In Zabbix how to separate data of the same type but from different sources?

Question

I have a machine that receives data from multiple sources. This machine forwards the data to the Zabbix Trapper.

I want to be able to view this data separately. One way of doing that is to send data from each source with a different fake hostname. But this is not ideal.

I can receive this data in more than one host. I would like to be able to see data from source 1 on host A separately from source 2 on host A and from source 1 in host B.

Also posted on: http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16503

Edit : I am currently doing this manually. I send:

• datatypeA[source1]
• datatypeA[source2]

I create a item per source. All the data shows separately in the host latest data. But what if I wanted to add a third source? I would have to create a third item manually, right? How to automatize this?

Answer 1

as noted on zabbix forum, adding new items isn't as easy. while that could be achieved by curl-scraping web frontend, better solution might be through the api - nelsonab (author of zabcon) was talking about getting trapper item adding for zabcon, i believe.

thus i'd suggest following or maybe even zabcon - http://www.zabbix.com/wiki/doc/zabcon

Answer 2

As far as I can see, your options are:

• Create multiple hosts, as you've suggested. You can probably give them the same IP address, although I haven't tried this. Each "host" will have a different set of items.

• Create multiple "Applications" within a single host. From the "Latest Data" screen you can expand and collapse each application individually, which will effectively keep it separate.

Can you elaborate on what kind of data you're collecting and how it is being sent? Is it SNMP queries, SNMP traps, Zabbix agent, custom script?