Step-by-Step Guide to Installing Zabbix 5 on CentOS 7

System Overview

Zabbix is an enterprise‑grade monitoring solution that supports real‑time monitoring of thousands of servers, virtual machines, and network devices, collecting millions of metrics.

Main features include:

Metric collection from any device, system, or application.

Problem detection with intelligent thresholds.

Unified visual management interface.

Timely and effective alerting and remediation.

Security and authentication for all data layers.

Easy deployment with many ready‑to‑use templates.

Automatic discovery for large dynamic environments.

Distributed monitoring with unlimited scalability.

Key Terminology

Host : a server, workstation, switch or any network device you want to monitor, identified by IP or hostname.

Host group : a collection of hosts sharing a common role or attribute, e.g., all Windows servers.

Item : the specific data you want to collect from a host or host group, such as CPU usage.

Trigger : a logical expression that evaluates collected data against predefined thresholds, producing a "Problem" or "OK" state.

Event : a single occurrence that requires attention, such as a trigger changing state.

Action : a predefined operation executed automatically when an event occurs, e.g., running a reboot command when CPU exceeds 80%.

Zabbix server : the core daemon that communicates with agents, evaluates triggers, sends alerts, and stores data.

Zabbix agent : a lightweight program installed on monitored hosts that gathers local metrics.

Installation Steps

1. Disable SELinux and the firewall

sed -i 's/SELINUX=enforcing/SELINUX=disabled/' /etc/selinux/config

systemctl disable --now firewalld

reboot

2. Install the Zabbix RPM repository

rpm -Uvh https://mirrors.aliyun.com/zabbix/zabbix/5.0/rhel/7/x86_64/zabbix-release-5.0-1.el7.noarch.rpm
sed -i 's#http://repo.zabbix.com#https://mirrors.aliyun.com/zabbix#' /etc/yum.repos.d/zabbix.repo
yum clean all

3. Install Zabbix server and agent

yum install zabbix-server-mysql zabbix-agent -y

4. Install the Zabbix frontend

yum install centos-release-scl -y

vi /etc/yum.repos.d/zabbix.repo   # set "enabled=1" for the frontend repo

yum install zabbix-web-mysql-scl zabbix-apache-conf-scl -y

5. Install MariaDB

yum install mariadb-server -y

systemctl enable --now mariadb

mysql_secure_installation

6. Configure the Zabbix database

mysql -u root -p   # enter the root password

create database zabbix default character set utf8 collate utf8_bin;

grant all privileges on zabbix.* to zabbix@localhost identified by "zabbix_pwd";

zcat /usr/share/doc/zabbix-server-mysql*/create.sql.gz | mysql -uzabbix -p zabbix

7. Final Zabbix configuration and web UI installation

vi /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf   # set DBPassword to the Zabbix DB password

vi /etc/opt/rh/rh-php72/php-fpm.d/zabbix.conf   # set php_value[date.timezone] = Asia/Shanghai

systemctl restart zabbix-server zabbix-agent httpd rh-php72-php-fpm
systemctl enable zabbix-server zabbix-agent httpd rh-php72-php-fpm

Open a browser and navigate to http:// IP /zabbix to continue the web installation.

Follow the wizard: click “Next step”, verify that all environment checks are OK, configure the database connection (host, name, password, default port 3306), accept the default server settings, and finish the installation.

After completion, log in with the default credentials (user: Admin , password: zabbix ).

Configure Chinese language

In the lower‑left “User settings”, set Language to Chinese (zh_CN) .