Visualizing Zabbix Metrics with Grafana (Part 2) —Installing the Zabbix Plugin and Connecting the Data Source

📘 Overview

If you’ve completed the Grafana installation and service setup in Part 1, this section walks through connecting Zabbix data to Grafana.

In this guide, we’ll install the official Grafana plugin
Zabbix Plugin (alexanderzobnin-zabbix-app)
and configure it to fetch real-time metrics from the Zabbix API.

This plugin isn’t just for displaying charts — it enables Grafana to directly query Zabbix hosts, items, and triggers, effectively transforming Zabbix into a full-featured data source.

1. Installing the Zabbix Plugin

Grafana manages plugins through the grafana-cli command.
To install the Zabbix plugin, run:

# grafana-cli plugins install alexanderzobnin-zabbix-app

After installation, restart Grafana:

# systemctl restart grafana-server

✅ Verification command:

grafana-cli plugins ls

If you see alexanderzobnin-zabbix-app listed, the installation was successful.

2. Enabling the Plugin

Log in to Grafana →
Administration → Plugins and data → Plugins

Search for “zabbix”, click Zabbix, and then click Enable.

💡 Since Grafana 10.x, the plugin management structure has changed.
You can now enable it only under Plugins and data.
It no longer appears under Configuration → Plugins as in older versions.

3. Adding the Zabbix Data Source

Once the plugin is enabled, register Zabbix as a data source:

Menu → Connections → Data sources → Add data source
→ Select Zabbix

3.1 Connection Settings

⚠️ Note:
Grafana must be able to reach the Zabbix API endpoint.
If it’s blocked by a firewall, proxy, or Nginx ACL, the connection will fail.

3.2 Testing the Connection

After entering all fields, click Save & Test.
A success message should appear at the bottom.

💬 If the test fails, check the following:

• Ensure the URL ends with /api_jsonrpc.php.
• Test the API manually from the Grafana server:

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
 -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"apiinfo.version","id":1}' \
 http://<ZABBIX_IP>/zabbix/api_jsonrpc.php

4. Verifying with a Test Panel

After installation, create a simple dashboard to confirm everything works:

1. Dashboards → New → Dashboard → Add Visualization
2. Data Source: Zabbix
3. Query Type: Metrics
4. Select Group / Host / Item, for example:
   • Group: Example Grouup
   • Host: example Server 01
   • Item: CPU utilization

If the graph renders successfully, the integration is complete.

💡 Tip:
Groups, hosts, and items must already be configured in Zabbix.
Standard templates (CPU, Memory, Disk, etc.) appear automatically,
but you can also query additional item keys directly from the Zabbix server.

5. Troubleshooting

6. Coming Next

In the next article, we’ll build a production-ready Grafana dashboard
that consolidates key metrics — CPU, Memory, Disk, and Network —
into a clear and actionable single-view layout.

🛠 마지막 수정일: 2025.11.07