Zabbix-agent needs valid home directory

[mrvanes]

In Xenial, zabbix-agent installer generates zabbix user without valid home dir (/nonexistent). This breaks RemoteCommands that need a writeable homedir to complete:

e.g. I wrote a tiny script to count number of security upgrades waiting (using aptitude). This works on all precise and trusty servers, but failed on the new xenial install:

zabbix# zabbix_get -s webhostnew -k 'system.run[/usr/local/sbin/count_upgradeable,wait]'
E: /nonexistent/.aptitude - mkdir (2: No such file or directory)
1

Seting zabbix user homedir to /var/run/zabbix fixed the problem.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Stephan (world-wide)]

I am affected by this as well. I have created a bug report at the Zabbix bug tracker for it:
https://support.zabbix.com/browse/ZBX-13433

[Eduard von Feek (feek)]

/var/run is a symlink to /run, which is a tmpfs. All files and directories there get deleted during a reboot. Any ideas how to mitigate this, so that e.g. SSH configuration in /var/run/zabbix/.ssh/ doesn't get deleted?

[Stephan (world-wide)]

upstream did set /var/lib/zabbix as home directory (but not created it). I suggest using this directory and ensuring it exists. This would be in line with other daemons like postfix or snmp. Vote for the above mentioned bug report to have it fixed upstream.