Zabbix-cli

Zabbix-CLI v3 has been completely rewritten from the ground up. The old version can be found here.

About

Zabbix-cli is a command line interface for performing common administrative tasks tasks in Zabbix monitoring system via the Zabbix API.

The zabbix-cli code is written in Python and distributed under the GNU General Public License v3. It has been developed and tested by University Center for Information Technology at the University of Oslo, Norway.

The project home page is on GitHub. Please report any issues or improvements there.

The manual is available online at https://unioslo.github.io/zabbix-cli/.

Install

From source

[!NOTE] We are in the process of acquiring the name zabbix-cli on PyPI. Until then, installation must be done via the mirror package zabbix-cli-uio.

uv

uv tool install zabbix-cli-uio

uvx

uvx --from zabbix-cli-uio zabbix-cli

pipx

pipx install zabbix-cli-uio

Homebrew

A homebrew package exists, but it is maintained by a third party. It can be installed with:

brew install zabbix-cli

Binary

Binaries built with PyInstaller can be found on the releases page. We build binaries for Linux (x86), macOS (ARM & x86) and Windows (x86) for each release.

Quick start

Running zabbix-cli for the first time will prompt for a Zabbix URL, username and password. The URL should be the URL of the Zabbix web server without the /api_jsonrpc.php path.

Running without arguments will start the REPL:

zabbix-cli

Usage

Zabbix-cli is a command line interface for Zabbix. It can be used in three ways:

1. Interactive mode: Start the REPL by running zabbix-cli. This will start a shell where you can run multiple commands in a persistent session.
2. Single command: Run a single command by running zabbix-cli COMMAND. This will run the command and print the output.
3. Batch mode: Run multiple commands from a file by running zabbix-cli -f FILE. The file should contain one command per line.

Command reference can be found in the online user guide or by running zabbix-cli --help.

Authentication

By default, the application will prompt for a username and password. Once authenticated, the application stores the session token in a file for future use.

For more information about the various authentication methods, see the authentication guide.

Configuration

Zabbix-cli needs a config file. It is created when the application is started for the first time. The config file can be created manually with the init command:

zabbix-cli init --zabbix-url https://zabbix.example.com/

For more detailed information about the configuration file, see the configuration guide.

Formats

Zabbix-cli supports two output formats: table and JSON. The default format is table, but it can be changed with the --format parameter:

# Show hosts in table format (default)
zabbix-cli show_hosts

# Show hosts in JSON format
zabbix-cli --format json show_hosts

# Set format in REPL mode
> --format json show_hosts

The default format can be configured with the app.output.format config option:

[app.output]
format = "json"

Table

The default rendering mode is a Rich table that adapts to the width of the terminal.

JSON

The JSON output format is always in this format, where ResultT is the expected result type:

{
  "message": "",
  "errors": [],
  "return_code": "Done",
  "result": ResultT
}

The type of the result field varies based on the command run. For show_host it is a single Host object, while for show_hosts it is an array of Host objects.

{
  "message": "",
  "errors": [],
  "return_code": "Done",
  "result": {
    "hostid": "10648",
    "host": "foo.example.com",
    "description": "",
    "groups": [
      {
        "groupid": "22",
        "name": "All-hosts",
        "hosts": [],
        "flags": 0,
        "internal": null,
        "templates": []
      },
      {
        "groupid": "46",
        "name": "Source-foosource",
        "hosts": [],
        "flags": 0,
        "internal": null,
        "templates": []
      },
      {
        "groupid": "47",
        "name": "Hostgroup-bob-hosts",
        "hosts": [],
        "flags": 0,
        "internal": null,
        "templates": []
      },
      {
        "groupid": "48",
        "name": "Importance-X",
        "hosts": [],
        "flags": 0,
        "internal": null,
        "templates": []
      },
      {
        "groupid": "49",
        "name": "Hostgroup-alice-hosts",
        "hosts": [],
        "flags": 0,
        "internal": null,
        "templates": []
      }
    ],
    "templates": [],
    "inventory": {},
    "monitored_by": "proxy",
    "proxyid": "2",
    "proxy_groupid": "0",
    "maintenance_status": "0",
    "active_available": "0",
    "status": "0",
    "macros": [],
    "interfaces": [
      {
        "type": 1,
        "ip": "",
        "dns": "foo.example.com",
        "port": "10050",
        "useip": 0,
        "main": 1,
        "interfaceid": "49",
        "available": 0,
        "hostid": "10648",
        "bulk": null,
        "connection_mode": "Dns",
        "type_str": "Agent"
      }
    ],
    "proxy": {
      "proxyid": "2",
      "name": "proxy-prod02.example.com",
      "hosts": [],
      "status": null,
      "operating_mode": 0,
      "address": "127.0.0.1",
      "proxy_groupid": "1",
      "compatibility": 0,
      "version": 0,
      "local_address": "192.168.0.1",
      "local_port": "10051",
      "mode": "Active",
      "compatibility_str": "Undefined"
    },
    "zabbix_agent": "Unknown"
  }
}

{
  "message": "",
  "errors": [],
  "return_code": "Done",
  "result": [
    {
      "hostid": "10648",
      "host": "foo.example.com",
      "description": "",
      "groups": [
        {
          "groupid": "22",
          "name": "All-hosts",
          "hosts": [],
          "flags": 0,
          "internal": null,
          "templates": []
        },
        {
          "groupid": "46",
          "name": "Source-foosource",
          "hosts": [],
          "flags": 0,
          "internal": null,
          "templates": []
        },
        {
          "groupid": "47",
          "name": "Hostgroup-bob-hosts",
          "hosts": [],
          "flags": 0,
          "internal": null,
          "templates": []
        },
        {
          "groupid": "48",
          "name": "Importance-X",
          "hosts": [],
          "flags": 0,
          "internal": null,
          "templates": []
        },
        {
          "groupid": "49",
          "name": "Hostgroup-alice-hosts",
          "hosts": [],
          "flags": 0,
          "internal": null,
          "templates": []
        }
      ],
      "templates": [],
      "inventory": {},
      "monitored_by": "proxy",
      "proxyid": "2",
      "proxy_groupid": "0",
      "maintenance_status": "0",
      "active_available": "0",
      "status": "0",
      "macros": [],
      "interfaces": [],
      "proxy": {
        "proxyid": "2",
        "name": "proxy-prod02.example.com",
        "hosts": [],
        "status": null,
        "operating_mode": 0,
        "address": "127.0.0.1",
        "proxy_groupid": "1",
        "compatibility": 0,
        "version": 0,
        "local_address": "192.168.0.1",
        "local_port": "10051",
        "mode": "Active",
        "compatibility_str": "Undefined"
      },
      "zabbix_agent": "Unknown"
    }
  ]
}

Development

Zabbix-cli currently uses uv and Hatch for project management and packaging. To start off, clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/unioslo/zabbix-cli.git

Then make a virtual environment using uv:

uv venv

This will create a new virtual environment, install the required dependencies and enter the environment.

Testing

Run unit tests (without coverage):

hatch run test

Generate coverage report:

hatch run cov

Documentation

To serve the documentation locally:

hatch run docs:serve

This will start a local web server on http://localhost:8001 that is automatically refreshed when you make changes to the documentation. However, some hooks are only run on startup, such as the creation of pages for each command. Changes to command examples or docstrings will require a restart.