The Power of Community Development - New Zabbix Module

Good morning everyone! I’m Dimitri Bellini, and welcome back to Quadrata, my channel dedicated to the open-source world and the technology I love. As always, this content is driven by you—the community. Your likes, comments, and feedback help me broaden my horizons and bring you the best solutions every week.

Today, we are diving into something truly special. We have a thriving community here in the Zabbix Italia Telegram group, now boasting over 600 active users. It’s a place where we discuss everything from embarrassing questions to high-level corporate strategies. Recently, a very prolific member of our community, Manuel, released a repository of custom Zabbix modules that he developed himself.

These aren't just minor tweaks; they are game-changers. Manuel has made these open-source for the entire international community, and they are absolutely worth noting. Let’s explore these new tools and see how they can revolutionize your monitoring setup.

The Power of Community Development

Before we jump into the technical details, I want to give credit where it is due. Manuel developed these modules not for profit, but for the community. He saw gaps in the current Zabbix ecosystem and built solutions to fill them.

His GitHub repository is a treasure trove, and I highly recommend you give it a star to encourage him to keep developing. Most of these modules are built for Zabbix 7.0 LTS, which is crucial for production environments where stability and long-term support are priorities.

1. My Dashboard: A User Overview

The first module we are looking at is My Dashboard. Initially, Manuel proposed this as a customizable dashboard to view user information quickly.

If you are an administrator, you know the struggle of figuring out why a specific user can't see a host or a graph. This module provides a "Permission Overview" that displays:

• User Details: Hello messages and basic info.


• User Groups: Exactly which groups the user belongs to.


• Permissions: A clear view of Read/Write access levels on Host Groups.


• Media Types: Contact methods configured for that user.

It also includes a feature for Custom URLs, allowing you to create fast links (favorites) to internal Zabbix pages or external company tools directly from the dashboard.

2. Service Tree: The Missing Puzzle Piece

This is, in my opinion, the most succulent part of the release. Zabbix has a native "Services" feature (formerly IT Services) designed to monitor business-level services (like a CRM or ERP). However, the native visualization can be a bit clunky. It lists parent and child services, but understanding the root cause of an outage often requires too much digging.

Manuel’s Service Tree module solves this beautifully. It visualizes your services in a hierarchical tree structure.

• Visual Hierarchy: You can instantly see that your "Network" service relies on a Firewall, Core Switches, and specific Servers.


• Impact Propagation: If a child component (e.g., a switch) goes down, you visually see the error propagate up to the parent service.


• SLA Integration: It displays the SLA levels directly in the view.

This module makes the "Services" feature actually usable for rapid troubleshooting. It turns a list of data into a clear, actionable map of your infrastructure.

3. Ticket Platform: Multi-Server Problem Aggregation

If you manage multiple Zabbix servers, you know the pain of switching tabs to check problems. Manuel’s Ticket Platform module addresses this by acting as a centralized console.

It mimics the standard Zabbix "Problems" view—so it feels familiar—but adds a critical "Server" column. This allows you to see problems from your local Zabbix server and remote Zabbix servers in a single pane of glass.

Key Features:

• Centralized View: Aggregates alerts from multiple instances.


• API Integration: You simply add the remote server's API URL and Token in the administration menu.


• Interaction: You can acknowledge problems, add comments, or close tickets on remote servers directly from this interface.


• Performance: It implements caching to prevent overloading your remote servers with API queries.

To complement this, he also created a Ticket Platform Widget, so you can add this multi-server problem list directly to your main Zabbix dashboards.

How to Install These Modules

Since these are open-source modules, installation is straightforward for those comfortable with the command line. Here is the process for Zabbix 7.0:

1. Clone the Repository: Go to your Zabbix server terminal and `git clone` the repository for the specific module you want.


2. Copy the Files: Copy the module folder into your Zabbix modules directory.
   
   Command: cp -r [module_folder] /usr/share/zabbix/modules/


3. Scan and Enable:
   
   
   
   • Go to the Zabbix Web UI.
   
   
   • Navigate to Administration > General > Modules.
   
   
   • Click Scan directory. The new modules will appear.
   
   
   • Change their status from "Disabled" to "Enabled".
   
   
   
   

Conclusion

It is rare and refreshing to see such high-quality contributions created purely out of passion for the technology. Manuel has done a fantastic job bringing added value to the Zabbix community.

I encourage you to test these modules. If you find bugs, remember: this is open software created by a community member. Open an issue on GitHub, provide feedback, and help improve the tool for everyone. That is the honest way to work in open source.

If you enjoyed this overview, please give the video a thumbs up and leave a comment. Let me know what you think of these solutions!

Useful Links:

YouTube Channel: Quadrata

Community: ZabbixItalia Telegram Channel