<\/p>\n
The monitoring workflow is as follows:<\/p>\n
Zabbix is a system for monitoring the statuses of various computer network services, servers, network equipment, and other system nodes. Zabbix makes it possible to track the operational state of various components, such as:<\/p>\n This solution is popular among system administrators because of its flexible configuration and scalability which supports monitoring of various systems (from “smart homes” to corporate environments). Zabbix ensures the reliability and security of confidential information by encrypting traffic.<\/p>\n A critical feature of this solution is the ability to interact with third-party APIs, in our case with TrueConf API<\/a>. It will allow you to extract and process data from selected services at the software level.<\/p>\n TrueConf Server provides a RESTful API. With its help, you can manage many parameters of the video conferencing server and retrieve various data. You can learn more about TrueConf Server API in the TrueConf knowledge base<\/a>.<\/p>\n As an example, let us consider the system consisting of two different servers: the first one where TrueConf Server is installed and the other one with Zabbix. Please note that both solutions can be installed on a virtual machine. The following data will be sent from TrueConf Server to Zabbix::<\/p>\n When reading data about conferences in the TrueConf Server control panel, please keep in mind that:<\/p>\n To ensure correct integration, one has to configure all components properly. Let us start with TrueConf Server. You can learn more about its installation in the documentation<\/a>. TrueConf Server API will be used to implement interaction with Zabbix.<\/p>\n This setup implements RESTful API architecture, and is based on HTTP requests, GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE. The server returns responses in the JSON format.<\/p>\n First, we will need to configure HTTPS in the server control panel in the Web \u2192 HTTPS<\/strong> section. On the opened page, set the required parameters in the HTTPS Configuration<\/strong> block. We recommend using a commercial certificate, such as Let’s Encrypt<\/a>, but self-signed certificates are also allowed.<\/p>\n At this stage, you need to configure Zabbix. This component consists of two parts, the client (which collects data and sends it to the server) and the server (which combines data from all clients into an easily analyzable format). So, we will discuss them separately.<\/p>\n For the server part of Zabbix (Zabbix Appliance), you need to choose a suitable deployment option: installation is available on multiple Linux-based operating systems with the help of ready-made images for various hypervisors (KVM, Qemu, Hyper-V, etc.), and as a Docker container. Go to the download page<\/a>, choose your option, and follow the instructions for it. For testing purposes, we downloaded the file in the OVF format and deployed the solution in VirtualBox.<\/p>\n When launched, the virtual machine with Zabbix Appliance is started in terminal mode, which is the primary way to interact directly with the server. The web interface is also available and we will use it to configure monitoring of TrueConf Server.<\/p>\n The terminal will request credentials needed for authorization on Zabbix Appliance. Enter the following default credentials:<\/p>\n To enhance security, change your password with this command:<\/p>\n To access the Zabbix Appliance web interface, you need to learn the IP address of the machine. To do it, run the command:<\/p>\n Use the address that you have found to access the Zabbix control panel.<\/p>\n Log in to the web interface with a different username and password. We received them in the section Zabbix frontend credentials<\/strong> after starting the server in the terminal. To log in, enter:<\/p>\n After logging in to the web interface, you will see the dashboard that will include all the necessary information. You can modify and configure widgets for specific tasks.<\/p>\n The Zabbix Agent is required for integration to work. It allows the server to receive data from the entity which is monitored. Installation of the Zabbix Agent is similar to the Zabbix Appliance: download the appropriate version from the After installing Zabbix Agent, you need to check if it is working correctly. To do it, go to the Zabbix Appliance terminal and run the following command to connect via TELNET<\/a> protocol with the command:<\/p>\n where:<\/p>\n To configure monitoring of any parameter with the Zabbix Agent, you need to set up the following:<\/p>\n First, you need to create a host group, a sort of \u201cfolder\u201d for grouping hosts by purpose. To do it:<\/p>\n After creating a group of hosts, create the host itself:<\/p>\n After creating the host, add a data item. In the same Hosts<\/strong> tab, at the bottom, you will see a table with a list of connections. Here, you will need to go to Items \u2192 Create item<\/strong>.<\/p>\n In the pop-up window, fill in the fields:<\/p>\n In this case you can use the default values for other parameters. To save the item, click the Add<\/strong> button.<\/p>\n You will see the created element in the list of connections:<\/p>\n Now you can monitor the connection to the machine with TrueConf Server by using the created host. To do it, go to the Monitoring \u2192 Lastest data<\/strong> section of the panel, then select the created host zabbix_agent_ping<\/b>, and click Graph<\/strong>.<\/p>\n In the opened tab, you will see the chart of the zabbix_agent_ping<\/b> parameter:<\/p>\n The chart above shows that from 15:44 to 15:46 there was no connection with the server (ping failed).<\/p>\n For more convenient data tracking, display the chart in the dashboard of the Zabbix Appliance web interface. To switch to edit mode, click on Edit dashboard<\/strong> in the upper right corner of the dashboard.<\/p>\n To add a widget:<\/p>\n You can adjust the widget display settings, such as the data that should be displayed, graph type, color, transparency, thickness, and others.<\/p>\n As a result, we can see the zabbix_agent_ping<\/b>, graph, configured for convenient display on the dashboard.<\/p>\n The next step is to set up monitoring of all TrueConf Server services with the help of Zabbix. For example, when installing the video conferencing server on Windows, the following services are added:<\/p>\n To monitor the status of services, we will create data items again. If you intend to monitor services on Windows, it is important to specify the service name, but not the display name. The service name can be found in the properties of each service (for example, you can open the Services<\/b> tool by using the command The resulting list of services should be:<\/p>\n The next step is to implement service monitoring. To do it, follow the example discussed previously and create a data element for each service. For this purpose create the host TrueConfServer_services_monitoring_test<\/b>, and within it, create data elements. Specify the display name of each service for the sake of convenience:<\/p>\n The data element is created just as it is shown in the example of zabbix_agent_ping<\/b>, except for the Key field. In this field, we need to specify service.info[service_name]<\/b>, where service_name<\/b> \u2014 is the name of the service from the list above that should be monitored. As a result, the list of data items looks like this:<\/p>\n For easy monitoring, configure data display in the form of graphs for the created elements and add these graphs to the dashboard. As shown above for zabbix_agent_ping<\/b>, to add a widget, click on the Edit dashboard<\/strong> button in the upper right corner and select Type \u2192 Graph<\/strong>. In this case, you need to specify the following parameters:<\/p>\n To display the status of TrueConf Server services on the chart, add each data element to a separate data set so that it is possible to select different colors in the chart. Configure the display settings below, click Add<\/strong>, and save your changes to the main panel by clicking Save changes<\/strong> in the upper right corner.<\/p>\n As a result, you will get the chart for monitoring selected services on the main dashboard of the Zabbix Appliance web interface:<\/p>\n Zabbix provides a ready-made component for sending HTTP requests. To monitor the server status with the help of an HTTP request, you will need to create:<\/p>\n The creation of the node is described above, here is what the result should look like:<\/p>\n In this case, the TrueConf Server IP address is 10.140.2.230<\/b>, and the port for checking the status with an HTTP request is 4307<\/b>. To create a web scenario:<\/p>\n Fill in the fields:<\/p>\n Now you need to set the operation (called a step in the context of Zabbix) that should be performed during the scenario. For this purpose, go to the Steps<\/strong> tab and fill in the fields:<\/p>\n After filling out the form, click Update<\/strong> in the Steps<\/strong> tab. The configured step of the web scenario will look in this way:<\/p>\n To save the scenario, click the Update<\/strong> button in the Scenario<\/strong>. To test the created scenario:<\/p>\n The table shows that everything is correct which means that the HTTP request is successfully processed:<\/p>\n For more detailed information, go to the web scenario by clicking on ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/trueconf.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/shema-zabbix.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nDescription of Zabbix and TrueConf API features<\/h2>\n
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Integration setup for TrueConf Server API and Zabbix<\/h2>\n
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TrueConf Server configuration<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nDownloading and configuration of Zabbix<\/h3>\n
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passwd (username)<\/code><\/p>\nip -c a<\/code><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n
<\/a><\/p>\nDownloading and configuration of the Zabbix Agent<\/h2>\n
\nagent download page<\/a> and follow the installer instructions.<\/p>\ntelnet agent_ip port<\/pre>\n
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agent_ip<\/code> \u2014 the IP address of the computer where Zabbix Agent is installed;<\/li>\nport<\/code> \u2014 the port to be listened to.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nMonitoring<\/h2>\n
Configuration of monitoring<\/h3>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n
zabbix_agent_ping<\/code>;<\/li>\nZabbix agent<\/code>;<\/li>\nagent.ping<\/code>;<\/li>\nNumeric (unsigned)<\/code>;<\/li>\n10.140.2.230:10050<\/code>;<\/li>\n10s<\/code>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nMonitoring TrueConf Server services<\/h2>\n
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services.msc<\/code>). Starting from TrueConf Server 5.4, the service name and display name are the same.<\/p>\n\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nChecking access to the server with an HTTP request<\/h2>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n\n
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
TrueConfServer_check_avaibility<\/code>;<\/li>\n10s<\/code>;<\/li>\n1<\/code>;<\/li>\nZabbix<\/code>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n
check_trueconfserver_avaibility<\/code>;<\/li>\nhttp:\/\/10.140.2.230:4307\/vsstatus\/<\/code>;<\/li>\n10s<\/code>;<\/li>\n200<\/code>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nHere is the complete web scenario:<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n