Master Zabbix Alerts: Email, Phone, SMS, WeChat & More with Code Samples

Email Alert (0x01)

Email is the most common Zabbix alert method and essential for beginners. The article shows how to embed performance graphs in email notifications by constructing a URL with parameters such as period, itemids[0], type, profileIdx, and width. Required parameters are:

{
  "period": "3600",
  "itemids[0]": itemID,
  "type": "0",
  "profileIdx": "web.item.graph",
  "width": "700"
}

Action configuration example:

HOST.HOST1:{HOST.HOST1}|HOST.IP1:{HOST.IP1}|EVENT.DATE:{EVENT.DATE}|EVENT.TIME:{EVENT.TIME}|TRIGGER.SEVERITY:{TRIGGER.SEVERITY}|TRIGGER.NAME:{TRIGGER.NAME}|ITEM.KEY1:{ITEM.KEY1}|ITEM.NAME1:{ITEM.NAME1}|ITEM.VALUE1:{ITEM.VALUE1}|ITEM.ID:{ITEM.ID}|TRIGGER.STATUS:{TRIGGER.STATUS}

Python script to fetch the graph and attach it to the email:

import requests

def GetGraph(itemID, pName=None):
    try:
        loginUrl = "http://%s/zabbix/index.php" % HOST
        loginHeaders = {"Host": HOST, "Accept": "text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,*/*;q=0.8"}
        playLoad = {"name": USER, "password": PASSWD, "autologin": "1", "enter": "Sign in"}
        res = requests.post(loginUrl, headers=loginHeaders, data=playLoad)
        testUrl = "http://%s/zabbix/chart.php" % HOST
        testUrlplayLoad = {"period": "3600", "itemids[0]": itemID, "type": "0", "profileIdx": "web.item.graph", "width": "700"}
        testGraph = requests.get(url=testUrl, params=testUrlplayLoad)
        IMAGEPATH = os.path.join('/tmp', pName)
        with open(IMAGEPATH, 'wb') as f:
            f.write(testGraph.content)
        return pName
    except Exception as e:
        print(e)
        return False
    finally:
        requests.Session().close()

Phone Call Alert (0x02)

Phone alerts are suitable for the most critical incidents. Costs depend on the provider; unanswered calls are usually free. Challenges include policy restrictions on voice‑to‑text conversion, latency in generating voice messages, and the need to handle urgent alerts manually.

Implementation idea: trigger a phone‑call script based on severity level.

SMS Alert (0x03)

SMS alerts use provider APIs and typically cost 0.03–0.05 CNY per message, suitable for medium to high severity incidents.

Implementation idea: trigger an SMS script according to severity.

WeChat Alert (0x04)

WeChat public‑account alerts require a registered public account.

Implementation idea: trigger a WeChat script based on severity.

Other Alerts (0x05)

Other channels such as QQ, RTX, DingTalk can be integrated by writing custom scripts that call their respective APIs.

Example GitHub projects:

QQ    https://github.com/pandolia/qqbot
Wechat https://github.com/liuwons/wxBot
RTX    https://github.com/rainfiel/rtx
...

Summary

Comparison of various alert methods is illustrated in the following chart: