• Do you want to make alerts specifically for some important vms?
• Do you want to ignore “this vm is turned off/restarted” for vms that are supposed to be?

I worked an entire day for this, but in the end its not useful for my company but I'm writing this so it becomes useful for you, because I've seen threads on the Proxmox forum asking how we do it.

I did it on Proxmox VE 8 and zabbix 7 LTS. Using the integration of Proxmox into zabbix via its API.

I can't find yet a use for it because it cannot replace the job of just installing an agent on each vm, and you will anyway. otherwise won't see their real memory and filesystem usage, it might even create false-positive alerts.  

1. Create a token in Proxmox to audit your cluster,node and vms, a token is just a super long password for only accessing specific stuff. here is a neat tutorial on how to make one : https://gist.github.com/ngoc-minh-do/dd0bfa324de8e5cb399c91ed4e679b8f

2. Connect zabbix to your Proxmox using the zabbix official template by following their instructions : https://www.zabbix.com/integrations/proxmox 

You will know when it worked when you have alerts about turned off VMs showing up on zabbix.

3. In Zabbix with a admin account go into data collection > templates and for the Proxmox VE by HTTP click on discovery then next to QEMU discovery click Item prototypes and now we're where we will create a item that is the vm's tag

4. Click the name of the uptime item prototype to edit it and click the [clone] button

5. In our window where we clone the uptime prototype we will create a prototype with a new name so we will be able to make alerts and graph with the vm tags :

replace "Uptime" with "Tags" at the end of the name

replace proxmox.qemu.uptime[{#QEMU.ID}] with "proxmox.qemu.tags[{#QEMU.ID}]" for the key (the key will be different for LXC containers, don't just copy paste!)

add a description 

click on the preprocessing tab on the top of the item prototype window and replace the Parameters with “$.data.tags”

then save your changes

6. Now with our new item prototype we'll be able to ignore vms with a specific tag by changing how the "vm not running" trigger works
Go into the "Trigger Prototypes" of your QEMU discovery and check out the one saying "Proxmox VE: VM [{#NODE.NAME}/{#QEMU.NAME} ({#QEMU.ID})]: Not running" 
Click on its name to edit the trigger, look at the Expression. It should look like this :

 last(/Proxmox VE by HTTP/proxmox.qemu.vmstatus[{#QEMU.ID}])<>"running"

We add the "and" line and the other line making it so any VM without the tag “development” will trigger an alert if not running.

so the full trigger should look like this, the actual logic of the trigger we've made is "IF the latest status of VM is anything other than running, AND they have no tags saying development, then the trigger activates". remember to rename "development" with the actual tag that you want to make zabbix ignore.

last(/Proxmox VE by HTTP/proxmox.qemu.vmstatus[{#QEMU.ID}])<>"running"
and
find(/Proxmox VE by HTTP/proxmox.qemu.tags[{#QEMU.ID}],,"like","development")<>1

7. Now, also the dependency of the trigger for "vm has been restarted" needs to be fixed. Because if the vm is turned off, it's uptime is 0 which is <10 which trigger a "vm has been restarted" alert. we edit it so the trigger activates if the uptime is between 1 and 10 instead. so edit the trigger's expression and add the two new lines : 

last(/Proxmox VE by HTTP/proxmox.qemu.uptime[{#QEMU.ID}])<10m
and
last(/Proxmox VE by HTTP/proxmox.qemu.uptime[{#QEMU.ID}])>0

8. Now on you Proxmox you add the tag "development" to any vm you don't care being turned off, or the name of the tag you specified in step 6.

Now make sure the alerts "vm XXXX is turned off" and "vm XXXX has been restarted" stop themselves, it might take at least 5 minutes.

9. We have to do all of step 3 to 7 again but this time for the discovery "LXC discovery", because LXC containers have their own item, prototype and trigger.

Now enjoy! and with the item prototype we've made you'll be able to make new triggers and graphs for specific groups of vm and LXC using their tags!

you're gonna generate the language that's missing for your web server.

ssh into your linux vm/lxc with root or a user that has admin privileges then open the file that is used to select locales to be generated.

#vim /etc/locale.gen
- if you're not root but you have admin privileges prefix all your commands with sudo
 

Once vim is open press / and start typing the name of the Locale that's not working and it will move your cursor to it
 

Un-comment the line that is the UTF-8 version of the locale. ex : en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8

save and quit by pressing keys in this order [escape] : w q [enter] 

generate the locale(s) that has been uncommented by running this :

#locale-gen

once its done restart your zabbix server and php using system control
#systemctl restart zabbix-server.service php[your php version]-fpm.service

Use auto completion (tab key) if you don't know what php version it is.

now refresh your zabbix or other web page and flush cache by doing ctrl+F5

this should work, if not you're on your own again

With Assembly4 you can create a exploded views using different techniques, I'm gonna show you how to use the configurations to make exploded views.
 

Creating a exploded view in assembly4 workbench is not automatic, you have to move all the pieces by hand. So you should weigh the pros and cons of using assembly4 for a exploded view in your project when the ExplodedAssembly workbench exists. Which is designed to make animated exploded assemblies. Can make GIFs and with the dotted lines and everything straight from Freecad, you can learn how to use it in a couple of hours. 
 

Anyway here is the workflow of making a exploded view in Assembly4 :
 

1. Create your "normal" assembled configuration.
2. Move your sub-assemblies so that they're exploded and create a "exploded" configuration.
3. Switch between your normal and exploded config as you want.
    

I'm gonna assume you already have a Assembly4 assembly ready. If that is not the case i suggest reading this tutorial below on how assemblies work in assembly4. 
 

A simple sub-assembly task using the FreeCAD Assembly 4 Workbench
 

The tutorial :
 

OK, let's say you have at least two parts in your assembly : A screw fastened to a plate. In this configuration its assembled
 

alt : FreeCAD screenshot of A screw fastened to a plate\] 
 

Open the Assembly4 workbench and click the "Open configurations panel" button.
 

You'll see there is no configurations so create one that you will call "default". that's your assembled, normal view now.

Then click on one of the parts of your assembly (or your sub-assembly) and click the "Edit placement of a Part" button. 

Then in the [attachment offset] change the Z, X or Y offset by a lot using your mousewheel so you have your part away like you want.

![]() alt : parts moved away from eachother with the offset setting 
 

Now re-open the "Open configurations panel " button and create a new configuration called "exploded". Once you have both configurations you can apply any of the two to go from default to exploded and they will stay updated if you edit your parts.

– Its called a configuration instead of a view because you can change what and how the sub-assemblies are connected to eachother not just their offset. we're just using it to make ourselves an exploded view.

alt: the configuration windows

So what if you move the sub-assemblies again in your exploded view? ctrl+S won't save your offset change to your exploded view. What you do is re-open the "Open configurations panel " button and click on the "exploded" configuration. and you click "overwrite" to save how you moved your sub-assemblies.
 

If you have any questions or stuff wait a couple of years that i'm bored and create a comment/contact section to this blog.

Use this URL to read the rss feed. the adventure posts and the latest gallery images are combined into a single feed now.

https://accordeon.dev/rss

or
https://accordeon.dev/feed

or 

https://accordeon.dev/feed/all.xml

ecause they will all work
 

Now you can read what is on my website without even visiting it.

Making your own blog is not that easy, especially if you want to make your own custom CMS... especially if you never used any php...  or SQL...  or php contacting a sql database or what a PDO (PHP Data Object) is.

My workflow is so slow but once i'm done setting this all up i'll either get going really fast making new additions to my website or i'll get distracted.

update 2025-02-14 : I got distracted.

But i finished fixing the CMS. It was from a tutorial that i believe was generated using AI, either that or she really is that bad at programming. It was so bad i learned more while debugging that shit that i actually learned a lot of php and sql. maybe the real cms tutorial was the infuriating design decisions i fixed along the way. hehe

damn it! now when i edit blog posts it updates the creation timestamp!

Use a notebook

1. write down what the NPCs say. Very often they don't repeat themselves.
    
2. When you meet an NPC write down their name and their nicknames and titles, because like in real life people go by multiple aliases and names, and doodle what they look like, because in dark souls games there is always 3 people with almost the exact same name.
    
3. When you meed a dead end while exploring like an unkillable or too powerful ennemy, or any obstacle that forces you to retrace your steps, write it down!! because being stuck on a difficult boss is one thing, but being lost and having to wander everywhere until you remember is worse!
    
4. Do NOT attack and kill any NPC that has not attacked you first. Never do that or you'll make the game 1000x harder.
    
5. Do NOT sell any weapon or armor or item! the ennemies in dark souls are an infinite source of money.
    

And i guess that's it.

I coded an entire image info displayer you can check out by clicking the image, its a hyperlink.