zaipcs

Zabbix loadable module for monitoring System V IPC facilities

summary

This module tries to mimic ipcs utility. It can read various information about shared memory segments, message queues and semaphore sets given IPC object identifier. On Linux it additionally supports low level discovery.

compile

1. Download Zabbix source or check it out from Git repository:

git clone https://git.zabbix.com/scm/zbx/zabbix.git --depth 1 /path/to/zabbix/source

Any version higher than 2.2 (when loadable module support was added) will do. But you need to compile module using sources of the version you will be using it with!

2. Configure Zabbix sources:

cd /path/to/zabbix/source
./bootstrap.sh
./configure

3. Get module sources, point them to Zabbix source directory and run make to build, it should produce zaipcs.so shared library.

cd /path/to/zaipcs/source
export ZABBIX_SOURCE=/path/to/zabbix/source
make

install

Copy zaipcs.so to a desired location, set up necessary permissions.

configure

Set LoadModulePath and LoadModule parameters in Zabbix agent / proxy / server configuration file.

Restart Zabbix agent / proxy / server.

use

Configure checks:

• use item type Simple check if the module is loaded by server or proxy;
• use item type Zabbix agent or Zabbix agent (active) if the module is loaded by agent.

supported item keys

ipcs-shmem-details[id,mode,option]

This key mimics ipcs --shmems --id .... id is a shared memory segment identifier. Possible combinations of mode and option with their resulting value are given in the table below.

mode	option	result
owner	uid gid	owner's user id owner's group id
creator	uid gid	creator's user id creator's group id
status	dest locked	1 if marked for destruction, 0 otherwise 1 if locked, 0 otherwise
permissions		access permissions (three octal digits)
size		allocated bytes
time	attach detach change	timestamp of the last attachment, 0 if not set timestamp of the last detachment, 0 if not set timestamp of the last change, 0 if not set
pid	creator last	creator process id last attached or detached process id
nattch		number of currect attaches

ipcs-queue-details[id,mode,option]

This key mimics ipcs --queues --id .... id is a message queue identifier. Possible combinations of mode and option with their resulting value are given in the table below.

mode	option	result
owner	uid gid	owner's user id owner's group id
creator	uid gid	creator's user id creator's group id
permissions		access permissions (three octal digits)
time	send receive change	timestamp of the last send operation, 0 if not set timestamp of the last receive operation, 0 if not set timestamp of the last change, 0 if not set
messages		current number of messages in queue
size		maximum number of bytes allowed in queue
pid	send receive	id of the process that performed the last send operation id of the process that performed the last receive operation

ipcs-semaphore-details[id,mode,option]

This key mimics ipcs --semaphores --id .... id is a semaphore array identifier. Possible combinations of mode and option with their resulting value are given in the table below.

mode	option	result
owner	uid gid	owner's user id owner's group id
creator	uid gid	creator's user id creator's group id
permissions		access permissions (three octal digits)
time	semop change	timestamp of the last semaphore operation, 0 if not set timestamp of the last change, 0 if not set
nsems		number of semaphores in set
ncount	sum max idx	total number of processes waiting for an increase of semaphore values maximum number of processes waiting for an increase of the semaphore value index of the semaphore with the most processes waiting for semaphore value to increase
zcount	sum max idx	total number of processes waiting for semaphore values to become 0 maximum number of processes waiting for the semaphore value to become 0 index of the semaphore with the most processes waiting for semaphore value to become 0

supported discovery rules

These keys use non-standard Linux-specific calls and may not be universally supported

ipcs-shmem-discovery or ipcs-shmem-discovery[...]

ipcs-queue-discovery or ipcs-queue-discovery[...]

ipcs-semaphore-discovery or ipcs-semaphore-discovery[...]

These keys can accept parameters, but ignore them. This way you can set up several discoveries on the same template or host without many troubles. Low level discovery provides the following macros:

{#MACRO}	value
{#KEY}	key supplied to shmget(2)/msgget(2)/semget(2)
{#ID}	resource identifier (can be supplied as id to ipcs-...-details[...])
{#OWNER}	owner's user id
{#PERMS}	access permissions (three octal digits)

error messages

• "invalid resource identifier" - failed to read IPC resource id, it should be a nonnegative integer number

• "incorrect number of parameters" - misconfiguration, either too few or too many parameters (depends on mode)

• "invalid 'mode' parameter" - misconfiguration, mode parameter is not recognized

• "invalid 'option' parameter" - misconfiguration, please refer to the tables of supported option and mode combinations

• "not supported on this platform" - author does not know yet how to implement feature on your platform, you can assist by providing documentation and/or testing

• various errors from system...

Zabbix agent / proxy / server needs at least read permissions to discover and obtain details of IPC resources!

templates

Coming later...

contribute

Author is too lazy and too arrogant to test the module properly. Therefore the best thing you can do to help is to compile and test the module in your environment. Feedback, both positive and negative, will be highly appreciated.

compilation and installation

Module comes without configure script. Makefile is very primitive. Installation and configuration process is 100% manual. Luckily there is only one file and no dependencies, therefore, it should compile easily on on any Unix-like platform. Mind that author earns his money being C developer and finds compiling really easy. If you encounter any problems or simply disagree with his opinion, feel free to provide information about compilation errors, warnings and other issues on your platform.

feature support

Development was done on Linux, but is based on standard System V IPC functionality. Only low level discovery and a couple of mode/option combinations depend on non-standard Linux features. If you see "not supported on this platform" for the feature you desperately need, if the module is working incorrectly or if it is crashing (unlikely but not impossible) - please provide the output of man shmctl, man msgctl, man semctl and other relevant information for investigation.

usability

One more thing you need to know about the author - he does not use Zabbix more than he is obliged to, he has very little monitoring experience and he is an absolute zero in system administration. If you find module configuration too difficult, supported item keys useless or default parameter value choice illogical, feel free to throw your opinion at him.