How To Install Zabbix 5.0/4.0 on Ubuntu 18.04 / Ubuntu 16.04

By Raj Last updated Nov 16, 2020

Zabbix is an open-source enterprise-class monitoring software for servers, network devices, and applications. Zabbix uses Zabbix Agent installed on monitored hosts to collect the data. Also, it can monitor standard services such as SMTP or HTTP web services without having a client on the monitored host.

Additionally, Zabbix supports monitoring via SNMP, TCP, and ICMP checks, as well as over IPMI, JMX, SSH, and telnet. Zabbix can alert you with real-time notification using XMPP.

Zabbix is released under the GPL license v2.

Here, we will see how to install Zabbix Server Ubuntu 18.04 / Ubuntu 16.04.

System Requirements

Hardware

Zabbix requires at least 128MB of RAM and 256MB of HDD space to start with. However, the amount of disk or memory depends on the number of hosts and parameters are being monitored.

2GB of RAM and 2GB of disk space would be sufficient to monitor 500 hosts.

Software

Zabbix 5.0 (LTS)

Apache: 1.3.12 or later
MySQL: 5.5 or 8.0.x / MariaDB: 10.0.3 or Later
PHP: 7.2.0 or later

Zabbix 4.0 (LTS)

Apache: 1.3.12 or later
MySQL: 5.0.3 or 8.0.x / MariaDB: Latest
PHP: 5.4.0 or later

Install Zabbix

Configure Zabbix repository

Zabbix is not included in Ubuntu repositories. So, to install Zabbix, we will need to set up the Zabbix repository on the system by installing the Zabbix repository configuration package.

Zabbix 5.0 (LTS)

### Ubuntu 18.04 ###

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

sudo dpkg -i zabbix-release_5.0-1+bionic_all.deb

Zabbix 4.0 (LTS)

### Ubuntu 18.04 ###

wget https://repo.zabbix.com/zabbix/4.0/ubuntu/pool/main/z/zabbix-release/zabbix-release_4.0-3+bionic_all.deb

sudo dpkg -i zabbix-release_4.0-3+bionic_all.deb


### Ubuntu 16.04 ###

wget https://repo.zabbix.com/zabbix/4.0/ubuntu/pool/main/z/zabbix-release/zabbix-release_4.0-3+xenial_all.deb

sudo dpkg -i zabbix-release_4.0-3+xenial_all.deb

Install Zabbix Server

Use the apt command to install the Zabbix server along with MariaDB Server on your system.

Zabbix 5.0 (LTS) – Ubuntu 18.04

sudo apt update

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

Zabbix 4.0 (LTS) – Ubuntu 18.04/16.04

sudo apt update

sudo apt -y install zabbix-server-mysql zabbix-frontend-php zabbix-agent

Timezone

Edit the Zabbix configuration file to update it with your timezone.

sudo nano /etc/zabbix/apache.conf

Update the below line with the correct timezone. See the link for more time zones.

<IfModule mod_php7.c>

       ...
       ...

       php_value date.timezone America/New_York

       ...
       ...

</IfModule>

Create Database

You can log in to the MariaDB server without the MySQL root password by running sudo mysql -u root -p or mysql -u root -p command as root in Ubuntu.

sudo mysql -u root -p

Create a database with the following details.

DBName: zabbix
DBUser: zabbixuser
DBPassword: password

create database zabbix character set utf8 collate utf8_bin;

grant all privileges on zabbix.* to zabbixuser@localhost identified by 'password';

quit;

Once you create a database for Zabbix installation, import the initial schema, and data into it.

cd /usr/share/doc/zabbix-server-mysql

zcat create.sql.gz | mysql -u zabbixuser -p zabbix

Update Zabbix Configuration

Edit the zabbix_server.conf file to set the database details.

sudo nano /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf

Make sure you set as follows.

DBHost=localhost
DBName=zabbix
DBUser=zabbixuser
DBPassword=password

Restart all the services.

sudo systemctl restart zabbix-server zabbix-agent apache2

Enable the Zabbix services to start automatically on system reboot.

sudo systemctl enable zabbix-server zabbix-agent apache2

Setup Zabbix via Web Installer

Open a web browser and point it to the following URL.

http://your-ip-add-ress/zabbix/

Instructions are the same for both Zabbix v5.0 and v4.0.

Click Next Step on Zabbix welcome page.

This step verifies all pre-requisites are met for Zabbix Installation. If there are any issues, this page will tell you what all the extensions are missing.

If everything is OK, click the Next Step.