Deploying Zabbix Monitoring Platform with Docker Containers

Zabbix is a well‑known monitoring system that can uniformly monitor hardware, operating systems, databases, networks, and more, offering UI, alerting, service discovery, and other features.

Because Zabbix involves many components, manual installation can be cumbersome; this guide shows how to use Docker containers to rapidly deploy the latest Zabbix version.

Zabbix Architecture

The main components are:

Zabbix server – receives data from agents and provides core functions.

Database – stores monitoring data and configuration (MySQL or PostgreSQL).

Zabbix web – UI for control and visualization.

Zabbix Java gateway – monitors JVM metrics.

Zabbix agent – runs on target hosts to collect data.

Install Docker

Configure the official yum repository and install Docker:

$ sudo yum install -y yum-utils
$ sudo yum-config-manager \
    --add-repo \
    https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/docker-ce.repo

$ sudo yum install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io

$ sudo systemctl start docker

$ docker version

Deploy Zabbix Components

Use MySQL 8.0 as the database. Create Docker volumes for data, logs, and configuration:

$ docker volume create -d local mysql_data   # store MySQL data
$ docker volume create -d local mysql_logs   # store MySQL logs
$ docker volume create -d local mysql_conf   # store MySQL config files

Run the MySQL container:

$ docker run --name mysql-server -t \
   -v mysql_data:/var/lib/mysql \
   -v mysql_logs:/var/log/mysql \
   -v mysql_conf:/etc/mysql \
   -e MYSQL_DATABASE="zabbix" \
   -e MYSQL_USER="zabbix" \
   -e MYSQL_PASSWORD="zabbix_pwd" \
   -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD="123456" \
   --restart=unless-stopped \
   -d mysql:8.0 \
   --character-set-server=utf8 --collation-server=utf8_bin \
   --default-authentication-plugin=mysql_native_password

Deploy the Zabbix Java gateway:

$ docker pull zabbix/zabbix-java-gateway:alpine-6.2-latest

$ docker run --name zabbix-java-gateway -t \
   --restart=unless-stopped \
   -d zabbix/zabbix-java-gateway:alpine-6.2-latest

Deploy the Zabbix server (MySQL backend):

$ docker pull zabbix/zabbix-server-mysql:6.2-alpine-latest

$ docker volume create -d local zabbix_server

$ docker run --name zabbix-server-mysql -t \
    -v zabbix_server:/etc/zabbix \
    -e DB_SERVER_HOST="mysql-server" \
    -e MYSQL_DATABASE="zabbix" \
    -e MYSQL_USER="zabbix" \
    -e MYSQL_PASSWORD="zabbix_pwd" \
    -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD="123456" \
    -e ZBX_JAVAGATEWAY="zabbix-java-gateway" \
    --link mysql-server:mysql \
    --link zabbix-java-gateway:zabbix-java-gateway \
    --restart=unless-stopped \
    -p 10051:10051 \
    -d zabbix/zabbix-server-mysql:alpine-6.2-latest

Deploy the Zabbix web interface (NGINX + MySQL):

$ docker pull zabbix/zabbix-web-nginx-mysql:alpine-6.2-latest

$ docker run --name zabbix-web-nginx-mysql -t \
   -e PHP_TZ="Asia/Shanghai" \
   -e ZBX_SERVER_HOST="zabbix-server-mysql" \
   -e DB_SERVER_HOST="mysql-server" \
   -e MYSQL_DATABASE="zabbix" \
   -e MYSQL_USER="zabbix" \
   -e MYSQL_PASSWORD="zabbix_pwd" \
   -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD="123456" \
   --link mysql-server:mysql \
   --link zabbix-server-mysql:zabbix-server \
   -p 80:8080 \
   --restart unless-stopped \
   -d zabbix/zabbix-web-nginx-mysql:alpine-6.2-latest

Install Zabbix Agent

Pull the agent image and create a volume for its configuration:

$ docker pull zabbix/zabbix-agent:alpine-6.2-latest

$ docker volume create -d local zabbix_agent

Run the agent container (adjust ZBX_SERVER_HOST to the server IP as needed):

$ docker run --name zabbix-agent -t \
   -v zabbix_agent:/etc/zabbix \
   -e ZBX_HOSTNAME="host-01" \
   -e ZBX_SERVER_HOST="192.168.214.112" \
   -e ZBX_SERVER_PORT=10051 \
   -p 10050:10050 \
   --restart=unless-stopped \
   --privileged \
   -d zabbix/zabbix-agent:alpine-6.2-latest

Add Hosts in Zabbix UI

After agents are running, log into the Zabbix web UI (default user: Admin, password: zabbix), create a new host, and assign the appropriate templates. The host will appear in the monitoring dashboard once data is received.

Conclusion

Containerized deployment of Zabbix simplifies installation and management, allowing rapid setup of a full‑featured monitoring environment while freeing technical staff from time‑consuming manual configuration.