Easy Zabbix 6.0 / 6.4 Install: CentOS, Rocky, Alma Linux 9 or 8

Zabbix server is installable on any Linux distribution, but in this tutorial, I will show you how to install the latest Zabbix 6.0 LTS or 6.4 standard release on RHEL and RHEL based Linux distributions: CentOS 8 or 9 / RHEL 9 or 8 / Oracle Linux 9 or 8 / Alma Linux 9 or 8 / Rocky Linux 9 or 8.

Zabbix is 100% free open-source ultimate enterprise-level software designed for monitoring availability and performance of IT infrastructure components and services. You can read a case-study about Zabbix popularity and find out more about open-source movement in this article.

Zabbix 7.0 Dashboard Screenshoot Example
Zabbix 7 dashboard

Enough of talk lets do some work! First, we will install and configure Zabbix server, then a database and lastly the frontend – check the picture bellow for a better understanding of Zabbix architecture.

Picture showing Zabbix architecture
Picture showing Zabbix architecture

This guide is for installing Zabbix monitoring system (Server), while guide for installing Zabbix-Proxy on CentOS, RHEL, Oracle/Alma/Rocky Linux can be found on this link.

Step 1: Set SELinux to permissive mode

Configure SELinux to work in permissive mode:

setenforce 0 && sed -i 's/^SELINUX=.*/SELINUX=permissive/g' /etc/selinux/config

This way, SELinux will not block anything, but the audit log will fill up with what would have been denied. And later in step 12, we can create an SELinux policy based on that.

Step 2: Install Zabbix server, frontend, and agent

Setup Zabbix 6 RPM package on you favorite Linux (CentOS 8/9, RHEL 8/9, Oracle Linux 8/9, Alma Linux 8/9, Rocky Linux 8/9); clean repo; and install Zabbix server, frontend, and agent.

Zabbix 6.0 LTS version (supported until February, 2027)
rpm -Uvh https://repo.zabbix.com/zabbix/6.0/rhel/$(rpm -E %{rhel})/x86_64/zabbix-release-6.0-4.el$(rpm -E %{rhel}).noarch.rpm
dnf clean all
dnf -y install zabbix-server-mysql zabbix-web-mysql zabbix-apache-conf zabbix-sql-scripts zabbix-selinux-policy zabbix-agent

                          OR

Zabbix 6.4 standard version (supported until November, 2023)
rpm -Uvh https://repo.zabbix.com/zabbix/6.4/rhel/$(rpm -E %{rhel})/x86_64/zabbix-release-6.4-1.el$(rpm -E %{rhel}).noarch.rpm
dnf clean all
dnf -y install zabbix-server-mysql zabbix-web-mysql zabbix-apache-conf zabbix-sql-scripts zabbix-selinux-policy zabbix-agent

You can find more information about Zabbix’s life cycle and release policies on the official website.

Step 3: Install and configure database

In this installation, I will use password rootDBpass as root password and zabbixDBpass as Zabbix password for DB. Consider changing your password for security reasons.

a. Install MariaDB 10.6

curl -LsS -O https://downloads.mariadb.com/MariaDB/mariadb_repo_setup
sudo bash mariadb_repo_setup --mariadb-server-version=10.6
dnf -y install mariadb-server && systemctl start mariadb && systemctl enable mariadb

b. Reset root password for database

Secure MySQL by changing the default password for MySQL root:

mariadb-secure-installation
Enter current password for root (enter for none): Press Enter
Switch to unix_socket authentication [Y/n] y
Change the root password? [Y/n] y
New password: <Enter root DB password>
Re-enter new password: <Repeat root DB password>
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: Y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: Y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]:  Y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]:  Y

c. Create database

Create a database for Zabbix directly from the terminal using these two commands:

sudo mysql -uroot -p'rootDBpass' -e "create database zabbix character set utf8mb4 collate utf8mb4_bin;"
sudo mysql -uroot -p'rootDBpass' -e "create user 'zabbix'@'localhost' identified by 'zabbixDBpass';"
sudo mysql -uroot -p'rootDBpass' -e "grant all privileges on zabbix.* to zabbix@localhost identified by 'zabbixDBpass';"

d. Import initial schema and data

sudo zcat /usr/share/zabbix-sql-scripts/mysql/server.sql.gz | mysql --default-character-set=utf8mb4 -uzabbix -p'zabbixDBpass' zabbix

e. Enter database password in Zabbix configuration file

Open zabbix_server.conf file with command (use “vi” if you don’t have “nano” installed”):

sudo nano /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf

and add database password in this format anywhere in file:

DBPassword=zabbixDBpass

Save and exit file (ctrl+x, followed by y and enter).

Step 4: Start Zabbix server and agent processes

systemctl restart zabbix-server zabbix-agent
systemctl enable zabbix-server zabbix-agent

Step 5: Configure firewall

firewall-cmd --add-service={http,https} --permanent
firewall-cmd --add-port={10051/tcp,10050/tcp} --permanent
firewall-cmd --reload

Step 6: Configure Zabbix frontend

a. Restart Apache web server and make it start at system boot

systemctl restart httpd php-fpm
systemctl enable httpd php-fpm

b. Configure web frontend

Connect to your newly installed Zabbix frontend using URL “http://server_ip_or_dns_name/zabbix” to initiate the Zabbix installation wizard.

In my case, that URL would be “http://192.168.1.161/zabbix” because I have installed Zabbix on the server with IP address 192.168.1.161 (you can find the IP address of your server by typing “ip a” command in the terminal).

NOTE: If you get an error saying that the minimum required version of php is 7.4, upgrade your PHP using these commands:

sudo dnf -y install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm
sudo dnf -y install https://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-8.rpm
sudo dnf module reset php -y
sudo dnf module install php:remi-7.4 -y

Basically, in this wizard you only need to enter a password for Zabbix DB user and for everything else just click “Next step“. In this guide, I have used a zabbixDBpass as a database password, but if you set something else, be sure to enter the correct password when prompted by the wizard.

1. Installation step: Welcome screen
1. Installation step: Welcome screen
2. Installation step: Pre-requisites check
2. Installation step: Pre-requisites check
3. Installation step: Configure DB connection
3. Installation step: Configure DB connection
4. Installation step: Configure Zabbix server
4. Installation step: Configure Zabbix server
5. Installation step: Pre-installation summary
5. Installation step: Pre-installation summary
6. Installation step: Finish
6. Installation step: Finish

That’s it, you have installed Zabbix monitoring system!

Step 7: Login to frontend using Zabbix default login credentials

Use Zabbix default admin username “Admin” and password “zabbix” (without quotes) to login to Zabbix frontend at URL “http://server_ip_or_dns_name/zabbix” via your browser.

ZABBIX LOGIN PAGE
ZABBIX LOGIN PAGE

In my example, I have installed Zabbix on server 192.168.1.161 so I will enter in my browsers URL field http://192.168.1.161/zabbix (you can find the IP address of your server by typing “ip a” command in the terminal)

zabbix 5.0 dashboard
Zabbix 6.0 Dashboard

CONGRATULATIONS!
You have successfully installed Zabbix 6 on CentOS / RHEL and now you can monitor anything!
No need to change anything else as other steps are optional.

CONTINUE TO LEARN MORE:
How to create MySQL partitions on History and Events tables
Optimizing Zabbix server and MySQL database
Managing Zabbix / MySQL / Apache service
Enable and configure SELinux on Zabbix

Step 8: Create MySQL partitions on History and Events tables

Zabbix’s housekeeping process is responsible for deleting old trend and history data. Removing old data from the database using SQL delete query can negatively impact database performance. Many of us have received that annoying alarm “Zabbix housekeeper processes more than 75% busy” because of that.

That problem can be easily solved with the database partitioning. Partitioning creates tables for each hour or day and drops them when they are not needed anymore. SQL DROP is way more efficient than the DELETE statement.

You can partition MySQL tables in 5 minutes using this simple guide.

Step 9: Optimizing Zabbix Server (optional)

Don’t bother with this optimization if you are monitoring a small number of devices, but if you are planning to monitor a large number of devices then continue with this step.

Open “zabbix_server.conf” file with command: “nano /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf” and add this configuration anywhere in file:

StartPollers=100
StartPollersUnreachable=50
StartPingers=50
StartTrappers=10
StartDiscoverers=15
StartPreprocessors=15
StartHTTPPollers=5
StartAlerters=5
StartTimers=2
StartEscalators=2
CacheSize=128M
HistoryCacheSize=64M
HistoryIndexCacheSize=32M
TrendCacheSize=32M
ValueCacheSize=256M

Save and exit file (ctrl+x, followed by y and enter).

This is not a perfect configuration, keep in mind that you can optimize it even more. Let’s say if you don’t use ICMP checks then set the “StartPingers” parameter to 1 or if you don’t use active agents then set “StartTrappers” to 1 and so on. You can find out more about the parameters supported in a Zabbix server configuration file in the official documentation.

If you try to start the Zabbix server you may receive an error “[Z3001] connection to database 'Zabbix' failed: [1040] Too many connections” in the log “/var/log/zabbix/zabbix_server.log” because we are using more Zabbix server processes than MySQL can handle. We need to increase the maximum permitted number of simultaneous client connections and optimize MySQL – so move to the next step.

Step 10: Optimizing MySQL/MariaDB database (optional)

a. Create custom MySQL configuration file

Create file “10_my_tweaks.cnf" with “nano /etc/my.cnf.d/10_my_tweaks.cnf” and paste this configuration:

[mysqld]
max_connections = 404
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 800M

innodb-log-file-size = 128M
innodb-log-buffer-size = 128M
innodb-file-per-table = 1
innodb_buffer_pool_instances = 8
innodb_old_blocks_time = 1000
innodb_stats_on_metadata = off
innodb-flush-method = O_DIRECT
innodb-log-files-in-group = 2
innodb-flush-log-at-trx-commit = 2

tmp-table-size = 96M
max-heap-table-size = 96M
open_files_limit = 65535
max_connect_errors = 1000000
connect_timeout = 60
wait_timeout = 28800

Save and exit the file (ctrl+x, followed by y and enter) and set the correct file permission:

chown mysql:mysql /etc/my.cnf.d/10_my_tweaks.cnf
chmod 644 /etc/my.cnf.d/10_my_tweaks.cnf

Two things to remember!

Configuration parameter max_connections must be larger than the total number of all Zabbix proxy processes plus 150. You can use the command below to automatically check the number of Zabbix processes and add 150 to that number:

egrep "^Start.+=[0-9]" /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf | awk -F "=" '{s+=$2} END {print s+150}'
295

The second most important parameter is innodb_buffer_pool_size, which determines how much memory can MySQL get for caching InnoDB tables and index data. You should set that parameter to 70% of system memory if only database is installed on server.

However, in this case, we are sharing a server with Zabbix and Apache processes so you should set innodb_buffer_pool_size to 40% of total system memory. That would be 800 MB because my CentOS server has 2 GB RAM.

I didn’t have any problems with memory, but if your Zabbix proxy crashes because of lack of memory, reduce “innodb_buffer_pool_size” and restart MySQL server.

Note that if you follow this configuration, you will receive “Too many processes on the Zabbix server” alarm in Zabbix frontend due to the new Zabbix configuration. It is safe to increase the trigger threshold or turn off that alarm (select “Problems” tab → left click on the alarm → select “Configuration” → remove the check from “Enabled” → hit the “Update” button)

Learn more about database optimization in the tutorial: How to optimize Zabbix database?

b. Restart Zabbix Server and MySQL service

Stop and start the services in the same order as below:

systemctl stop zabbix-server
systemctl stop mysql
systemctl start mysql
systemctl start zabbix-server

Step 11: How to manage Zabbix / MySQL / Apache service

Sometimes you will need to check or restart Zabbix, MySQL or Apache service – use commands below to do that.

Zabbix Server
systemctl <status/restart/start/stop> zabbix-server

MySQL/MariaDB Server
systemctl <status/restart/start/stop> mysql

Apache Server
systemctl <status/restart/start/stop> httpd

PHP FastCGI Process Manager
systemctl <status/restart/start/stop> php-fpm

Zabbix Agent
systemctl <status/restart/start/stop> zabbix-agent

Step 12: Enable and configure SELinux on Zabbix

While it is acceptable to disable SELinux in a lab environment, depending on the requirements of the local security IT team, you may need to enable and configure SELinux in your production environment.

At the beginning of this guide, we did not turn off SELinux completely but configure it to work in the permissive mode which means it will log all the security errors but will not block anything.

If you accidentally left it in enforcing mode then you will receive the “Zabbix server is not running: the information displayed may not be current” warning on the Zabbix frontend and “cannot set resource limit: [13] Permission denied” in the log file.

Don’t worry, this can be easily fixed, so without further delay, let’s configure SELinux for Zabbix!

a) SELinux: Allow http daemon to connect to Zabbix:

Enable SELinux  boolean “httpd_can_connect_zabbix” that will allow http daemon to connect to Zabbix:

setsebool -P httpd_can_connect_zabbix 1

b) SELinux: Allow Zabbix to connect to all TCP ports:

Enable SELinux  boolean “zabbix_can_network” that will allow Zabbix to connect to all TCP ports :

setsebool -P zabbix_can_network on

And to avoid error “cannot start HA manager: timeout while waiting for HA manager registration” enable daemons_enable_cluster_mode with this command:

setsebool -P daemons_enable_cluster_mode on

c) Set SELinux to work in enforcing mode

Turn on SELinux by setting it to work in enforcing mode:

setenforce 1 && sed -i 's/^SELINUX=.*/SELINUX=enforcing/g' /etc/selinux/config

And check SELinux status :

# sestatus
SELinux status: enabled
SELinuxfs mount: /sys/fs/selinux
SELinux root directory: /etc/selinux
Loaded policy name: targeted
Current mode: enforcing
Mode from config file: enforcing
Policy MLS status: enabled
Policy deny_unknown status: allowed
Memory protection checking: actual (secure)
Max kernel policy version: 31

d) Create additional SELINUX policy for Zabbix

Just in case, we will create an additional SELinux policy for each error in the audit log (“/var/log/audit/audit.log“)

To do this, we will need the policycoreutils-python tool, so let’s install it:

dnf -y install policycoreutils-python-utils

Create a custom policy package:

grep "denied.*zabbix" /var/log/audit/audit.log | audit2allow -M zabbix_policy

Install custom SELinux policy package:

semodule -i zabbix_policy.pp

Also, to avoid “Database error on login” on CentOS 9 please run these command

sealert -a /var/log/audit/audit.log

It will suggest you to apply additional rules:

ausearch -c ‘php-fpm’ –raw | audit2allow -M my-phpfpm
semodule -X 300 -i my-phpfpm.pp

Well done! You have configured SELinux for Zabbix!

Step 13: Upgrade between minor Zabbix versions

I wrote about upgrade procedures in my post about Zabbix upgrade. Zabbix’s team releases new minor versions at least once a month. The main purpose of minor upgrades is to fix bugs (hotfix) and sometimes even bring new functionality. Therefore, try to do a minor upgrade of Zabbix at least once a month.

There is no need for backups when doing a minor upgrade, they are completely safe. With this command you can easily upgrade minor versions of 6.0.x (for example, from 6.0.1 to 6.0.5):

dnf upgrade 'zabbix*'

And restart Zabbix server afterward:

systemctl restart zabbix-server

46 thoughts on “Easy Zabbix 6.0 / 6.4 Install: CentOS, Rocky, Alma Linux 9 or 8”

  1. I managed to solve the “Database Error” issue caused by Selinux on Rhel 9.

    I ran “sealert -a /var/log/audit/audit.log” that suggested me to apply this policy:

    ausearch -c ‘php-fpm’ –raw | audit2allow -M my-phpfpm
    semodule -X 300 -i my-phpfpm.pp

    Now it is working properly! Thanks again for this amazing guide!!

    Reply
  2. Thank you for this magnificent guide. I have installed many times on rhel 8 and I had no problem setting selinux for zabbix. I have problems with rhel 9. When selinux is set globally on enforcing on rhel 9 I encounter a database error on zabbix login screen. I don’t know what to do to solve this issue.

    Reply
  3. Hi , super tuto like everyone say 🙂

    When I activate

    ‘setenforce 1 && sed -i ‘s/^SELINUX=.*/SELINUX=enforcing/g’ /etc/selinux/config’

    I did all other command after

    But I got Database error , Permission denied

    If I go back to permissive , everythink come good.

    Do you have a idea ?

    Reply
  4. This is great tutorial, I was able to setup Zabbix server without any issues in a single go – thanks a ton 🙂

    Reply
  5. Thanks for the guides, the path /usr/share/doc/zabbix-sql-scripts/mysql/server.sql.gz, should be /usr/share/zabbix-sql-scripts/mysql/server.sql.gz. Centos 8.5.2111.

    Reply
  6. Hi there,

    using your guide I managed to successful installed Zabbix 6.0 into OL 8, however all linux server are showing Interface status unknown (grayed out).

    1. How can I make interface status available? (green)
    2. My environment is small, less than 100 devices, can I use passive check?

    Reply
    • Interface status is greyed out because you are using the agent in active mode (this will be corrected in a future Zabbix release). Sure you can use passive mode, just increase the number of pollers if needed.

      Reply
  7. I just wanted to say thank you for this write up. The preconfig appliances are broke in later versions of vmware and the instructions leave out the steps for db and frontend

    Reply
  8. Hi, TNX for the manual, but i have problem with sudo zcat /usr/share/doc/zabbix-sql-scripts/mysql/server.sql.gz | mysql -uzabbix -p’zabbixDBpass’ zabbix
    what can i do ?

    Reply
    • Can you repeat Step 2: Install the Zabbix server, frontend, and agent? Looks like you are missing crucial Zabbix installation files.

      Reply
  9. hi guys, i have a problem

    after running step 12 I had this error

    cannot start HA manager: timeout while waiting for HA manager registration

    Reply
    • Use this command “setsebool -P daemons_enable_cluster_mode on” and restart Zabbix-server. I have updated tutorial. Regards.

      Reply
  10. Thank you very much. I have tried to install Zabbix 3 times now using the provided manual. It installs but gets stuck saying the server is not running on the front-end. Finally, it works.

    Reply
  11. I lost an entire day of work trying to get Zabbix up and running on CentOS by following another tutorial which seemed clear and concise – until it came time to setting up PHP. Incorrect instructions on which version was compatible, Repos with none of the dependencies, it was a mess. A full 8 hours went in to salvaging and triple checking compatibility of particular versions of MariaDB, MySQL, MySQLd, Apache and so many other packages…..only for an overwhelming amount of errors cropping up at every juncture. 10 minutes before clocking out I ended up scrapping the whole VM, and my entire day’s work.

    I was absolutely dreading coming in and having to do the whole process again – until I found this tutorial. Following this tutorial today it took just under 2 hours to create a new CentOS VM in Hyper-V with Zabbix installed, running, and optimized. This was all super clear, incredibly helpful, and (unlike yesterday) at no point did I experience the overwhelming urge to jump out of the nearest window. Can’t thank you enough.

    Reply
  12. A great contribution this tutorial, I followed it step by step just changing the tabs and it worked perfectly zabbix 5.4 in centos 8

    Reply
  13. Thank you for the very clear tutorial. Can we apply Step 12 here to your setting up a Zabbix Proxy tutorial too?

    Reply
    • Hi,
      Selinux step should also apply to the proxy server. Can you please try and report your findings here. Thx

      Reply
  14. Setting it up on a vultr with 1024 RAM I couldn’t get past the Check of pre-requisites step of the installer. It would go back to the first screen after hitting next.

    I made a snapshot and restored it to a 2048 machine and it worked fine.

    UPDATE: Correction to my previous post. It wasn’t an issue with RAM.

    When I accessed the Installer via FQDN I couldn’t get past the ‘Check of pre-requisites’ step of the installer. It would go back to the first screen after hitting next.

    When accessed by IP everything was fine.

    Reply
  15. [root @ zabbixolt ~] # yum -y install policycoreutils-python
    Last metadata due date check: 1:05:34 ago on Sat 18 Jul 2020 01:42:33 -03.
    No match for argument: policycoreutils-python
    Error: Could not find a match: policycoreutils-python

    Solution:
    dnf install policycoreutils-python-utils

    Reply
  16. Perfect Guideline. I follow steps by steps and it works like charming without any error.
    Your recommendations are also valued. THanks alot for your sharing.

    Reply
  17. It is recommended to have SELinux in permissive mode unless you know how to fix its issues: – it isn´t toooo wise.

    Reply
  18. Hi Aldin,
    Excellent Tutorial.
    Can you also please write a tutorial on “How to monitor Oracle Database install on Linux / AIX in Zabbix?”

    I am not able to locate anything on the internet.
    Regards,

    Reply
  19. I stucked at point 4.
    zcat /usr/share/doc/zabbix-server-mysql*/create.sql.gz | mysql -uzabbix -p’zabbixDBpass’ zabbix
    it is giving an error
    ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user ‘zabbix’@’localhost’ (using password: YES)

    Reply
    • Hello VINOD,
      I guess you misspelled Zabbix database password somewhere. Repeat steps from before and type your passwords carefully.
      Regards
      Aldin

      Reply
      • Actually – if you are certain that you did not fat-finger your zabbix DBPassword… the issue may turn out to be your actual password. There are some characters that seem to be problematic. My personal/anecdotal proof was changing the password to something no-so-fancy (and yet appropriately secure) … and then viola – the “zcat” command worked.

        Reply

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