How to install Zabbix in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

In this article we will see how to install Zabbix in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa step by step, both Zabbix Server and Zabbix Frontend and Zabbix Agent, so you can monitor your Ubuntu server or VPS and all the remote machines you need.

Before installing Zabbix 5 on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

In order to follow the steps in this Zabbix installation guide on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, you must meet these minimum requirements:

• One or more updated Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa machines
• The environment or LAMP stack (web service with PHP and database service) on the machine that will act as the Zabbix server
• A user with sudo permissions
• Internet access

How to install Zabbix 5 repository in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

To work with the latest stable version of this software, we will install the official Zabbix repository for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, so we will download the package that configures said repository.

We will install the Zabbix 5 repository on all Ubuntu 20.04 LTS machines, both where it will act as a Zabbix server and on remote machines

~$ wget -q https://repo.zabbix.com/zabbix/5.0/ubuntu/pool/main/z/zabbix-release/zabbix-release_5.0-1+focal_all.deb

And we install it with the dpkg tool :

~$ sudo dpkg -i zabbix-release_5.0-1+focal_all.deb

We updated the information in the repositories to include the new Zabbix packages:

~$ sudo apt update

How to install Zabbix Server 5 on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

To install Zabbix Server in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS we will select the Zabbix Server packages for the database engine that interests us, Zabbix Frontend, the configuration of the web server with which we work and the Zabbix agent. For example, for a LAMP environment with Apache, PHP, and MySQL this would be the proper selection of packages:

~$ sudo apt install -y zabbix-server-mysql zabbix-frontend-php zabbix-apache-conf zabbix-agent

We also have the zabbix-server-pgsql package for PostgreSQL and zabbix-nginx-conf for Nginx.

Database

In the case of working with MariaDB/MySQL we connect with the mysql console client and an administrator user to prepare the database:

~$ mysql -u root -p

We create the database according to the character set required by Zabbix 5:

> create database zabbix charset utf8 collate utf8_bin;

In MariaDB or MySQL 5 we create the user like this:

> create user zabbix@localhost identified by 'XXXXXXXX';

While in MySQL 8 we would create it also indicating the compatible authentication plugin:

> create user zabbix@localhost identified with mysql_native_password by 'XXXXXXXX';

We give the necessary permissions to the user on the basis:

> grant all privileges on zabbix.* to zabbix@localhost;

And we leave the client:

> exit

Now we will have to initialize the new database from an SQL script provided by the Zabbix package, using the username and password that we just created:

~$ zcat /usr/share/doc/zabbix-server-mysql/create.sql.gz | mysql -u zabbix -p zabbix

Zabbix Server Configuration

After the Zabbix Server installation, a new service has been created in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, the zabbix-server.service or zabbix-server service, which is not running or enabled for automatic start with the system.

This is because we have to configure Zabbix Server to use the password to access the database:

~$ sudo nano /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf

We look for the DBPassword directive:

...

### Option: DBPassword

#       Database password.

#       Comment this line if no password is used.

#

# Mandatory: no

# Default:

# DBPassword=

...

The section appears, but not the directive, which we will manually add with the value of the password of the database user, as we created previously:

...

# DBPassword=

DBPassword=XXXXXXXX

...

Now we can start the zabbix-server service:

~$ sudo systemctl start zabbix-server

We can check that the service is working with the command systemctl status zabbix-server

If we want the Zabbix Server service to start automatically with every start of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, we will have to enable it also with systemctl:

~$ sudo systemctl enable zabbix-server

Zabbix Agent service

Another service that was created during the installation is zabbix-agent, corresponding to the Zabbix agent that will monitor the local system and that, unlike Zabbix Server, does remain running, as we can see with the command systemctl status zabbix-agent

In order for the Zabbix agent to start automatically with Ubuntu 20.04, the service must be enabled:

~$ sudo systemctl enable zabbix-agent

Web service

During the installation Zabbix Frontend configuration files have been added for the web server, so we will have to reload the configuration of this service to apply the new settings:

~$ sudo systemctl reload apache2

Zabbix Frontend installation on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

We access the Zabbix Frontend web installer on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS from a browser by adding the /zabbix path to the IP address or DNS name of the server.

For example, the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS server on which we installed Zabbix 5 in this tutorial is accessible in the ubuntu2004.local.lan subdomain, so we will use http://ubuntu2004.local.lan/zabbix as the access URL:

After the initial welcome page we will go to the system requirements check page:

If you have followed the previous steps, all the requirements will be met and you can continue with the installation process.

It is time to configure the connection to the database:

We select the type of databases in the drop-down, and enter the name of the database, the user and their password.

The next step is to configure the connection to the Zabbix server:

Normally we will leave the default values, unless we have specified different ones in the Zabbix Server configuration.

Once you have finished configuring the installation, a small summary will be shown with the values ​​to be used:

The installation finishes and we are informed of the location of the configuration file that has been created:

Upon completion of the Zabbix Frontend installation process, the login page is displayed:

The default administrator user is Admin, and his password is zabbix .

After logging in, the application opens the main page, «Monitoring/Dashboard«, where we can see a summary of the status of the service, as well as the only monitored machine (the local machine):

If we want to see more information about the state of the local machine, we will visit the " Monitoring/Hosts " section and open a context menu by clicking on "Zabbix Server" in the list of monitored systems:

Among the various options available, we select «Graphs» and a page will be shown with the activity graphs of all the monitored services of the local machine:

How to install Zabbix Agent on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

It is time to install the Zabbix agent (or Zabbix Agent) on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS remote machines, where we have previously configured the Zabbix 5 repository:

~$ sudo apt install -y zabbix-agent

A new zabbix-agent.service service, or simply zabbix-agent, will be created and left running and enabled.

Configure Zabbix Agent in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

To configure Zabbix Agent in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS we edit its configuration file:

~$ sudo nano /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf

We look for the Server directive :

...

Server=127.0.0.1

...

It is configured with the value of the local machine (that is why the Zabbix agent works without configuration on the Zabbix server). We must change its value with the IP address, DNS name or domain of the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS machine where Zabbix Server runs:

...

Server=ubuntu2004.local.lan

...

We save the changes, close the file and restart the zabbix-agent service to load the new configuration:

~$ sudo systemctl restart zabbix-agent

How to configure the firewall in Ubuntu 20.04 for Zabbix

In case you have activated the UFW firewall in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS it will be necessary to add a rule to allow incoming connections from the Zabbix server:

~$ sudo ufw allow zabbix-agent

The change takes effect immediately.

How to add a remote Ubuntu 20.04 LTS machine in Zabbix 5

Back to the Zabbix server, through the Zabbix Server, we are going to add the remote machine or machines in which we have installed and configured the Zabbix agent.

How to configure remote machine Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

To configure a new remote Ubuntu 20.04 LTS machine in Zabbix Server we will visit the " Configuration/Hosts " section of the side panel:

At the top right of the page we will find the button " Create host " that will open the form to configure a remote machine:

This section of the form is easy to configure:

• In «Host name» we introduce the name of the machine.
• If we want to add a friendlier name, we will do so in «Visible name«.
• We will add the machine to one or more predefined groups using the «Select« button ; it is interesting to choose a suitable group ("Linux servers" in this example).
• In «Interfaces» we will specify the IP address and/or DNS name and we will select which of the two addresses to use to connect.
• Finally we can add a description, select the proxy (if any) and enable or disable monitoring.

Instead of adding the new machine with the «Add« button, we will go to the «Templates» tab of the form:

We will add templates using the «Select« button, which will open a small window where we will have to choose, by means of another «Select » button, a group of templates, from which in this case we could select «Templates/Operating systems«:

Once the group is chosen, the list of templates it contains is opened, where we can choose the ones we need, in this case, " Template OS Linux by Zabbix agent " will suffice.

Now we can add the new machine with the «Add« button.

We will return to the «Configuration/Hosts« section, where we can see the new remote machine in the list at the bottom of the page:

We will visit «Monitoring/Hosts«, where the remote machine will also be shown in the list, and in the contextual menu displayed when clicking on its name we will choose «Graphs«, so that we will access the graphics page of this machine. We will see that the reception of data has begun:

As simple as that!

conclusion

Now that you know how to install Zabbix 5 in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa it is easy to start monitoring the status of the machines on your local network, or servers and VPS on the Internet.

If you have doubts or questions, suggestions, notifications of possible errors, etc. You can leave a comment that we will review as soon as possible.