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

If you have uv installed:

uv tool install git+https://github.com/unioslo/zabbix-cli.git@master

# Or if you just want to try out the CLI without installing it
uvx --from git+https://github.com/unioslo/zabbix-cli.git@master zabbix-cli

Alternatively, you can install the package with pip(x):

pipx install git+https://github.com/unioslo/zabbix-cli.git@master

We are in the process of acquiring the name zabbix-cli on PyPI. Until then, installation from the GitHub repository is the only option when installing as a Python package.

Homebrew

A homebrew package exists, but it is not maintained by us. It can be installed with:

brew install zabbix-cli

PyInstaller binaries

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

Quick start

# Initialize the config file with your Zabbix URL
zabbix-cli init --zabbix-url https://your-zabbix-url.com/
# 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.

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

# Setting format in REPL
> --format json show_hosts

Or by setting the app.output_format parameter in the config file:

[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.

Configuration

Zabbix-cli needs a config file. This can be created with the zabbix-cli init command.

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

Zabbix-cli will look for config files in the following order:

1. The path specified with the --config parameter
2. ./zabbix-cli.toml
3. XDG config directory (usually ~/.config/zabbix-cli/zabbix-cli.toml), or equivalent Platformdirs directory on Windows and macOS
4. XDG site config directory (usually /etc/xdg/zabbix-cli/zabbix-cli.toml), or equivalent Platformdirs directory on Windows and macOS

To show the directories used by the application run:

zabbix-cli show_dirs

To open the default config directory with the default window manager run:

zabbix-cli open config

Or print the path to the default config directory:

zabbix-cli open config --path

Zabbix-cli provides commands for showing the current and default configuration:

zabbix-cli show_config
zabbix-cli sample_config

If you run into problems it is useful to enable debug logging in the config file:

[logging]
enabled = true
log_level = "DEBUG"

Find the log file with:

zabbix-cli open logs

Authentication

Zabbix-cli provides several ways to authenticate. They are tried in the following order if multiple are set:

1. API token from config file
2. Auth token from auth token file
3. Username and password from config file
4. Username and password from auth file
5. Username and password from environment variables
6. Username and password from prompt

Username and Password

Password-based authentication is the default way to authenticate with Zabbix-cli. If the application is unable to determine authentication from other sources, it will prompt for a username and password.

Config file

The password can be set directly in the config file:

[api]
zabbix_url = "https://zabbix.example.com/"
username = "Admin"
password = "zabbix"

Auth file

An auth file named .zabbix-cli_auth can be created in the user's home directory. The content of this file should be in the USERNAME::PASSWORD format.

echo "Admin::zabbix" > ~/.zabbix-cli_auth

The location of this file can be changed in the config file:

[app]
auth_file = "/path/to/auth/file"

Environment variables

The username and password can be set as environment variables:

export ZABBIX_USERNAME="Admin"
export ZABBIX_PASSWORD="zabbix"

Prompt

By omitting the password parameter in the config file or when all other authentication methods have been exhausted, you will be prompted for a password when starting zabbix-cli:

[api]
zabbix_url = "https://zabbix.example.com/"
username = "Admin"

API token

Zabbix-cli supports authentication with an API token specified directly in the config file:

[api]
auth_token = "API_TOKEN"

Auth token file

The application can store the auth token returned by the Zabbix API. This is most useful when authenticating with a username and password from a prompt, which would otherwise require you to enter your password every time you start the application.

The feature can be enabled in the config file:

[app]
use_auth_token_file = true

The location of the auth token file can be changed:

[app]
auth_token_file = "/path/to/auth/token/file"

By default, the auth token file is not required to have secure permissions. If you want to require the file to have 600 (rw-------) permissions, you can set allow_insecure_auth_file=false in the config file. This has no effect on Windows.

[app]
allow_insecure_auth_file = false

Zabbix-cli attempts to set 600 permissions when writing the auth token file if allow_insecure_auth_file=false.

Development

Zabbix-cli currently uses 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 Hatch:

hatch shell

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

If you do not wish to use Hatch, you can create a virtual environment manually:

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -U -e ".[test]"

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.