Monitoring Internet Connectivity with Zabbix Part 1

Like with many things I do it started “with I wonder if…” I can monitor my internet connection with Zabbix and Grafana.

Well I have managed to figure out the first part and I now have data about my internet connection flowing into Zabbix.

I first started off by searching for existing templates in Zabbix Share

https://share.zabbix.com/search-by/tags?value=speedtest

Unfortunately all of them were broken as far as I could tell. After pocking around a bit I eventually I settled on this one. since it was only half broken. So I set about rewriting most of the script and adding a check for connectivity by pinging 8.8.8.8.

You can download the script and template here

If you want to set this up yourself follow the instructions below.

1. Install SpeedTest CLI (note speedtest.net has its own which uses different switches it will not work with this script.)

sudo apt-get install speedtest-cli

2. Run speedtest-cli

root@monitor:/home/administrator# speedtest-cli

Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...

Testing from MY ISP (NNN.NNN.NNN.NNN)...

Retrieving speedtest.net server list...

Selecting best server based on ping...

Hosted by S&T Communications (Colby, KS) [2046.18 km]: 40.067 ms

Testing download speed................................................................................

Download: 262.24 Mbit/s

Testing upload speed......................................................................................................

Upload: 4.04 Mbit/s

if you get something similar to above great its working!

3. Create a folder for the script to live in.

sudo mkdir /etc/zabbix/script

4. Give it permissions

sudo chmod 777 /etc/zabbix/script

5. Copy the script over. This can either be done from the command line or with a utility such as WinSCP

6. Make the script executable

sudo chmod +x /etc/zabbix/script/spd.sh

7. Now that we have the script setup we need to process the data it is getting back from speedtest-cli. In the case of my version of this script its using JSON. If this is not already installed run the command below.

sudo apt-get install js

8. Next we need to be able to send the data to Zabbix. This will require installing Zabbix_send (note Zabbix send is not installed by default on monitored hosts.)

sudo apt-get install zabbix_send

9. Now that we can send the data to Zabbix we will need a template setup so Zabbix knows what to do with it. Sign into your Zabbix webadmin then click Configuration >> Templates

Click Import in the upper Right Hand corner

select the file to import

Then Click Import.

Next we will need to link it to the appropriate machine.

Click Hosts under Configuration

click the link for the device you setup the script on.

click the templates tab

click select

check speedtest

click select

confirm the linked templates then click update

10. With the Zabbix template now setup we can test the script.

/bin/bash /etc/zabbix/script/spd.sh

you should have something similar to below

checking speedtest and report back to zabbix, please wait...

info from server: "processed: 8; failed: 0; total: 8; seconds spent: 0.000489"

sent: 8; skipped: 0; total: 8

root@monitor:/home/administrator#

If something shows failed check the above steps to see if you missed anything.

11. Finally we need to schedule a couple tasks so this script runs.

to schedule a task you will need to run crontab

crontab -e

If this is the first time it will prompt you to select an editor

no crontab for administrator - using an empty one



Select an editor.  To change later, run 'select-editor'.

  1. /bin/nano        <---- easiest

  2. /usr/bin/vim.basic

  3. /usr/bin/vim.tiny

  4. /bin/ed



Choose 1-4 [1]:

Pick your editor. I used nano. Enter the following lines at the end of the file then save.

*/20 * * * * /bin/bash /etc/zabbix/script/spd.sh # runs every 20 minites

0 3 * * * find  /tmp/*.log -ctime +1 -exec rm {} \; # runs daily at 3 AM

If you don’t like the intervals I have set above a good place to generate the cron timings is here.

12. Finished

If everything worked You should be getting data pushed to Zabbix every 20 minutes ($:00, $:20, $:40)