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Zabbix agent active vs passive

When it comes to Zabbix agent modes, there is a choice between the active and the passive modes.

Each time new items or hosts are added in the front end, you need to choose the item type.

This is mandatory as the item type determines how the item will work and collect data.

For the Zabbix agent, there is a choice between ‘Zabbix agent (passive)’ and ‘Zabbix agent (active)’.

Active vs. Passive

You may already know the difference between the modes, but do you know the actual benefits that come with either option?

The main difference lies in the direction of the connection.

Active vs Passive agent connection

If you use the Zabbix agent in the passive mode, it means that the poller (internal server process) connects to the agent on port 10050/TCP and polls for a certain value (e.g., host CPU load).

The poller waits until the agent on the host responds with the value.

Then, the server gets the value back, and the connection closes.

In the active mode, all data processing is performed on the agent, without the interference of pollers.

However, the agent must know what metrics should monitor, and that is why the agent connects to the trapper port  10051/TCP of the server once every two minutes (by default).

The agent requests the information about the items, and then performs the monitoring on the host and pushes the data to the server via the same TCP port.

Difference between Zabbix-Agent Active/Passive

• Zabbix Passive checks

Zabbix passive checks is the default setting. With this enabled, in /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf, the zabbix-server will query for information about an item which is configured on the zabbix server.

• Zabbix Active checks

Zabbix Active checks are needed when it is not possible for the zabbix server to access a specific port on the remote monitored machine.

This can cause by a firewall or whatever.

The Zabbix-agent on the remote monitored host can collect information about the host and send it to the zabbix-server.

• Configure active checks
  In /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf

DisableActive=0
Hostname=sambadc.quinox.nl (hostname of the machine the agent is running on)
The item on the zabbix-server has to have the type

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Conclusion

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