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# 3 Item types

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#### Overview

Item types cover various methods of acquiring data from your system.
Each item type comes with its own set of supported item keys and
required parameters.

The following item types are currently offered by Zabbix:

-   [Zabbix agent](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/zabbix_agent)
    -   [Log file monitoring](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/zabbix_agent/log_items)
-   [Simple check](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/simple_checks)
    -   [VMware monitoring](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/simple_checks/vmware_keys)
-   [SNMP agent](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/snmp)
-   [SNMP trap](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/snmptrap)
-   [Zabbix internal](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/internal)
-   [Zabbix trapper](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/trapper)
-   [External check](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/external)
-   [Database monitor](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/odbc_checks)
-   [HTTP agent](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/http) 
    -   [Prometheus check](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/http/prometheus)
-   [IPMI agent](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/ipmi)
-   [SSH agent](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/ssh_checks)
-   [Telnet agent](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/telnet_checks)
-   [JMX agent](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/jmx_monitoring)
-   [Calculated item](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/calculated)
    -   [Aggregate calculations](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/calculated/aggregate)
-   [Dependent item](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/dependent_items)
-   [Script item](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/script)

Details for all item types are included in the subpages of this section.
Even though item types offer a lot of options for data gathering, there
are further options through [user
parameters](/manual/config/items/userparameters) or [loadable
modules](/manual/config/items/loadablemodules).

Some checks are performed by Zabbix server alone (as agent-less
monitoring) while others require Zabbix agent or even Zabbix Java
gateway (with JMX monitoring).

::: noteimportant
If a particular item type requires a particular
interface (like an IPMI check needs an IPMI interface on the host) that
interface must exist in the host definition.
:::

Multiple interfaces can be set in the host definition: Zabbix agent,
SNMP agent, JMX and IPMI. If an item can use more than one interface, it
will search the available host interfaces (in the order:
Agent→SNMP→JMX→IPMI) for the first appropriate one to be linked with.

All items that return text (character, log, text types of information)
can return whitespace only as well (where applicable) setting the return
value to an empty string (supported since 2.0).

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