Glaber Development System Setup (Debian)

This guide describes how to prepare a clean Debian host for Glaber development: install runtime services, build dependencies, initialize PostgreSQL and ClickHouse, build the server from source, and run the web UI.

Target OS: Debian 12 (Bookworm). Debian 11 (Bullseye) works with the same steps; adjust PostgreSQL/PHP package version numbers if needed.

Related docs: LIBRARIES_AND_DEPENDENCIES.md

Table of contents

• 1. Overview
• 2. Base system preparation
• 3. Runtime services and packages
• 3.1 Services to install
• 3.2 Web / PHP packages
  • 3.2.1 Add the Sury PHP repository (recommended)
  • 3.2.2 Install nginx and PHP-FPM
• 3.3 Build / development packages
• 4. PostgreSQL installation and database initialization
• 4.1 Install PostgreSQL
• 4.2 Create user and database
• 4.3 Import Glaber schema and seed data
  • 4.3.1 Clean the database
  • 4.3.2 Build SQL files
  • 4.3.3 Import schema, images, and data
• 5. ClickHouse installation and initialization
• 5.1 Install ClickHouse server
• 5.2 Prevent system log tables from growing
• 5.3 Create Glaber history schema
• 6. Build Glaber server from source
• 6.1 Compile and install
• 6.2 System user and runtime directories
• 6.3 Server configuration
• 6.4 Run the server
• 7. Web UI — install and run
• 7.1 Build frontend assets
• 7.2 PHP configuration file
• 7.3 PHP-FPM pool
• 7.4 nginx site
• 7.5 Open the web UI
• 8. Start / stop checklist
• 9. Troubleshooting
• 10. References in this repository

---

1. Overview

Component	Role	Dev default
PostgreSQL	Configuration database (hosts, items, triggers, users)	DB glaber, user glaber, password glaber
ClickHouse	History/metrics storage backend	DB glaber
nginx + PHP-FPM	Web UI (PHP)	Serves ui/ from the repository
Node.js + npm	UI frontend build (Vue, Vite, Tailwind)	Build-time only
Glaber server	Core daemon	Built from source in the repo

Recommended minimum for development: 4 CPU, 8 GB RAM, 50 GB disk.

---

2. Base system preparation

Run as root or with sudo.

export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade -y

apt-get install -y \
  sudo \
  curl \
  wget \
  git \
  ca-certificates \
  gnupg2 \
  lsb-release \
  apt-transport-https \
  software-properties-common \
  locales \
  net-tools \
  iputils-ping \
  fping \
  snmp-mibs-downloader \
  dejavu-sans-fonts \
  logrotate

# Locales used by Glaber
sed -i 's/^# \(en_US\.UTF-8\)/\1/' /etc/locale.gen
sed -i 's/^# \(ru_RU\.UTF-8\)/\1/' /etc/locale.gen
locale-gen

# Optional: create a human login account for development (not the glaber daemon user — see section 6.2)
# useradd -m -s /bin/bash glaber-dev && usermod -aG sudo glaber-dev

Clone the repository:

git clone https://gitlab.com/mikler/glaber.git
cd glaber

---

3. Runtime services and packages

3.1 Services to install

Service	systemd unit	Purpose
PostgreSQL	postgresql	Configuration DB
ClickHouse	clickhouse-server	History storage
nginx	nginx	HTTP reverse proxy for UI
PHP-FPM	php*-fpm	PHP FastCGI for UI

3.2 Web / PHP packages

Debian ships one default PHP version per release (Bookworm: 8.2, Bullseye: 7.4, Trixie: 8.4). To install a specific version — including older releases for compatibility testing — add the deb.sury.org PHP repository first. Glaber requires PHP >= 7.4.0 (see ui/include/classes/setup/CFrontendSetup.php).

3.2.1 Add the Sury PHP repository (recommended)

Run before installing PHP packages. Uses the current DEB822 source format from packages.sury.org.

apt-get update
apt-get install -y lsb-release ca-certificates curl

curl -sSLo /tmp/debsuryorg-archive-keyring.deb https://packages.sury.org/debsuryorg-archive-keyring.deb
dpkg -i /tmp/debsuryorg-archive-keyring.deb

# Remove legacy one-line sources that conflict with the keyring package
rm -f /etc/apt/sources.list.d/php.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/deb.sury.org-php.list

tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/php.sources <<EOF
Types: deb
URIs: https://packages.sury.org/php/
Suites: $(lsb_release -sc)
Components: main
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debsuryorg-archive-keyring.gpg
EOF

apt-get update

List PHP versions available for your Debian release:

apt-cache search --names-only '^php[0-9]+\.[0-9]+-cli$' | awk '{print $1}' | sed 's/-cli$//' | sort -V

Set PHP_VER to the desired major.minor (examples: 7.4, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4). Sury builds for supported Debian releases only — EOL releases (e.g. old Stretch) are not maintained.

3.2.2 Install nginx and PHP-FPM

If you skipped Sury, pick the default from apt-cache policy php | grep Candidate and map it to a phpX.Y-* package name where applicable.

PHP_VER=8.2

apt-get install -y \
  nginx \
  php${PHP_VER}-fpm \
  php${PHP_VER}-cli \
  php${PHP_VER}-common \
  php${PHP_VER}-gd \
  php${PHP_VER}-bcmath \
  php${PHP_VER}-mbstring \
  php${PHP_VER}-xml \
  php${PHP_VER}-xmlreader \
  php${PHP_VER}-xmlwriter \
  php${PHP_VER}-ctype \
  php${PHP_VER}-sockets \
  php${PHP_VER}-gettext \
  php${PHP_VER}-ldap \
  php${PHP_VER}-pgsql \
  php${PHP_VER}-opcache

PHP settings for the UI (create /etc/php/${PHP_VER}/fpm/conf.d/99-glaber.ini):

cat > /etc/php/${PHP_VER}/fpm/conf.d/99-glaber.ini <<'EOF'
max_execution_time=300
memory_limit=256M
post_max_size=16M
upload_max_filesize=2M
max_input_time=300
max_input_vars=10000
date.timezone=UTC
EOF

3.3 Build / development packages

Packages required to compile Glaber server, proxy, and agent (see configure.ac and build/*/SPECS/glaber.spec):

apt-get install -y \
  build-essential \
  gcc \
  g++ \
  make \
  autoconf \
  automake \
  libtool \
  pkg-config \
  libssl-dev \
  libpcre3-dev \
  libpq-dev \
  postgresql-client \
  libxml2-dev \
  libevent-dev \
  libcurl4-openssl-dev \
  libssh-dev \
  libldap2-dev \
  libopenipmi-dev \
  libsnmp-dev \
  snmp \
  unixodbc-dev \
  libgnutls28-dev \
  zlib1g-dev \
  libsqlite3-dev \
  default-jdk \
  golang-go

Optional (Agent 2 / Web Service, Java gateway, UI rebuild):

# Node.js LTS (for ui/ — Vite 7 needs a current LTS)
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_lts.x | bash -
apt-get install -y nodejs

# Composer is optional — PHP deps are vendored in ui/vendor/
# apt-get install -y composer

---

4. PostgreSQL installation and database initialization

4.1 Install PostgreSQL

Using the official PGDG repository (PostgreSQL 15):

install -d /usr/share/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://www.postgresql.org/media/keys/ACCC4CF8.asc \
  | gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/postgres.gpg

echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/postgres.gpg] \
  https://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt $(lsb_release -cs)-pgdg main" \
  > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pgdg.list

apt-get update
apt-get install -y postgresql-15 postgresql-client-15

systemctl enable --now postgresql

4.2 Create user and database

Database name: glaber, user: glaber, password: glaber.

sudo -u postgres psql <<'EOF'
CREATE USER glaber WITH PASSWORD 'glaber';
CREATE DATABASE glaber OWNER glaber ENCODING 'UTF8';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE glaber TO glaber;
\c glaber
GRANT ALL ON SCHEMA public TO glaber;
ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES IN SCHEMA public GRANT ALL ON TABLES TO glaber;
ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES IN SCHEMA public GRANT ALL ON SEQUENCES TO glaber;
EOF

Ensure local password authentication works. In /etc/postgresql/15/main/pg_hba.conf add (or adjust) before broader rules:

local   glaber          glaber                                  scram-sha-256
host    glaber          glaber          127.0.0.1/32            scram-sha-256
host    glaber          glaber          ::1/128                 scram-sha-256

Reload PostgreSQL:

systemctl reload postgresql

Verify login:

PGPASSWORD=glaber psql -h 127.0.0.1 -U glaber -d glaber -c 'SELECT 1;'

4.3 Import Glaber schema and seed data

4.3.1 Clean the database

Use this before a fresh import, or after a failed data.sql run left the database empty or inconsistent (ROLLBACK discards the whole data.sql transaction).

export PGPASSWORD=glaber

psql -h 127.0.0.1 -U glaber -d glaber <<'EOF'
DROP SCHEMA public CASCADE;
CREATE SCHEMA public;
GRANT ALL ON SCHEMA public TO glaber;
ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES IN SCHEMA public GRANT ALL ON TABLES TO glaber;
ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES IN SCHEMA public GRANT ALL ON SEQUENCES TO glaber;
EOF

To drop and recreate the database entirely (requires superuser, e.g. postgres):

sudo -u postgres psql <<'EOF'
DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS glaber;
CREATE DATABASE glaber OWNER glaber ENCODING 'UTF8';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE glaber TO glaber;
EOF

4.3.2 Build SQL files

From the repository root (requires ./bootstrap.sh and ./configure first):

cd /path/to/glaber

make dbschema

This generates database/postgresql/schema.sql and database/postgresql/data.sql (and schemas for other supported databases). For PostgreSQL only:

make dbschema_postgresql

4.3.3 Import schema, images, and data

Import in this order. images.sql must run before data.sql: seed data references map icons (sysmaps_elements.iconid_off → images.imageid). Importing data.sql first causes a foreign-key error and rolls back the entire transaction; later lines then only show current transaction is aborted.

cd /path/to/glaber
export PGPASSWORD=glaber

psql -h 127.0.0.1 -U glaber -d glaber -v ON_ERROR_STOP=1 -f database/postgresql/schema.sql
psql -h 127.0.0.1 -U glaber -d glaber -v ON_ERROR_STOP=1 -f database/postgresql/images.sql
psql -h 127.0.0.1 -U glaber -d glaber -v ON_ERROR_STOP=1 -f database/postgresql/data.sql

Verify:

PGPASSWORD=glaber psql -h 127.0.0.1 -U glaber -d glaber -c \
  "SELECT COUNT(*) AS users FROM users; SELECT COUNT(*) AS images FROM images;"

Expected: users = 2, images = 187 (approximate; depends on Glaber version).

---

5. ClickHouse installation and initialization

5.1 Install ClickHouse server

install -d /usr/share/keyrings
curl -fsSL 'https://packages.clickhouse.com/rpm/lts/repository.key' \
  | gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/clickhouse-keyring.gpg

echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/clickhouse-keyring.gpg] \
  https://packages.clickhouse.com/deb stable main" \
  > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/clickhouse.list

apt-get update
apt-get install -y clickhouse-server clickhouse-client

systemctl enable clickhouse-server

Set a password during package configuration when prompted, or configure users in the next section.

5.2 Prevent system log tables from growing

ClickHouse writes internal diagnostics to system.* tables (query_log, query_thread_log, metric_log, asynchronous_metric_log, part_log, etc.). On a dev machine these can consume significant disk space.

Create drop-in configs under /etc/clickhouse-server/config.d/ (same approach as build/appliance/run/ansible/roles/clickhouse/files/config.d/):

Disable metric and async metric logs — /etc/clickhouse-server/config.d/disable_metric_logs.xml:

<clickhouse>
    <metric_log remove="1" />
    <asynchronous_metric_log remove="1" />
</clickhouse>

Disable query thread log — /etc/clickhouse-server/config.d/disable_query_thread_log.xml:

<clickhouse>
    <query_thread_log remove="1"/>
</clickhouse>

Disable part log — /etc/clickhouse-server/config.d/disable_part_log.xml:

<clickhouse>
    <part_log remove="1" />
</clickhouse>

Disable other verbose system logs — /etc/clickhouse-server/config.d/disable_extra_logs.xml:

<clickhouse>
    <trace_log remove="1" />
    <text_log remove="1" />
    <session_log remove="1" />
    <opentelemetry_span_log remove="1" />
    <processors_profile_log remove="1" />
</clickhouse>

Option A — disable query_log entirely — /etc/clickhouse-server/config.d/disable_query_log.xml:

<clickhouse>
    <query_log remove="1" />
</clickhouse>

Option B — keep query_log with short TTL (use instead of Option A) — /etc/clickhouse-server/config.d/query_log.xml:

<clickhouse>
    <query_log replace="1">
        <database>system</database>
        <table>query_log</table>
        <flush_interval_milliseconds>30000</flush_interval_milliseconds>
        <engine>
          ENGINE = MergeTree
          PARTITION BY event_date
          ORDER BY (event_time)
          TTL event_date + INTERVAL 3 HOUR
          SETTINGS ttl_only_drop_parts=1
        </engine>
    </query_log>
</clickhouse>

Disable empty default password — /etc/clickhouse-server/config.d/disable_empty_password.xml:

<clickhouse>
    <allow_no_password>0</allow_no_password>
</clickhouse>

User profile: do not log queries — /etc/clickhouse-server/users.d/glaber.xml:

<clickhouse>
    <profiles>
        <default>
            <log_queries>0</log_queries>
        </default>
    </profiles>
    <users>
        <glaber>
            <password>glaber</password>
            <networks>
                <ip>::1</ip>
                <ip>127.0.0.1</ip>
            </networks>
            <profile>default</profile>
            <quota>default</quota>
        </glaber>
    </users>
</clickhouse>

Set ownership and restart:

chown -R clickhouse:clickhouse /etc/clickhouse-server/config.d /etc/clickhouse-server/users.d
systemctl restart clickhouse-server
systemctl status clickhouse-server

5.3 Create Glaber history schema

From the repository root:

cd /path/to/glaber

clickhouse-client --user glaber --password glaber --multiquery < database/clickhouse/schema.sql

Verify:

clickhouse-client --user glaber --password glaber --query "SHOW TABLES FROM glaber"

---

6. Build Glaber server from source

6.1 Compile and install

cd /path/to/glaber

./bootstrap.sh

./configure \
  --enable-server \
  --enable-proxy \
  --enable-agent \
  --with-postgresql \
  --with-openssl \
  --with-libcurl \
  --with-ldap \
  --with-libxml2 \
  --with-libevent \
  --with-net-snmp \
  --with-unixodbc \
  --with-ssh \
  --with-openipmi \
  --with-libpcre \
  --enable-ipv6 \
  --sysconfdir=/etc/glaber

make -j"$(nproc)"
make install

6.2 System user and runtime directories

Glaber daemons run as a dedicated glaber system account (separate from the PostgreSQL user glaber in section 4). Create the account and runtime paths before starting the server — the same layout is used in packaged installs (build/altlinux/*/SPECS/glaber.spec, build/astra/*/glaber-server*.init).

# System group and user (idempotent)
getent group glaber >/dev/null || groupadd --system glaber
getent passwd glaber >/dev/null || useradd --system \
  -g glaber \
  -d /var/lib/glaber \
  -s /usr/sbin/nologin \
  -c 'Glaber Monitoring System' \
  glaber

# Config directory
install -d -m 0755 /etc/glaber

# Logs, PID/IPC sockets, value-cache dumps (see conf/zabbix_server.conf)
install -d -m 0755 -o glaber -g glaber \
  /var/lib/glaber \
  /var/log/glaber \
  /var/run/glaber \
  /var/vcdump

# Optional: SNMP trap log (referenced in packaged server/proxy configs)
install -d -m 0755 -o glaber -g glaber /var/log/snmptrap

# Recreate /run/glaber after reboot (same as build/*/SOURCES/glaber-tmpfiles.conf)
cat > /etc/tmpfiles.d/glaber-server.conf <<'EOF'
d /run/glaber 0755 glaber glaber - -
EOF
systemd-tmpfiles --create /etc/tmpfiles.d/glaber-server.conf 2>/dev/null || true

Path	Purpose
/var/lib/glaber	Home directory for the glaber system user
/var/log/glaber	Server/proxy logs (LogFile=...)
/var/run/glaber	PID files and IPC sockets (PidFile=, SocketDir=)
/var/vcdump	Value-cache dump files (ValueCacheDumpLocation=)
/etc/glaber	Server/proxy/agent configuration

On Debian, /var/run is a symlink to /run; either path works.

6.3 Server configuration

Copy the sample config and set database and ClickHouse settings:

cd /path/to/glaber

cp conf/zabbix_server.conf /etc/glaber/glaber_server.conf
chown root:glaber /etc/glaber/glaber_server.conf
chmod 640 /etc/glaber/glaber_server.conf

Edit /etc/glaber/glaber_server.conf. At minimum, set paths and credentials (packaged installs use the same paths):

LogFile=/var/log/glaber/glaber_server.log
PidFile=/var/run/glaber/glaber_server.pid
SocketDir=/var/run/glaber

DBHost=127.0.0.1
DBName=glaber
DBSchema=public
DBUser=glaber
DBPassword=glaber

HistoryModule=clickhouse;{"url":"http://127.0.0.1:8123","username":"glaber","password":"glaber","dbname":"glaber","disable_reads":100,"timeout":10}

ValueCacheDumpLocation=/var/vcdump/
ValueCacheDumpFrequency=300

6.4 Run the server

# Foreground (dev)
cd /path/to/glaber
src/zabbix_server/glaber_server -c /etc/glaber/glaber_server.conf

# Or after make install
glaber_server -c /etc/glaber/glaber_server.conf

---

7. Web UI — install and run

7.1 Build frontend assets

cd /path/to/glaber/ui

npm install
npm run build:all

For active Vue/Tailwind development:

npm run dev          # Vite dev server with HMR
npm run watch:tailwind   # optional, separate terminal

See also ui/src/readme_en.md.

7.2 PHP configuration file

Create ui/conf/zabbix.conf.php from the example:

cd /path/to/glaber/ui

cp conf/zabbix.conf.php.example conf/zabbix.conf.php

Edit conf/zabbix.conf.php:

<?php
$DB['TYPE']     = 'POSTGRESQL';
$DB['SERVER']   = '127.0.0.1';
$DB['PORT']     = '5432';
$DB['DATABASE'] = 'glaber';
$DB['USER']     = 'glaber';
$DB['PASSWORD'] = 'glaber';
$DB['SCHEMA']   = 'public';

$ZBX_SERVER      = '127.0.0.1';
$ZBX_SERVER_PORT = '10051';
$ZBX_SERVER_NAME = 'Glaber Dev';

$IMAGE_FORMAT_DEFAULT = IMAGE_FORMAT_PNG;

Ensure the config file is not world-readable:

chown www-data:www-data conf/zabbix.conf.php
chmod 640 conf/zabbix.conf.php

7.3 PHP-FPM pool

Create /etc/php/${PHP_VER}/fpm/pool.d/glaber.conf:

[glaber]
user = www-data
group = www-data
listen = /run/php/glaber.sock
listen.owner = www-data
listen.group = www-data
listen.mode = 0660
pm = dynamic
pm.max_children = 20
pm.start_servers = 2
pm.min_spare_servers = 1
pm.max_spare_servers = 5

mkdir -p /run/php /var/lib/php/sessions
chown www-data:www-data /run/php /var/lib/php/sessions
systemctl restart php${PHP_VER}-fpm

7.4 nginx site

Create /etc/nginx/sites-available/glaber.conf (replace /path/to/glaber with the actual repo path):

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name _;

    root /path/to/glaber/ui;
    index index.php;

    location = /favicon.ico {
        log_not_found off;
    }

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }

    location /assets {
        access_log off;
        expires 10d;
    }

    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny all;
    }

    location ~ /(api/|conf[^.]|include|locale) {
        deny all;
        return 404;
    }

    location ~ [^/]\.php(/|$) {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/glaber.sock;
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
        fastcgi_index index.php;

        fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_ROOT /path/to/glaber/ui;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /path/to/glaber/ui$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_param PATH_TRANSLATED /path/to/glaber/ui$fastcgi_script_name;

        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_connect_timeout 60;
        fastcgi_send_timeout 180;
        fastcgi_read_timeout 180;
    }
}

Enable the site and reload nginx:

ln -sf /etc/nginx/sites-available/glaber.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/glaber.conf
rm -f /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
nginx -t
systemctl reload nginx

7.5 Open the web UI

1. Start PostgreSQL, ClickHouse, PHP-FPM, nginx, and glaber_server.
2. Open http://<host-ip>/ in a browser.
3. If conf/zabbix.conf.php is missing or invalid, the setup wizard at setup.php runs.
4. Default credentials after seed import: user Admin, password zabbix (change in production).

---

8. Start / stop checklist

# Services
systemctl start postgresql
systemctl start clickhouse-server
systemctl start php${PHP_VER}-fpm
systemctl start nginx

# Glaber server (foreground dev run)
cd /path/to/glaber
src/zabbix_server/glaber_server -c /etc/glaber/glaber_server.conf

Quick health checks:

PGPASSWORD=glaber psql -h 127.0.0.1 -U glaber -d glaber -c '\dt' | head
clickhouse-client --user glaber --password glaber --query "SELECT count(*) FROM glaber.history_str"
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" http://127.0.0.1/
ss -tlnp | grep -E '5432|8123|80|10051'

---

9. Troubleshooting

Symptom	Check
data.sql: current transaction is aborted	Not encoding — an earlier statement failed. Re-run with -v ON_ERROR_STOP=1 to see the first error. Often wrong import order: use schema.sql → images.sql → data.sql. Clean DB (section 4.3.1) and reimport.
violates foreign key constraint "c_sysmaps_elements_2"	images.sql not loaded before data.sql. Clean and reimport in correct order.
UI "Database error"	PostgreSQL running; zabbix.conf.php credentials; schema imported
UI setup wizard loops	ui/conf/zabbix.conf.php exists and is readable by www-data
Server won't start	DBPassword, DBHost, schema in /etc/glaber/glaber_server.conf; glaber user and dirs in section 6.2 exist and are owned by glaber:glaber
Server permission errors	/var/log/glaber, /var/run/glaber, /var/vcdump owned by glaber:glaber; config readable by glaber
ClickHouse disk growth	Log drop-ins in /etc/clickhouse-server/config.d/ applied; systemctl restart clickhouse-server
History not stored	ClickHouse schema loaded; HistoryModule in server config
PHP 500 errors	tail -f /var/log/nginx/error.log; FPM socket path matches nginx config

---

10. References in this repository

Topic	Location
Libraries and dependencies	docs/LIBRARIES_AND_DEPENDENCIES.md
PostgreSQL schema	database/postgresql/schema.sql, images.sql, data.sql (import in that order)
ClickHouse schema	database/clickhouse/schema.sql
ClickHouse log tuning (appliance)	build/appliance/run/ansible/roles/clickhouse/files/config.d/
Ansible production install	build/appliance/run/ansible/glaber.yaml
UI development	ui/src/readme_en.md
Server config example	conf/zabbix_server.conf