Requirement is a running mysql container that exposes port 3306. This mysql container needs to be linked as mysql. Zabbix container uses this hostname to connect.

Optionally, you can link a postfix relay container, so that zabbix can send emails utilizing sendmail.

docker run -d --name zabbix_server \
  --link mysql:mysql \
  --link postfix_mandrill:postfix_relay \
  -p 8081:80 \
  -e ZABBIX_DB_NAME=zabbix \
  -e ZABBIX_DB_USER=root \
  -e ZABBIX_DB_PASSWORD=mypass \
  -e ZABBIX_AGENT_HOSTNAME=$HOSTNAME \
  klevo/zabbix_server

To inspect the running container:

docker exec -i -t zabbix_server /bin/bash

This container exposes port 80 which serves the zabbix frontend served by nginx and php-fpm. I decided against splitting this responsibility into multiple containers as the frontend is closely related to the version of the server and build from the same source. So keeping separate containers, which might be updated/build independently would add unnecessary work.

After testing various other configuration - like the zabbix agent running on the host directly, agent within a separate container - I decided to include the agent within this container as well. It proved difficult to separate the agent from the server on the same host, as the agent needs to know the hosts IP and that information changes as the containers restart. At the same time, the server needs to be linked to the client.

There is no initialization of the zabbix database currently.