custom alert scripts. It is `AlertScriptsPath` parameter in ``zabbix_server.conf``.
### ``/usr/lib/zabbix/externalscripts``
The volume is used by External checks (type of items). It is `ExternalScripts` parameter in ``zabbix_server.conf``.
### ``/var/lib/zabbix/modules``
The volume allows load additional modules and extend Zabbix server using ``LoadModule`` feature.
### ``/var/lib/zabbix/enc``
The volume is used to store TLS related files. These file names are specified using ``ZBX_TLSCAFILE``, ``ZBX_TLSCRLFILE``, ``ZBX_TLSKEY_FILE`` and ``ZBX_TLSPSKFILE`` variables.
### ``/var/lib/zabbix/ssh_keys``
The volume is used as location of public and private keys for SSH checks and actions. It is `SSHKeyLocation` parameter in ``zabbix_server.conf``.
### ``/var/lib/zabbix/ssl/certs``
The volume is used as location of of SSL client certificate files for client authentication. It is `SSLCertLocation` parameter in ``zabbix_server.conf``.
### ``/var/lib/zabbix/ssl/keys``
The volume is used as location of SSL private key files for client authentication. It is `SSLKeyLocation` parameter in ``zabbix_server.conf``.
### ``/var/lib/zabbix/ssl/ssl_ca``
The volume is used as location of certificate authority (CA) files for SSL server certificate verification. It is `SSLCALocation` parameter in ``zabbix_server.conf``.
### ``/var/lib/zabbix/snmptraps``
The volume is used as location of ``snmptraps.log`` file. It could be shared by ``zabbix-snmptraps`` container and inherited using `volumes_from` Docker option while creating new instance of Zabbix server.
SNMP traps processing feature could be enabled using shared volume and switched ``ZBX_ENABLE_SNMP_TRAPS`` environment variable to `true`.
### ``/var/lib/zabbix/mibs``
The volume allows to add new MIB files. It does not support subdirectories, all MIBs must be placed to ``/var/lib/zabbix/mibs``.
### ``/var/lib/zabbix/export``
Directory for real-time export of events, history and trends in newline-delimited JSON format. Could be enabled using ``ZBX_EXPORTFILESIZE`` environment variable.
This image is based on the popular [Alpine Linux project](http://alpinelinux.org), available in [the `alpine` official image](https://hub.docker.com/_/alpine). Alpine Linux is much smaller than most distribution base images (~5MB), and thus leads to much slimmer images in general.
This variant is highly recommended when final image size being as small as possible is desired. The main caveat to note is that it does use [musl libc](http://www.musl-libc.org) instead of [glibc and friends](http://www.etalabs.net/compare_libcs.html), so certain software might run into issues depending on the depth of their libc requirements. However, most software doesn't have an issue with this, so this variant is usually a very safe choice. See [this Hacker News comment thread](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10782897) for more discussion of the issues that might arise and some pro/con comparisons of using Alpine-based images.
To minimize image size, it's uncommon for additional related tools (such as `git` or `bash`) to be included in Alpine-based images. Using this image as a base, add the things you need in your own Dockerfile (see the [`alpine` image description](https://hub.docker.com/_/alpine/) for examples of how to install packages if you are unfamiliar).
This is the defacto image. If you are unsure about what your needs are, you probably want to use this one. It is designed to be used both as a throw away container (mount your source code and start the container to start your app), as well as the base to build other images off of.
## `zabbix-server-pgsql:ol-<version>`
Oracle Linux is an open-source operating system available under the GNU General Public License (GPLv2). Suitable for general purpose or Oracle workloads, it benefits from rigorous testing of more than 128,000 hours per day with real-world workloads and includes unique innovations such as Ksplice for zero-downtime kernel patching, DTrace for real-time diagnostics, the powerful Btrfs file system, and more.
Documentation for this image is stored in the [`server-pgsql/` directory](https://github.com/zabbix/zabbix-docker/tree/3.0/server-pgsql) of the [`zabbix/zabbix-docker` GitHub repo](https://github.com/zabbix/zabbix-docker/). Be sure to familiarize yourself with the [repository's `README.md` file](https://github.com/zabbix/zabbix-docker/blob/master/README.md) before attempting a pull request.
If you have any problems with or questions about this image, please contact us through a [GitHub issue](https://github.com/zabbix/zabbix-docker/issues).
Zabbix server does not support Jabber notifications on Alpine Linux because of `iksemel` package is in testing repository and not available in stable repository.
You are invited to contribute new features, fixes, or updates, large or small; we are always thrilled to receive pull requests, and do our best to process them as fast as we can.
Before you start to code, we recommend discussing your plans through a [GitHub issue](https://github.com/zabbix/zabbix-docker/issues), especially for more ambitious contributions. This gives other contributors a chance to point you in the right direction, give you feedback on your design, and help you find out if someone else is working on the same thing.
