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Open source Enterprise Grafana Cloud
Last reviewed: September 8, 2026

Zabbix annotations

Annotations overlay event markers on graph panels, letting you correlate Zabbix problems and recovery events with metric data. When a Zabbix trigger fires or recovers, the annotation appears as a vertical line on the graph at the time the event occurred.

Before you begin

Add an annotation query

To add Zabbix annotations to a dashboard:

  1. Open a dashboard and click Dashboard settings (gear icon).
  2. Click Annotations in the left menu.
  3. Click Add annotation query.
  4. Select the Zabbix data source.
  5. Configure the annotation query fields described in the following sections.
  6. Click Apply.

Annotation query fields

Use the following fields to filter which Zabbix problems appear as annotations.

FieldDescription
GroupFilter by host group. Select from the drop-down or type a custom value. Supports regex and template variables.
HostFilter by host. Select from the drop-down or type a custom value. Supports regex and template variables.
ApplicationFilter by application. Select from the drop-down or type a custom value. Supports regex and template variables.
ProblemFilter by problem name, matched against the trigger name. A plain value must match the name exactly. To match partially, use a regex wrapped in forward slashes (for example, /CPU/) or a * wildcard (for example, High CPU*). Leave empty to include all problems.
Min severityShow only events at or above this severity level: Not classified, Information, Warning, Average, High, or Disaster.

Annotation options

These toggle options control which events appear and what information is displayed.

OptionDescription
Show OK eventsDisplay recovery (OK) events as annotations in addition to problem events.
Hide acknowledged eventsExclude problems that have been acknowledged in Zabbix.
Show hostnameAdd the hostname of each event as an annotation tag.

Annotation content

Each annotation is rendered from the matching Zabbix problem:

  • Title: Problem when the event is active or OK when it’s a recovery event.
  • Text: the problem (trigger) name, followed by acknowledgment details when the problem has been acknowledged.
  • Tags: the host names of the affected hosts when Show hostname is enabled.

Examples

Monitor high-severity events across production

Annotate a dashboard with only high-severity and disaster-level problems from your production servers.

  1. Set Group to the host group containing your production servers (for example, Production).
  2. Set Host to /.*/ to include all hosts in the group.
  3. Set Min severity to High.
  4. Enable Show OK events to see both when problems start and when they resolve.
  5. Enable Show hostname to identify which host triggered each event.

Annotate problems for a single host

Overlay all problems from one host onto its dashboard.

  1. Set Group to the host’s group (or leave it empty).
  2. Set Host to the exact host name (for example, web01).
  3. Leave Problem and Min severity at their defaults to include every problem.

Filter by problem name

Show only problems whose trigger name mentions CPU, regardless of severity.

  1. Set Group to /.*/ and Host to /.*/ to search all hosts.
  2. Set Problem to /CPU/ to match any trigger name containing CPU.

Because a plain value matches the trigger name exactly, use the regex form (/CPU/) or a wildcard (CPU*) for partial matches.

Show only unacknowledged problems

Reduce noise by hiding problems that an operator has already acknowledged in Zabbix.

  1. Configure the Group, Host, and Min severity filters for the events you care about.
  2. Enable Hide acknowledged events.

Next steps