Installing Zabbix Agent On MacOS

Author: Ben Davis Category: Monitoring

If you use Zabbix for monitoring your systems, and have any MacOS systems, you may be disappointed to find out that the precompiled binaries for zabbix_agent are not made available for download. Lucky for us setup of zabbix_agent on macos doesn’t need to be painful.

First we need to install homebrew. If you do not already have it installed, simply open the terminal and enter the following:

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSLhttps://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Next we can install the zabbix agent. Make sure you specify the –without-server-proxy to force the installer to only install the agent.

brew install zabbix --without-server-proxy

Brew will go on to install a bunch of stuff for us. Double check if any of the warnings apply to you.

==> Installing dependencies for zabbix: openssl, pcre
==> Installing zabbix dependency: openssl
==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles/openssl-1.0.2o_2.el_capitan.bottle.tar.gz
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Pouring openssl-1.0.2o_2.el_capitan.bottle.tar.gz
==> Caveats
A CA file has been bootstrapped using certificates from the SystemRoots
keychain. To add additional certificates (e.g. the certificates added in
the System keychain), place .pem files in
/usr/local/etc/openssl/certs

and run
/usr/local/opt/openssl/bin/c_rehash

This formula is keg-only, which means it was not symlinked into /usr/local,
because Apple has deprecated use of OpenSSL in favor of its own TLS and crypto libraries.

If you need to have this software first in your PATH run:
echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/openssl/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile

For compilers to find this software you may need to set:
LDFLAGS: -L/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib
CPPFLAGS: -I/usr/local/opt/openssl/include

==> Summary
🍺 /usr/local/Cellar/openssl/1.0.2o_2: 1,792 files, 12.2MB
==> Installing zabbix dependency: pcre
==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles/pcre-8.42.el_capitan.bottle.tar.gz
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Pouring pcre-8.42.el_capitan.bottle.tar.gz
🍺 /usr/local/Cellar/pcre/8.42: 204 files, 5.4MB
==> Installing zabbix --without-server-proxy
==> Downloading https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/zabbix/ZABBIX%20Latest%20Stable/3.4.11/zabbix-3.4.11.tar.gz
==> Downloading from https://ayera.dl.sourceforge.net/project/zabbix/ZABBIX%20Latest%20Stable/3.4.11/zabbix-3.4.11.tar.gz
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/zabbix/3.4.11 --sysconfdir=/usr/local/etc/zabbix --enable-agent --with-iconv=/usr --with-libpcre=/usr/local/opt/pcre --with-openssl=/usr/local/opt/openssl
==> make install
🍺 /usr/local/Cellar/zabbix/3.4.11: 13 files, 1.4MB, built in 1 minute 8 seconds
==> Caveats
==> openssl
A CA file has been bootstrapped using certificates from the SystemRoots
keychain. To add additional certificates (e.g. the certificates added in
the System keychain), place .pem files in
/usr/local/etc/openssl/certs

and run
/usr/local/opt/openssl/bin/c_rehash

This formula is keg-only, which means it was not symlinked into /usr/local,
because Apple has deprecated use of OpenSSL in favor of its own TLS and crypto libraries.

If you need to have this software first in your PATH run:
echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/openssl/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile

For compilers to find this software you may need to set:
LDFLAGS: -L/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib
CPPFLAGS: -I/usr/local/opt/openssl/include

If everything went will you should have zabbix_agentd installed. The setup also installs zabbix_get and zabbix_sender for you as well.

Next you will need to edit the /usr/local/etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf.

You can now start the agent by issueing the following command at the terminal

/usr/local/sbin/zabbix_agentd

After you have set the zabbix_agent the way you want, you will need to build a .plist file so that you can set the agent to start on boot.  The zabbix_agent does not like to launch as root, so in System Preferences, go to Users & Groups and create a Standard user. called “zabbix_agentd” with no home directory or password or email.

sudo nano /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.zabbix.zabbix_agent.plist

Paste the following information into the file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>Label</key>
	<string>org.zabbix.zabbix_agent</string>
	<key>ProgramArguments</key>
	<array>
		<string>/usr/local/sbin/zabbix_agentd</string>
	</array>
	<key>RunAtLoad</key>
	<true/>
	<key>UserName</key>
	<string>zabbix-agent</string>
</dict>
</plist>

You can now create your host in the zabbix web admin. What to do there is a topic for another day.

Hope this has helped you, let me know!

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