zabbix agent service failed, PID not readable

Question

I'm trying to run zabbix-agent 3.0.4 on CentOS7, systemd failed to start the zabbix agent, from journalctl -xe

PID file /run/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.pid not readable (yes?) after start. node=localhost.localdomain type=SERVICE_START msg=audit(1475848200.601:17994): pid=1 uid=0 auid=4294967298 ses=... zabbix-agent.service never wrote its PID file. Failing. Failed to start Zabbix Agent.

There is no permission error, and I try to re-configure the PID path to /tmp folder in zabbix-agent.service and zabbix_agentd.conf, it doesn't work.

Very weird, anyone has idea? Thank you in advance.

=====

Investigating a little bit, the PID should be under /run/zabbix folder, I create manually the zabbix_agentd.pid, and it disappears after 1 second. Really weird.

Try to start the agent directly. Any error messages? Maybe the config file is not accessible, or has mistakes? Also check that the PidFile option in the agent daemon config file is set to match that path. — Richlv, Oct 07 '16 at 15:56
@Richlv, check the permission, no conflict, just there seems be a process deleting `/run/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.pid` constantly, don't know it is `systemd` or not. — perigee, Oct 11 '16 at 14:20
For the moment, the workaround i used, install first the zabbix-agent 2.2 version, restarted, enabled, and then install zabbix-agent 3.0.4, restart the agent again. — perigee, Oct 11 '16 at 17:12

user2398069 · Answer 1 · 2017-07-15T03:56:00.873

6

I had the same issue and it was related to selinux. So I allowed zabbix_agent_t via semanage

 yum install policycoreutils-python 

 semanage permissive -a zabbix_agent_t

edited Jul 15 '17 at 03:56

answered Jan 01 '17 at 10:43

user2398069

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1
5
13

I had such a problem with zabbix-agent version 3.0 and 3.2 and your answer helped me a lot and saved my time. thanks. – IAmAliYousefi May 14 '17 at 12:04

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 07 '16 at 21:42

0

Giving the full permissions 7777 to that pid file will help to resolve the issue.

edited Nov 07 '16 at 21:42

Tunaki

132,869
46
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answered Nov 07 '16 at 21:41

kranthi.kumar

9
1

please post your full answer here. like how to give permissions. – Sachith Muhandiram Nov 07 '16 at 22:05
Giving 777 permissions is a bad idea almost always... It is much better to figure out the real cause and avoid security problems. – Richlv Dec 12 '16 at 12:19

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 17 '17 at 06:46

0

i had this too and it was Selinux, it was disabled but i had to run the command

answered May 17 '17 at 06:46

batchen

1

Taras Kovalenko · Answer 4 · 2018-10-30T05:00:17.910

That's work for me.

Prerequisites: Centos 7, zabbix-server 3.4 and zabbix-agent 3.4 runing on same host.

Solution steps:

Install zabbix-server and zabbix-agent (no matter how - via yum or building from source code).
Check first if there is already separate users exist in /etc/passwd. If there is already zabbix users exist go to p.4.
Create separate groups and users for zabbix-server and zabbix-agent. Example (you can specify usernames on your desire):
```
groupadd zabbix-agent  
useradd -g zabbix-agent zabbix-agent  
groupadd zabbix  
useradd -g zabbix zabbix  
```

Specify PID and LOG file location in Zabbix config files. Example:

For zabbix-server: in /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf:

PidFile=/run/zabbix/zabbix_server.pid  
LogFile=/var/log/zabbix/zabbix_server.log

For zabbix-agent: in /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf:

PidFile=/run/zabbix-agent/zabbix-agent.pid  
LogFile=/var/log/zabbix-agent/zabbix-agent.log

Create appropriate directories (if they haven't been creatred previously) as were specified in config files and change owners for this directories:

mkdir /var/log/zabbix-agent  
mkdir /run/zabbix-agent  
chown zabbix-agent:zabbix-agent /var/log/zabbix-agent  
chown zabbix-agent:zabbix-agent /run/zabbix-agent  

mkdir /var/log/zabbix  
mkdir /run/zabbix  
chown zabbix:zabbix /var/log/zabbix-agent  
chown zabbix:zabbix /run/zabbix-agent

Check systemd config for zabbix services and add Username= and Group= in [Service] section under which services will run. Example:

For zabbix-server: /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/zabbix-server.service:

[Unit]
Description=Zabbix Server
After=syslog.target
After=network.target

[Service]
Environment="CONFFILE=/etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf"
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/sysconfig/zabbix-server
Type=forking
Restart=on-failure
PIDFile=/run/zabbix/zabbix_server.pid
KillMode=control-group
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/zabbix_server -c $CONFFILE
ExecStop=/bin/kill -SIGTERM $MAINPID
RestartSec=10s
TimeoutSec=0

User=zabbix
Group=zabbix

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

For zabbix-agent: /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/zabbix-agent.service:

[Unit]
Description=Zabbix Agent
After=syslog.target
After=network.target

[Service]
Environment="CONFFILE=/etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf"
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/sysconfig/zabbix-agent
Type=forking
Restart=on-failure
PIDFile=/run/zabbix-agent/zabbix-agent.pid
KillMode=control-group
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/zabbix_agentd -c $CONFFILE
ExecStop=/bin/kill -SIGTERM $MAINPID
RestartSec=10s

User=zabbix-agent
Group=zabbix-agent

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

If there is no such configs - you can find them in:

/usr/lib/systemd/system/

OR

Enable zabbix-agent.service service and thereby create symlink in /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/ directory to /usr/lib/systemd/system/zabbix-agent.service

Run services:

systemctl start zabbix-server  
systemctl start zabbix-agent

Check users under which services had been started (first column):
```
ps -aux | grep zabbix  
```

or via top command.

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 10 '19 at 12:16

0

Disable SELinux and Firewalld and you're good to go

answered Dec 10 '19 at 12:16

John M

1

zabbix agent service failed, PID not readable

5 Answers5