## Overview

This template set is designed for the effortless deployment of VMware vCenter and ESX hypervisor monitoring and doesn't require any external scripts.

- The template "VMware Guest" is used in discovery and normally should not be manually linked to a host.
- The template "VMware Hypervisor" can be used in discovery as well as manually linked to a host.

For additional information, please see [Zabbix documentation on VM monitoring](https://www.zabbix.com/documentation/7.4/manual/vm_monitoring).

## Setup

1. Compile Zabbix server with the required options (`--with-libxml2` and `--with-libcurl`).
2. Set the `StartVMwareCollectors` option in the Zabbix server configuration file to "1" or more.
3. Create a new host.
4. If you want to use a separate user for monitoring, make sure that the user is a member of the `SystemConfiguration.ReadOnly` and `vStatsGroup` groups.
Set the host wizard configuration fields required for VMware authentication: `VMware URL`, `VMware username` and `VMware password`.
5. Link the template to the host created earlier.

Note: To enable discovery of hardware sensors of VMware hypervisors, set the host wizard configuration field `Monitoring of hardware sensors` to the selected state.

Additional resources:
- How to [create a custom performance counter](https://www.zabbix.com/documentation/7.4/manual/vm_monitoring/vmware_keys#footnotes).
- How to get all supported counters and [generate a path for the custom performance counter](https://www.zabbix.com/documentation/7.4/manual/appendix/items/perf_counters).