TV control typically requires external hardware that uses an additional data port, power outlet, and some type of custom programming. Costs are usually around $80 to $150 per display and have to be managed on some type of proprietary system. In commercial and corporate environments, most displays have some form of hardware behind them for […]
All posts by Jacob Robinson
Adding Scripts to Zabbix
Scripts in Zabbix can be used to generate item data for monitoring, for actions when a trigger occurs, or allow users to manually run from the web interface. Scripts can be any language and do basically anything as long as it can accept command line arguments and the output can be seen by Zabbix. This […]
Chicken Coop
In the summer of 2020 I designed and helped build a chicken coop in Upstate New York to house 6 hens. I had about two weeks to do the design in AutoCAD and get a material list put together so I got to work researching what is considered a “good” coop design. I found the […]
Music
I enjoy a diverse selection of genres but there are a few albums that I listen to pretty regularly. This list is in no particular order. One Size Fits AllMothers of InventionSpotify PunisherPhoebe BridgersSpotify How To Be a Human BeingGlass AnimalsSpotify Alien Love SecretsSteve VaiSpotify …Like ClockworkQueens of the Stone AgeSpotify The Slim Shady EPEminemSpotify […]
Templates in Zabbix
Everything set at the template level is inherited by hosts. The advantage of this design is that a large number of hosts can be applied to a template and they will all be monitored the exact same way. Modifications made to the template are applied to all hosts associated with the template, but customization to […]
Zabbix Basics
At the most basic level, the Zabbix monitoring system performs three tasks: Periodically poll hosts and APIs – this is called metric collection Based on the value of metrics, produce events – these are called triggers Based on triggers, produce actions such as notify, control, configure Hosts The main monitoring object in Zabbix is a […]
Groups in Zabbix
An unlimited number of groups can be applied to hosts and those hosts can belong to any template. It is good practice to have many groups associated with hosts so that it is easy to categorize them many different ways. For example, a host can belong to a group for the building name, a group […]
Macros in Zabbix
Macros in Zabbix are key to building scalable architecture within Zabbix. Macros can be used almost anywhere within Zabbix and allow you fill an unlimited number of variable fields that retrieve the value from a single set macro. There are different levels of macros that override each other, which makes the system much more versatile. […]
Statistical Hosts in Zabbix
Statistical hosts are the use of statistics on groups of hosts. This allows a user to see what percent of a group of hosts are experiencing the same issue. It is very useful when monitoring fleets of devices such as wireless access points within a building or redundant nodes. I created 10 VMs and added […]
Send Notifications from Zabbix to Slack
It’s surprisingly easy to setup Zabbix to send notifications to Slack including customizing which notifications go to which Slack channels and what to include on the Slack message. There is official documentation for Zabbix 4.4 available here. The official documentation is very lacking so I’m going to walk through setup start to finish and test […]