Zabbix templates: build, link, import and export

All the frontend work happens at https://zbx01.lab as Admin, and the Git and YAML work runs on zbx01. You need Nginx running on web01 and the items from Lesson 7. If you skipped it, run sudo apt install -y nginx on web01 and create the three host items from the table in step 1 directly on web01 first, because part of this lab is seeing what happens to existing host items.

1Check what web01 already has

Open Data collection > Hosts, click Items in the web01 row and type nginx in the Name filter. You should have these items (names may differ slightly from yours, the keys are what matter):

Run this on zbx01 to confirm the agent answers (web01 needs PSK since Lesson 6, and /tmp/web01.psk is the copy from Lesson 7):

P="--tls-connect psk --tls-psk-identity 'PSK web01' --tls-psk-file /tmp/web01.psk"
eval zabbix_get -s 192.168.56.81 -k "'proc.num[nginx]'" $P
eval zabbix_get -s 192.168.56.81 -k "'net.tcp.service[http,,80]'" $P

You should see:

2
1

Two nginx processes (one master, one worker on a 1 vCPU VM) and the HTTP port is up. If you get cannot connect, passive checks are blocked; go back to Lesson 4, or skip this test, because the template uses active checks anyway. Without the PSK options you get “Received empty response from Zabbix Agent”, because web01 accepts only encrypted connections.

✅ Checkpoint: web01 has the three Nginx items and zabbix_get returns numbers for them.

2Create the template and its macros

Go to Data collection > Templates and click Create template. Fill in:

Press Add.

You should see this message:

Template added

✅ Checkpoint: SaatVedha Nginx web is listed under Templates/Applications with two macros and a value map.

3Copy the host items into the template

Back in web01’s item list, tick the three Nginx items and press Copy at the bottom. Choose Target type Templates, Target SaatVedha Nginx web, and press Copy. Now open the template’s items and edit each copy so it uses the macros:

Notice two keys changed: 80 became {$NGINX.PORT}. That matters in the next step, because linking matches by key text.

✅ Checkpoint: The template has three items, two of them using {$NGINX.PORT}.

4Add triggers, a graph and a template dashboard

In the template, open Triggers > Create trigger twice, and Graphs > Create graph once:

Then open Dashboards in the template’s row on the Templates list and Create dashboard, name it Nginx overview. Add a Graph (classic) widget showing the “Nginx: response time” graph and an Item value widget for “Nginx: HTTP port status”. You won’t pick a host anywhere: a template dashboard always shows the host it’s opened from.

Save changes.

✅ Checkpoint: The template has 3 items, 2 triggers, 1 graph and the dashboard Nginx overview.

5Link the template to web01 and read the result

Open web01 (Data collection > Hosts > web01). In Templates add SaatVedha Nginx web next to Linux by Zabbix agent active and press Update.

You should see this message:

Host updated

Now look at web01’s items filtered by nginx:

The process item had the same key in both places, so Zabbix adopted the host item: it now shows the template name in front (a link to the template) and keeps all its history. The two port items had different key text (80 versus the macro), so the template created new ones next to the old host items, and their history starts from zero. Delete the two old host items (the ones without a prefix) once the new ones show values.

✅ Checkpoint: web01 shows three Nginx items with the SaatVedha Nginx web prefix and you deleted the two old host-only copies.

6Override a macro on one host

Suppose web01 is slow by design and you want it to warn only above 3 seconds. Open web01, go to the Macros tab, choose Inherited and host macros, and press Change next to {$NGINX.RESP.MAX}. Set it to 3 and press Update.

In the {$NGINX.RESP.MAX} row the Effective value is 3, and the Template value column shows SaatVedha Nginx web: "2". The {$NGINX.PORT} row has no host value, so it keeps 80 from the template.

The template still says 2 and every other linked host keeps 2. Only web01 uses 3, and you didn’t touch the template to do it.

✅ Checkpoint: web01 shows {$NGINX.RESP.MAX} effective value 3 while the template value stays 2.

7Export the template and put it in Git

In Data collection > Templates tick SaatVedha Nginx web, press Export and choose YAML. Your browser downloads zbx_export_templates.yaml. Copy it to zbx01 (for example scp zbx_export_templates.yaml student@zbx01.lab: from your laptop) and start a repository:

Run this on zbx01:

sudo apt install -y git
mkdir -p ~/zabbix-templates && cd ~/zabbix-templates
mv ~/zbx_export_templates.yaml saatvedha_nginx_web.yaml
head -12 saatvedha_nginx_web.yaml
git init -b main
git config user.email student@zbx01.lab && git config user.name student
git add saatvedha_nginx_web.yaml
git commit -m "SaatVedha Nginx web 8.0-1: first export"

You should see this (your template UUID and commit hash will differ):

zabbix_export:
  version: '8.0'
  template_groups:
    - uuid: a571c0d144b14fd4a87a9d9b2aa9fcd6
      name: Templates/Applications
  templates:
    - uuid: 6d0c9f2be4e14b0c9b1a8f0a3c7f51e2
      template: 'SaatVedha Nginx web'
      name: 'SaatVedha Nginx web'
      description: 'Nginx availability, response time and processes for SaatVedha lab web servers.'
      vendor:
        name: SaatVedha
Initialized empty Git repository in /home/student/zabbix-templates/.git/
[main (root-commit) 0c72b47] SaatVedha Nginx web 8.0-1: first export
 1 file changed, 73 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 saatvedha_nginx_web.yaml

The UUIDs and commit hash on your machine will differ (Templates/Applications has the same UUID everywhere because it ships with Zabbix). Keep the UUIDs: they let a later import update this template instead of creating a second one.

✅ Checkpoint: ~/zabbix-templates on zbx01 has one commit containing the YAML export.

8Change the template in Git and import it back

Edit the file to lower the threshold and bump the version, then look at the change before you import it:

Run this on zbx01:

cd ~/zabbix-templates
sed -i "s/version: 8.0-1/version: 8.0-2/; s/value: '2'$/value: '1'/" saatvedha_nginx_web.yaml
git diff
git commit -qam "Lower response time threshold to 1s"
git log --oneline

git diff shows the two changed pairs of lines among its context lines, and git log lists both commits (your hashes will differ):

-        version: 8.0-1
+        version: 8.0-2
-          value: '2'
+          value: '1'
d7c7c15 Lower response time threshold to 1s
0c72b47 SaatVedha Nginx web 8.0-1: first export

Copy the file back to your laptop, then in Data collection > Templates press Import, choose the file, leave the rules at their defaults and press Import. Because the file has changes for an existing template, Zabbix shows a compare window with the differences; read it and press Import again.

You should see this message:

Imported successfully

Open the template: Vendor and version shows 8.0-2 and {$NGINX.RESP.MAX} is 1. web01 still uses 3, because a host macro beats a template macro.

✅ Checkpoint: The template shows version 8.0-2 and macro value 1 after the import, and Git has two commits.