zabbix-cloudwatch

An external script for getting cloudwatch metrics into Zabbix

Now seeking maintainers

I haven't used Zabbix for our infrastructure for a couple years now; as such, I can no longer properly maintain/update this project. If someone is interested in taking over, I would be happy to hand over the keys.

Usage

Usage: zabbix-cloudwatch

  -h, --help              This Message
  -n, --namespace         Namespace (AWS/Autoscaling, AWS/EC2, etc...)
  -m, --metricname        Metric Name (GroupInServiceInstances,EstimatedCharges, etc...)
  -d, --dimension-name    Dimension Name (AutoScalingGroupName, etc...)
  -v, --dimension-value   Dimension Value
  -t, --monitoring-type   detailed|basic                            Default: basic
  -s, --statistic         Minimum|Maximum|Average|Sum|SampleCount   Default: Average
  --aws-access-key        AWS Access Key
  --aws-secret-key        AWS Secret Key
  --aws-region            AWS Region                                Default: us-east-1

Getting it running

• Currently tested against ruby 1.8.7, 1.9.3, and 2.0.0
• for some of the gem dependencies, you will need the ruby development packages, gcc, libxml2, and libxslt

Modify these steps to taste (examples given running on the Amazon AMI 2013.03):

yum install ruby ruby-devel rubygems gcc libxml2-devel libxslt-devel
gem install bundler zabbix-cloudwatch
ln -s $(which zabbix-cloudwatch) /var/lib/zabbixsrv/externalscripts/zabbix-cloudwatch

Examples

zabbix-cloudwatch -n AWS/EC2 \
                  -m CPUUtilization \
                  -d AutoScalingGroupName \
                  -v your-auto-scaling-group \
                  -t detailed \
                  -s Sum

Creating the IAM User

The following actions need to be allowed in IAM for this script to work with the keys you provide:

"cloudwatch:DescribeAlarms"
"cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics"

AWS Credentials

There are (3) ways to get your AWS Credentials into zabbix-cloudwatch.

Note that none of these options are "safe", so make sure you are using a set of IAM Keys with extremely restricted permissions.

1. Environment Variables (which is difficult with Zabbix):

export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID="YOUR ACCESS KEY" 
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY="YOUR SECRET ACCESS KEY"
export AWS_REGION="YOUR AWS REGION"

2. Within the binary in the gem.

If you intend to do it this way, I suggest you make a copy of the binary and place it in your zabbix externalscript path (instead of the suggested symlink in the installation example).

Find the binary like this:

ls $(gem env gemdir)/gems/zabbix-cloudwatch-$(zabbix-cloudwatch --version)/bin/zabbix-cloudwatch

And place it in your externalscripts path like this (your zabbix path/user/group may be different):

cp $(gem env gemdir)/gems/zabbix-cloudwatch-$(zabbix-cloudwatch --version)/bin/zabbix-cloudwatch \
      /var/lib/zabbixsrv/externalscripts/
chown zabbix:zabbix /var/lib/zabbixsrv/externalscripts/zabbix-cloudwatch

The class variables for this are at the very top of the file for your convenience.

3. Passing in your AWS Keys when you run zabbix-cloudwatch using the command line flags.

zabbix-cloudwatch -n AWS/AutoScaling \
                  -m GroupInServiceInstances \
                  -d AutoScalingGroupName \
                  -v your-auto-scaling-group \
                  --aws-access-key 'YOUR ACCESS KEY' \
                  --aws-secret-key 'YOUR SECRET KEY' \
                  --aws-region 'YOUR AWS REGION'

Order of preference

The order of preference that this gem uses for the region and keys (individually) are:

• Commandline flag
• Within the binary
• Environment Variable