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Install Zabbix Proxy configure and connect to Zabbix server on CentOS Linux

Thursday, May 4th, 2023

Install Zabbix Proxy configure and connect to Zabbix server on CentOS Linux

1. Why use Zabbix-Proxy hidden advantages of using Zabbix-Proxy ?
 

Proxy can be used for many purposes and can provide many hidden benefits, just to name few of them:

  • Offload Zabbix Server when monitoring thousands of devices
  • Monitor remote locations
  • Monitor locations having unreliable communications
  • Simplify maintenance of distributed monitoring
  • Improved Security (Zabbix server can be restricted to be connectable only by the set of connected Zabbix Proxy / Proxies


advantages-of-using-zabbix-proxy-instead-of-direct-connect-monitored-hosts-to-zabbix-server-diagram

 

A Zabbix proxy is the ideal solution if you have numerous hosts with multiple slow items that are affecting the performance of the server simply because processes are spending most of the time simply waiting for a response. A proxy can collect information from all hosts using its internal processes and then send raw historical data to the server. The time needed to connect and receive the host response will be on the proxy site, and the server performance will not be affected at all. A proxy just sends raw values to the server, and the server itself does not have to connect to the host to get the data.
 

2. Install zabbix-proxy-sqlite3 rpm package from Zabbix Official Repositories download page

Zabbix repository provides choice of 3 packages named as follows:

zabbix-proxy-mysql
zabbix-proxy-pgsql
zabbix-proxy-sqlite3

where the last value of the name (after zabbix-proxy) represents database type of the package — MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite respectively.

To not bother installing MySQL / PostgreSQL separate database servers, a lightweight choice is to use the sqlite3 db version. 
As I prefer zabbix-proxy data to be stored inside a flat database, thus I choose to use zabbix-proxy-sqlite3.

[root@sysadminshelp:/root ]# yum info zabbix-proxy-sqlite3-5.0.31-1.el7.x86_64
Заредени плъгини: fastestmirror
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
 * base: mirrors.netix.net
 * epel: fedora.ipacct.com
 * extras: mirrors.netix.net
 * remi: remi.mirror.karneval.cz
 * remi-php74: remi.mirror.karneval.cz
 * remi-safe: remi.mirror.karneval.cz
 * updates: mirrors.netix.net
Инсталирани пакети
Име         : zabbix-proxy-sqlite3
Архитект.   : x86_64
Версия      : 5.0.31
Издание     : 1.el7
Обем        : 4.4 M
Хранилище   : installed
Обобщение   : Zabbix proxy for SQLite3 database
URL         : http://www.zabbix.com/
Лиценз      : GPLv2+
Описание    : Zabbix proxy with SQLite3 database support.

My experience to try to install thethe default CentOS RPM package for zabbix-proxy-sqlite3 provided by default
RPM package that came with CentOS did not work as expected and trying to install / configure and use it via

[root@sysadminshelp:/root ]# yum install zabbix-proxy-sqlite3.x86_64 -y

[root@sysadminshelp:/root ]# vi /etc/zabbix/zabbix_proxy.conf


Led me to a nasty errors seen in /var/log/zabbixsrv/zabbix_proxy.log like:

May 1st 2023, 08:42:45.020 zabbix_server cannot set list of PSK ciphersuites: file ssl_lib.c line 1314: error:1410D0B9:SSL routines:SSL_CTX_set_cipher_list:no cipher match
May 1st 2023, 08:42:45.018 zabbix_server cannot set list of PSK ciphersuites: file ssl_lib.c line 1314: error:1410D0B9:SSL routines:SSL_CTX_set_cipher_list:no cipher match
May 1st 2023, 08:42:45.013 zabbix_server cannot set list of PSK ciphersuites: file ssl_lib.c line 1314: error:1410D0B9:SSL routines:SSL_CTX_set_cipher_list:no cipher match
May 1st 2023, 08:42:45.013 zabbix_server cannot set list of PSK ciphersuites: file ssl_lib.c line 1314: error:1410D0B9:SSL routines:SSL_CTX_set_cipher_list:no cipher match
May 1st 2023, 08:42:45.011 zabbix_server cannot set list of PSK ciphersuites: file ssl_lib.c line 1314: error:1410D0B9:SSL routines:SSL_CTX_set_cipher_list:no cipher match


After some googling and reading some threads came upon this one https://support.zabbix.com/browse/ZBXNEXT-3604, there is exmplaed errors preventing the configured zabbix-proxy
to start are caused by the zabbix-proxy-sqlite3 package provided by Redhat (due to openssl incompitability bug or something ).

As one of people in the discussion pointed out the quickest workaround suggested is simply to use the official Zabbix Repository packages for zabbix-proxy-sqlite3, in order to not waste anymore time on this
trivial stuff to install it, simply run:

[root@sysadminshelp:/root ]# rpm -Uvh \
https://repo.zabbix.com/zabbix/5.0/rhel/7/x86_64/zabbix-proxy-sqlite3-5.0.31-1.el7.x86_64.rpm

Alternative way if you seem to not have the machine connected to the internet is simply download the package with wget / lynx / curl / w3m from another machine 
that can reach the Internet upload the package via the local LAN or VPN and install it:

# wget https://repo.zabbix.com/zabbix/5.0/rhel/7/x86_64/zabbix-proxy-sqlite3-5.0.31-1.el7.x86_64.rpm …

[root@sysadminshelp:/root ]# rpm -ivh zabbix-proxy-sqlite3-5.0.31-1.el7.x86_64.rpm

NOTE ! Before you install proxy, keep in mind that your proxy version must match the Zabbix server version !

3. Generate a PSK random secret key and set proper permissions for zabbix-proxy directories


[root@sysadminshelp:/root ]# cd /etc/zabbix/
    
[root@sysadminshelp:/root ]# openssl rand -hex 32 >> /etc/zabbix/zabbix_proxy.psk     
[root@sysadminshelp:/root ]# chown root:zabbix zabbix_proxy.psk [root@sysadminshelp:/root ]# vi /etc/zabbix/zabbix_proxy.conf [root@sysadminshelp:/root ]# mkdir -p /var/lib/zabbix-proxy/sqlite3db
[root@sysadminshelp:/root ]# chown -R zabbix:zabbix /var/lib/zabbix-proxy
[root@sysadminshelp:/var/lib/zabbixsrv/sqlite3db]# sqlite3 zabbix_proxy
SQLite version 3.7.17 2013-05-20 00:56:22
Enter ".help" for instructions
Enter SQL statements terminated with a ";"
sqlite> .databases
seq  name             file
—  —————  ———————————————————-
0    main             /var/lib/zabbixsrv/sqlite3db/zabbix_proxy
sqlite> [root@sysadminshelp:/root ]# vi /etc/zabbix_proxy.conf
#DBName=zabbix_proxy
DBName=/var/lib/zabbixsrv/sqlite3db/zabbix_proxy

4. Configure zabbix proxy to be able to connect to Zabbix Server

[root@sysadminshelp:/root ]#  vi /etc/zabbix/zabbix_proxy.conf     ############ GENERAL PARAMETERS #################
    ProxyMode=0
    Server=192.168.1.28
    ServerPort=10051
    Hostname=zabbix-proxy
    ListenPort=10051
    SourceIP=10.168.1.55
    LogFile=/var/log/zabbix/zabbix_proxy.log
    LogFileSize=1
    DebugLevel=2
    PidFile=/var/run/zabbix/zabbix_proxy.pid
    DBName=/var/lib/zabbix-proxy/sqlite3db/zabbix_proxy.db
    DBUser=zabbix
    
    ######### PROXY SPECIFIC PARAMETERS #############
    ProxyOfflineBuffer=24
    HeartbeatFrequency=60
    ConfigFrequency=120
    
    ############ ADVANCED PARAMETERS ################
    StartPollersUnreachable=3
    StartHTTPPollers=3
    JavaGateway=127.0.0.1
    JavaGatewayPort=10052
    StartJavaPollers=5
    SNMPTrapperFile=/var/log/snmptrap/snmptrap.log
    StartSNMPTrapper=1
    CacheSize=32M
    Timeout=4
    ExternalScripts=/usr/lib/zabbix/externalscripts
    LogSlowQueries=3000
    
    ####### TLS-RELATED PARAMETERS #######
    TLSConnect=psk
    TLSAccept=psk
    TLSPSKIdentity=PSK zabbix-proxy-fqdn-hostname
    TLSPSKFile=/etc/zabbix/zabbix_proxy.psk

5. Check and make sure the installed zabbix proxy as well as the zabbix_proxy server zabbix_agentd client and zabbix_server are at the same major version release

a) Check zabbix proxy version

[root@sysadminshelp:/etc/zabbix]# zabbix_proxy -V
zabbix_proxy (Zabbix) 5.0.31
Revision f64a07aefca 30 January 2023, compilation time: Jan 30 2023 09:55:10

Copyright (C) 2023 Zabbix SIA
License GPLv2+: GNU GPL version 2 or later <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it according to
the license. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project
for use in the OpenSSL Toolkit (http://www.openssl.org/).

Compiled with OpenSSL 1.0.1e-fips 11 Feb 2013
Running with OpenSSL 1.0.1e-fips 11 Feb 2013
[root@sysadminshelp:/etc/zabbix]#

b) check zabbix_agentd version

[root@sysadminshelp:/etc/zabbix]# zabbix_agentd -V
zabbix_agentd (daemon) (Zabbix) 5.0.30
Revision 2c96c38fb4b 28 November 2022, compilation time: Nov 28 2022 11:27:43

Copyright (C) 2022 Zabbix SIA
License GPLv2+: GNU GPL version 2 or later <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it according to
the license. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project
for use in the OpenSSL Toolkit (http://www.openssl.org/).

Compiled with OpenSSL 1.0.1e-fips 11 Feb 2013
Running with OpenSSL 1.0.1e-fips 11 Feb 2013

c) Check zabbix server version

[root@zabbix:~]# zabbix_server -V
zabbix_server (Zabbix) 5.0.30
Revision 2c96c38fb4b 28 November 2022, compilation time: Nov 28 2022 09:19:03

Copyright (C) 2022 Zabbix SIA
License GPLv2+: GNU GPL version 2 or later <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it according to
the license. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project
for use in the OpenSSL Toolkit (http://www.openssl.org/).

Compiled with OpenSSL 1.1.1d  10 Sep 2019
Running with OpenSSL 1.1.1n  15 Mar 2022

6. Starting the zabbix-proxy for a first time

Before beginning with installation make sure selinux is disabled, as it might cause some issues with Zabbix

[root@sysadminshelp:/etc/zabbix]# sestatus
SELinux status:                 disabled

If you need to have the selinux enabled you will have to allow the zabbix-proxy into selinux as well:

# cd /tmp
# grep zabbix_proxy /var/log/audit/audit.log | grep denied | audit2allow -m zabbix_proxy > zabbix_proxy.te
# grep zabbix_proxy /var/log/audit/audit.log | grep denied | audit2allow -M zabbix_proxy
# semodule -i zabbix_proxy.pp


[root@sysadminshelp:/etc/zabbix]# systemctl start zabbix-proxy

Also lets enable zabbix-proxy to automatically start it on next server reboot / boot.

root@sysadminshelp:/etc/zabbix]# systemctl enable zabbix-proxy

Normally running zabbix-proxy should provide a status messages like:

[root@sysadminshelp:/etc/zabbix]# systemctl status zabbix-proxy
● zabbix-proxy.service – Zabbix Proxy
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/zabbix-proxy.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since чт 2023-05-04 14:58:36 CEST; 2h 59min ago
  Process: 8500 ExecStop=/bin/kill -SIGTERM $MAINPID (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 8504 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy -c $CONFFILE (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 8506 (zabbix_proxy)
   CGroup: /system.slice/zabbix-proxy.service
           ├─8506 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy -c /etc/zabbix/zabbix_proxy.conf
           ├─8507 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: configuration syncer [synced config 40521 bytes in 0.0…
           ├─8508 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: trapper #1 [processed data in 0.000808 sec, waiting fo…
           ├─8509 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: trapper #2 [processed data in 0.005028 sec, waiting fo…
           ├─8510 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: trapper #3 [processed data in 0.001240 sec, waiting fo…
           ├─8511 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: trapper #4 [processed data in 0.004378 sec, waiting fo…
           ├─8512 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: trapper #5 [processed data in 0.004991 sec, waiting fo…
           ├─8513 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: preprocessing manager #1 [queued 0, processed 3 values…
           ├─8514 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: preprocessing worker #1 started
           ├─8515 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: preprocessing worker #2 started
           ├─8516 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: preprocessing worker #3 started
           ├─8517 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: heartbeat sender [sending heartbeat message success in…
           ├─8518 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: data sender [sent 0 values in 0.005241 sec, idle 1 sec…
           ├─8519 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: housekeeper [deleted 4501 records in 0.011462 sec, idl…
           ├─8520 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: http poller #1 [got 0 values in 0.000248 sec, idle 5 s…
           ├─8521 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: http poller #2 [got 0 values in 0.000239 sec, idle 5 s…
           ├─8522 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: http poller #3 [got 0 values in 0.000328 sec, idle 5 s…
           ├─8523 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: discoverer #1 [processed 0 rules in 0.000261 sec, idle…
           ├─8524 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: history syncer #1 [processed 0 values in 0.000009 sec,…
           ├─8525 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: history syncer #2 [processed 0 values in 0.000007 sec,…
           ├─8526 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: history syncer #3 [processed 0 values in 0.000014 sec,…
           ├─8527 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: history syncer #4 [processed 0 values in 0.000021 sec,…
           ├─8528 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: java poller #1 [got 0 values in 0.000017 sec, idle 5 s…
           ├─8529 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: java poller #2 [got 0 values in 0.000019 sec, idle 5 s…
           ├─8530 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: java poller #3 [got 0 values in 0.000019 sec, idle 5 s…
           ├─8531 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: java poller #4 [got 0 values in 0.000018 sec, idle 5 s…
           ├─8532 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: java poller #5 [got 0 values in 0.000013 sec, idle 5 s…
           ├─8533 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: snmp trapper [processed data in 0.000026 sec, idle 1 s…
           ├─8534 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: self-monitoring [processed data in 0.000034 sec, idle …
           ├─8535 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: task manager [processed 0 task(s) in 0.000169 sec, idl…
           ├─8536 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: poller #1 [got 0 values in 0.000012 sec, idle 5 sec]
           ├─8537 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: poller #2 [got 0 values in 0.000021 sec, idle 5 sec]
           ├─8538 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: poller #3 [got 0 values in 0.000039 sec, idle 5 sec]
           ├─8539 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: poller #4 [got 0 values in 0.000024 sec, idle 5 sec]
           ├─8540 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: poller #5 [got 0 values in 0.000019 sec, idle 5 sec]
           ├─8541 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: unreachable poller #1 [got 0 values in 0.000011 sec, i…
           ├─8542 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: unreachable poller #2 [got 0 values in 0.000018 sec, i…
           ├─8543 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: unreachable poller #3 [got 0 values in 0.000041 sec, i…
           └─8544 /usr/sbin/zabbix_proxy: icmp pinger #1 [got 0 values in 0.000022 sec, idle 5 s…

май 04 14:58:36 sysadminshelp systemd[1]: Stopped Zabbix Proxy.
май 04 14:58:36 sysadminshelp systemd[1]: Starting Zabbix Proxy…
май 04 14:58:36 sysadminshelp systemd[1]: Started Zabbix Proxy.

zabbix-server-zabbix-proxy-and-zabbix-clients-overview-diagram

7. Configure zabbix-agentd to use your just new brand new zabbix-proxy

Here is my sample configuration file:

[root@sysadminshelp:/etc/zabbix]# grep -v \# /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf | sed '/^$/d'
PidFile=/var/run/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.pid
LogFile=/var/log/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.log
LogFileSize=0
Server=zabbix-proxy
ServerActive=zabbix-proxy:10051
ListenIP
Hostname=sysadminshelp
BufferSend=30
BufferSize=100
Include=/etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.d/*.conf


Note that the ServerActive given "zabbix-proxy" should be resolvable from the host, or even better you might want to put the IP of the Proxy if
you don't have at least a pseudo Hostname already configured inside /etc/hosts or actual DNS 'A' Active record configured inside a properly resolving
DNS server configured on the host via /etc/resolv.conf.


8. Create and Configure new proxy into the Zabbix-server host
 

Go to the zabbix server web interface URL into menus:

zabbix-administration-proxy-config
 

Administration -> Proxies (Proxy) 


Click on ;

Create Proxy button (uppper right corner)

*Proxy name: usually-your-host-pingable-fqdn
Proxy mode: Active
Proxy address: 192.168.1.50
Description: pcfreak zabbix proxy


Administration -> Proxies -> Encryption


From "Connection to proxy"

Untick "No encryption"

and

Tick "PSK"


zabbix-administration-proxy-config-encryption

*PSK Identity: PSK proxy
*PSK: Put the key here (copy from /etc/zabbix/zabbix_proxy.psk generated steps earlier with openssl)

[root@sysadminshelp:/etc/zabbix]# cat zabbix_proxy.psk
faddbd96be00ac42c892fda5201634df25d51f3ndbbbf6cee9d354b2817092a28

Press the "Update" Button

zabbix-administration-proxy-config-encryption1

and go again to Proxies and check the zabbix-proxy is connected to the server and hosts configured to use the zabbix proxy reporting frequently.

To make sure that the configured new hosts to use the Zabbix Proxy instead of direct connection to Zabbix Server, go to Latest Data and check whether the configured Hostnames to connect to the Zabbix-Proxy continues to sent Data still.

9. Debugging problems with zabix-proxy and zabbix-agentd connectivity to proxy

In case of troubles check out what is going on inside the Zabbix Proxy / Agent and Server log files
 

[root@sysadminshelp:/etc/zabbix]# tail -n 50 /var/log/zabbix/zabbix_proxy.log

 6832:20230504:134032.281 Starting Zabbix Proxy (active) [zabbix-proxy]. Zabbix 5.0.31 (revision f
64a07aefca).
  6832:20230504:134032.281 **** Enabled features ****
  6832:20230504:134032.281 SNMP monitoring:       YES
  6832:20230504:134032.281 IPMI monitoring:       YES
  6832:20230504:134032.281 Web monitoring:        YES
  6832:20230504:134032.281 VMware monitoring:     YES
  6832:20230504:134032.281 ODBC:                  YES
  6832:20230504:134032.281 SSH support:           YES
  6832:20230504:134032.281 IPv6 support:          YES
  6832:20230504:134032.281 TLS support:           YES
  6832:20230504:134032.281 **************************
  6832:20230504:134032.281 using configuration file: /etc/zabbix/zabbix_proxy.conf
  6832:20230504:134032.291 current database version (mandatory/optional): 05000000/05000005
  6832:20230504:134032.291 required mandatory version: 05000000
  6832:20230504:134032.292 proxy #0 started [main process]
  6833:20230504:134032.292 proxy #1 started [configuration syncer #1]
  6833:20230504:134032.329 received configuration data from server at "192.168.1.28", datalen 40521
  6834:20230504:134032.392 proxy #2 started [trapper #1]
  6835:20230504:134032.401 proxy #3 started [trapper #2]
  6836:20230504:134032.402 proxy #4 started [trapper #3]
  6838:20230504:134032.405 proxy #6 started [trapper #5]
  6837:20230504:134032.409 proxy #5 started [trapper #4]
  6843:20230504:134032.409 proxy #11 started [heartbeat sender #1]
  6845:20230504:134032.412 proxy #13 started [housekeeper #1]
  6847:20230504:134032.412 proxy #15 started [discoverer #1]
  8526:20230504:145836.512 proxy #20 started [history syncer #3]
  8517:20230504:145836.512 proxy #11 started [heartbeat sender #1]
  8530:20230504:145836.515 proxy #24 started [java poller #3]
  8531:20230504:145836.517 proxy #25 started [java poller #4]
  8532:20230504:145836.520 proxy #26 started [java poller #5]
  8536:20230504:145836.522 proxy #30 started [poller #1]
  8527:20230504:145836.525 proxy #21 started [history syncer #4]
  8535:20230504:145836.525 proxy #29 started [task manager #1]
  8533:20230504:145836.528 proxy #27 started [snmp trapper #1]
  8539:20230504:145836.528 proxy #33 started [poller #4]
  8538:20230504:145836.529 proxy #32 started [poller #3]
  8534:20230504:145836.532 proxy #28 started [self-monitoring #1]
  8544:20230504:145836.532 proxy #38 started [icmp pinger #1]
  8543:20230504:145836.532 proxy #37 started [unreachable poller #3]
  8542:20230504:145836.535 proxy #36 started [unreachable poller #2]
  8541:20230504:145836.537 proxy #35 started [unreachable poller #1]
  8540:20230504:145836.540 proxy #34 started [poller #5]
  8507:20230504:150036.453 received configuration data from server at "192.168.1.28", datalen 40521
  8507:20230504:150236.503 received configuration data from server at "192.168.1.28", datalen 40521
  8507:20230504:150436.556 received configuration data from server at "192.168.1.28", datalen 40521
  8507:20230504:150636.608 received configuration data from server at "192.168.1.28", datalen 40521
  8507:20230504:150836.662 received configuration data from server at "192.168.1.28", datalen 40521
…

 

[root@sysadminshelp:/etc/zabbix]# tail -n 10  /var/log/zabbix-agent/zabbix_agentd.log
3096166:20230504:182840.461 agent #1 started [collector]
3096167:20230504:182840.462 agent #2 started [listener #1]
3096168:20230504:182840.463 agent #3 started [listener #2]
3096169:20230504:182840.464 agent #4 started [listener #3]
3096170:20230504:182840.464 agent #5 started [active checks #1]

If necessery to Debug further and track some strange errors, you might want to increase the DebugLevel to lets say DebugLevel=5

5 – extended debugging (produces even more information)

If checking both zabbix_agentd.log and zabbix_proxy.log cannot give you enough of a hint on what might be the issues you face with your userparameter scripts or missing Monitored data etc. and hopefully you have access to the zabbix-server machine, check out the zabbix server log as well

[root@zabbix:~]# tail -n 100 /var/log/zabbix/zabbix_server.log

3145027:20230504:182641.556 sending configuration data to proxy "zabbix-proxy" at "192.168.1.50", datalen 40521, bytes 6120 with compression ratio 6.6
3145029:20230504:182716.529 cannot send list of active checks to "192.168.1.30": host [pcfrxenweb] not found
3145028:20230504:182731.959 cannot send list of active checks to "192.168.1.30": host [pcfrxenweb] not found
3145029:20230504:182756.634 cannot send list of active checks to "192.168.1.30": host [pcfrxenweb] not found

Wrapping it up

In this article, we have learned how to install and configure a zabbix-proxy server and prepare a PSK encryption secret key for it.
We learned also  how to connect this server to the central zabbix monitoring host machine in Active mode, so both Zabbix proxy and server can communicate in a secure crypted form,
as well as how to set zabbix_agentd clients to connect to the zabbix proxy
which will from itself send its data to the Central Zabbix server host as well as how to Debug and hopefully solve issues with communication between Zabbix client -> Zabbix Proxy -> Zabbix server.

I know this article, does not say anything revolutionary and there is plenty of posts online talking about how to run yourself a zabbix proxy and make in your home or corporate network,
but I thought to write it down as by writting it and reading a bit more on the topic of Zabbix Server / Proxy / Agent, that give myself a better overview on how this technologies work and such an article will give myself an easier step by step guide to follow,
in future when I have to configure Zabbix Environments for personal hobby or professionally for customers.
Hope you enjoyed. Cheers ! 🙂

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Short history on how 8 of March Woman International Day (IWD) made up feast replaced the Real Woman Day celebrated on the Christian feast of Annunciation

Wednesday, March 8th, 2023

International Woman's day short history - 8 of march beautiful flowers - Triumph of Woman
International Woman's Day was first observed in 1911, by more than a million people around the world.
​Today is therefore the centennial observance, which is being celebrated with events in more than 100 countries, including Israel.

The International Woman Day (IWD) or the Triumph of Women has been growing as a great day to celebrate the achievemts of woman in history and their significance but most people know little or near nothing regarding that feast, that was disguised by the free world as it was connected to Communist countries of the United States of Soviet Republic (USSR) and today's People's Republic of China and Vietnam and only in 1975 accepted to be the International Woman Day be the United Nations.

Origin of 8 of March Woman's day

The earliest reported Women's Day observance, called "National Woman's Day", was held on February 28, 1909, in New York City, organized by the Socialist Party of America[14] at the suggestion of activist Theresa Malkiel.There have been claims that the day was commemorating a protest by women garment workers in New York on March 8, 1857, but researchers have alleged this to be a myth intended to detach International Women's Day from its socialist origin.

In August 1910, an International Socialist Women's Conference was organized ahead of the general meeting of the Socialist Second International in Copenhagen, Denmark. However, what made history for the modern celebration of International Women's Day, according to the ILO, was the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York City on March 25, 1911, which killed 146 young workers, most of whom were immigrants.
Inspired in part by the American socialists, German delegates Clara Zetkin, Käte Duncker, Paula Thiede, and others proposed the establishment of an annual "Women's Day", although no date was specified. The 100 delegates, representing 17 countries, agreed with the idea as a strategy to promote equal rights, including women's suffrage.
 
The following year, on March 19, 1911, the first International Women's Day was marked by over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. In Austria-Hungary alone, there were 300 demonstrations,with women parading on the Ringstrasse in Vienna, carrying banners honoring the martyrs of the Paris Commune. Across Europe, women demanded the right to vote and to hold public office, and protested against employment sex discrimination.
IWD initially had no set date, though it was generally celebrated in late February or early March. Americans continued to observe "National Women's Day" on the last Sunday in February, while Russia observed International Women's Day for the first time in 1913, on the last Saturday in February (albeit based on the Julian calendar, as in the Gregorian calendar, the date was March 8).

In 1914, International Women's Day was held on March 8 for the first time in Germany, possibly because that date was a Sunday. As elsewhere, Germany's observance was dedicated to women's right to vote, which German women did not win until 1918. Concurrently, there was a march in London in support of women's suffrage, during which Sylvia Pankhurst was arrested in front of Charing Cross station on her way to speak in Trafalgar Square.

8 of March in Modern Times the socialist faux for Annunciation

However as the Soviet system of USSR collapsed in the 1992, the feast started to take heet among other Western countries quickly, now to the point that even some country regions in Western europe do celebrate 8 of March in some kind of a form, today it is under some form celebrated or marked to more than 100+ countries.

The feast started originally in America (United States) on 27 February 1909 in New Year and has walked its way until it become official with many turmoils, public strikes of woman and woman rage. A key

What has to be said is 8 of March has been a Public feast of Great importance among all the countries from Soviet Russia (USSR) and its satellites for many years now. 

In ex-USSR not venerating the woman nearby by at least flower giving is near a crime deed, and even for a traditionally Orthodox Christian countries, where there is already a feast of triumph and Veneration of woman the day of Annunciation, 8 of March is continuously celebrated even though nowadays the original meaning of the feast as a riot of woman against unequality in socity has nearly turn to a cult towards the woman for a day.

Every year, thousands of inhabitants of the planet will celebrate a world holiday – International Women's Day, which is celebrated on March 8.

But we as Christians who live in the Church should celebrate the feast of the saint commemorated respectively and not the public holiday, which of this year is Saint Teophilakt (Bishop of Necomedia).

Many of the Christian women will accept flowers from their husbands and children, many of them especially from ex-Soviet space will celebrate women's day and even require, their portion of flowers or feel ignored if they don't.

We will celebrate it too, wishfully or not almost forced  … forgetting that the real day of the Mother and the woman is on March 25 on the Great and Beautiful feast of Annunciation, the date on which the Holy Theotokos (Virgin Mary) has received the Angel with the good news that she is about to become a Mother of The Lord Jesus Christ.

For the historical reference it is worthy to make a short historic review of the International Woman Day, for those who still value the feast as a feast that fits well together with the Christian doctrines.

March 8 – Women's Day, this holiday was first celebrated on February 28, 1909 in the USA at the initiative of the American Socialist Party and later become one of the leverages for Communist party worldwide to put attractiveness to their agendas.

The idea of creating an international women's day appeared after the rapid industrialization and economic expansion of the early 20th century, which gave rise to woman protests for the improvement of working conditions.

Historic time of the day is associated with the first mass demonstration of women workers, which took place on March 8, 1857 in New York.

Women from sewing and textile enterprises come out to protest against poor working conditions and low wages, which had a good point as America was a country which still tolerated even Black slavery of the time.

The female workers protesters were attacked and dispersed by the police, as this was seen as a social misconduct dangerous for society by the police officers back then.

Two years later, on the same month, these women formed their first trade union.

In the following years, other protests followed, the most famous of which was in 1908, when women organized a march through New York with demands for a shorter working day, better payment fees and the right to vote.

In 1965, March 8 was officially announced as a non-working day and women's holiday in the USSR. And even today the day is non-working in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union – Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, as well as in Macedonia and Mongolia etc as well as in Communist China and Vietnam.

In my homeland country Bulgaria (the history of the feast is entangled with the history of socialist oriented parties in it).
March 8 was initially "celebrated" with orgnized public talks in a narrow circle of socialists in 1911, in 1915 was the first public celebration, but the kingship and government back of the day did not look well towards this trend, even though tolerated it.

As a general standard Bulgarian holiday, March 8 began to be celebrated after September 9, 1944 with the raise of communism (and the communist revolution – that was very much externally imported by the USSR sent agents) at the finalizing days of World War II.

At first, following the trend of the newly installed pro-bolshevik governments, different meetings were held in various nationalized enterprises, factories, and institutions, where the contribution of women in production, culture, science, and public life was taken into account and praised.

After 1960, the celebration took on particularly wide proportions and became a favorite holiday of women and men of all ages, especially in government offices, perhaps also as an attempts for communist to show the betternes of the socialist regime installed in the country. To reinburse the feeling of the importance of the feast the day was made official non-working day, together with other partheon of imaginative feasts without much meaning, like is for example 1st of March, The day of Labor, the day of the Shepherd and other artificial communist party members made up ones.

The day since then has become a public holiday in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Cuba, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Montenegro and Vietnam.

As the Communist led countries parties did not have a good set of traditions, they had to set new ones and started the trend to celebrate the feast through men giving flowers to the women around them – mothers, wives, girlfriends, colleagues. As the times of Communist isolation and dictatorship in this countries was harsh time for the people, any kind of feast that can give some freshness to the gray daily routine of the working class was well and quickly accepted by society.

Gifting a flower was also advantegous for many people, as this was another way to sell flowers and make some extra cash for the poor 🙂

Internetioanl Woman Day in some of the mentioned countries including Bulgaria in the past was celebrated as the equivalent of Mother's Day, where children give small gifts to their mothers and grandmothers.

And I remember when I was still in the kindergarden, we had a task to prepare special post-cards for mom with a photo of ourselves and a written text like “Mother I love you”.

After reading this short story, it will not become clear, but for the elder people it was that the holiday was not really of a big importance and was one of the many inventions of the party to build the new communist man “homo sovieticus”.

Why 8 of March was not a considered big deal in the past?

Because in 1944, the socialist party changed a traditional holiday in Bulgaria, Mother's Day, and instead of the Annunciation, that was already a public holiday dedicated to the mother / women on 25 of March, the date was moved to March 8.

A proof to that is in history, here is what was said in a message to Radio Sofia in year 1943.
– "On the Annunciation., His Eminence Metropolitan Stefan will celebrate in the metropolitan church "Saint Sophia", a temple holiday of the same, the bishop's Holy Liturgy, and the day before – a great bishop's vespers with Pentecost at 6 p.m. In 4:30 p.m. on the occasion of Mother's Day, on behalf of the church and the women's committee from the brotherhood, our famous writer and public figure Konstantin Petkanov will speak in the "Saint Sophia" church, on the topic: The Christian heart of the Bulgarian woman ". Before and after the story, the church choir will perform appropriate chants.”

This is how our ancestors celebrated mother's day, on the day of the Mother of God, when the archangel announced the great joy that the Messiah would come to redeem the world from sin. And about whether the Christian woman is equal to the man, that should be clear, for anything who has a head. By simple physiologyand psycho-somatism, woman and man are different, however in spiritual sense in the eyes of God both male and female are equal and wonderfully made by the Good god.
A proof for the spiritual equality of man and woman are the words of Saint Apostle Paul, who says:

"There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Gal. 3:28).

In the Church, this is also the interesting and captivating thing, that everyone has their place there where he is set on, their work, their home, everyone is given his own talent to develop.

Eight of March Epitaph

Showing respect and appreciation for a woman by bying her a flower on 8th of March is a good thing, but then again this can be done any other day and each of us man who love and venerate our mothers and wifes do it every now and then.
There is also little known facts, that one who digs deeper in history of 8 of March will certainly found, which can stun him and not everything around the feast is so white and shiny as most people thing nowadays. 
But of course it is rather better to make the flower gift on the true feast when the Church and the elements and universe together with it celebartes it, and on the date when our ancestors venerated their woman too for hundreds of years before us on the Annunciation.

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The Great Epiphany, appearance of God to Men and Manifestation of the Son of God by the Baptism in River Jordan. A short biography and history of the feast and its meaning

Friday, January 6th, 2023

Epiphany-Theophany-Bogojavlenie-icon-from-miniature-of-Tomichov_psaltir_16-century

Epiphany (Богоявление) icon minituature of Tomichev Psaltir (year circa 1380)

"And behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on Him. And behold, a voice from heaven, which said: This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased." (Matt. 3:16-17)

Bogoyavlenie-Epiphany-the-Baptism-of-Christ-by-John-the-Forerunner

The Baptism of Christ Ravenna Basillica – Mosaic V century

There is clear evidence of the celebration of this most ancient feast of the Lord as early as the 2nd century, but by the 4th century it was combined with the Nativity of Christ.
The common holiday for both events was called “Epiphany”, because at His baptism in the waters of the Jordan, Jesus Christ appeared to the world for public service and his hypostasis as Son of God has been manifested by the Descendent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a Pure Dove.
Through His birth He appeared to the world in the flesh. In ancient times the celebration of Epiphany (Theophany) and Nativity (Christmas) according to many liturgists has been celebrated on a single date by the whole Worldly Church both in East in West, North and South.

The term Theophany was less used though as Theophany is distinguished by the word Epiphany as (Theophany) has been a word used to also mark celebrated by Greek paganistic false believes, whether Epiphany has a meaning of the Christian meaning of God’s revealing himself for the world by the Baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ Son of God.

Later, the Church for different reasons the decided to celebrate the two events separately – on December 25 the Nativity of Christ, and on January 6 – the Epiphany.

01.06_Epiphany-Theophany-Krashtenie-1290-Panselinos-Protata

Theophany (One of the best considered iconographers Panselinos Protata circa year 1290)

There are too few details about the earthly life of the Lord Jesus Christ before His baptism, which we can find in the pages of the Gospel narratives as God decided to keep his aspect of his earthly presence in the flesh a secret to be only revealed in the Life in Heaven, where those chosen and sanctified by his All Filling Grace through the mysterious of the Church and all those will receive salvation will see and understand why this was hidden by us while being in the flesh .

The Saviour, Who truly strove

“And Jesus answering said unto him,Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him” (Matt. 3:15),

waited until he had reached the age of 30, required by Jewish custom for every priest or teacher, and before going out to preach publicly, he accepted the baptism of His Forerunner saint John the Baptist whose feast day is on 7th of January just a day after the day of Epiphany.

Shortly before that, John the Baptist, the son of priest Zacharias and Elizabeth, had begun his penitential preaching at God's command

Epiphany-Baptism-of-Christ-Daphni-mosaic-XI-century

Baptismal of Christ Daphni XI century mosaic

“These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing.” (John 1:28). John was the Angel predicted by the prophet Malachi, who was supposed to prepare the way of the Lord (Matt. 3:1).

The great Old Testament Prophet Isaiah also spoke about him:
"The voice of one crying in the wilderness says: prepare the way of the Lord, make the paths of our God in the wilderness" (Is. 40:3). His call: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" (Matt. 3:2)

attracted the attention of even the Pharisees and Sadducees. (Matt. 3:7). People from all walks of life approached him with anxiety and trust. Priests and Levites from among the Pharisees were sent to him from Jerusalem to ask him:

"Why do you baptize, if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?" (John 1:19, 25),

Kryshtenie-Gospodne-Theophany-praznuvame-krashtenie-Gospodne

and John answered them:
"I baptize with water, but one stands among you, whom you do not know. He is the one who is coming after me, who preceded me, and whom I am not worthy to unbind the thong of His shoe" (John 1:26-27).

And behold, this One came!

"from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him. And John restrained him and said: I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me? But Jesus answered him and said : Leave it now; for thus it behooves us to fulfill all righteousness. Then John admits Him" (Matt. 3:13-15).

Beautiful-orthodox-christian-icon-Theophany-Epipihany-Baptismal-of-Christ

"And when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus, after being baptized, was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form, like a dove" (Luke 3:21).

"And behold, a voice from heaven, which said: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 3:17).

At the baptism of Jesus Christ, this great secret was announced to the world, about which the Old Testament only hinted and about which ancient Egypt and India only spoke in fables – the secret of the Divine Trinity.

The Father appeared to our hearing, the Spirit appeared to human sight, and the Son – to our touch in His many years of communication with men.

The (Heavenly) Father gave His testimony about the Son, the Son was baptized, and the Holy Spirit like a dove flew over the water.

Through the testimony of John: "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29) and through the baptism of Jesus, Christ's mission was shown to the world and the way of our salvation was indicated.

Namely: by immersing in the waters of the Jordan, the Lord took upon Himself the sins of the human race and died under its burden, and coming out of the water shows His coming to life, His resurrection. And in us, through holy Baptism, the old sinful and cursed man must die and we come out of the holy (baptismal) font as revived, cleansed, renewed and reborn.

The Feast of the Epiphany is also called Enlightenment, because the Jordanian event enlightens us by showing us God manifested in the unfathomable mystery of the consubstantial and indivisible Trinity. Each of us through Holy Baptism is adopted by the Father of Light through the merit of the Son and through the power of the Holy Spirit. For this enlightenment, he also praised the Epiphany’s Kontaktion found in the Church service book of Menaion:

"You have appeared today to the universe, and Your light, Lord, has reflected upon us who wisely sing to You: you have come and appeared, Light unapproachable."

The feast of the Epiphany is connected with the great consecration of water, which should remind us that at the banks of the Jordan River, God has renewed through water and the Spirit our nature that has become stale from sin.

© Lives of the Saints. Synodal Publishing House, Sofia, 1991, edited by Parthenius, Bishop of Lefkada and Archimandrite Dr. Athanasius (Bonchev) with few minor inclusions and clearances by hip0 (Georgi D. Georgiev)

 

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Saint Hieromartyr Therapont of Serdika ( Sofia ) martyred year † 1555 for Christ

Thursday, May 26th, 2022

Saint Therapontius of Serdika is celebrated every year on on May 27 in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, together with St. Holy Martyrs Therapont of Sardis († 259). He is born and lived in the ancient city of Serdika (today Sofia).

He is part of the nine saints of Sofia, that are celebrated in the Church throughout the Liturgical year.

A little is known of him and just like the martyrologies of much of the ancient saints, we have only few sentences left mentioning his great martyrdom for Christ, along with other local Bulgarian saints. He has a written  celebration service in the Minelogion Church book for  27-th of May.
Minelogion for those unaware is one of the service books used in the Night and Morning services songs and containing services details about the glorified saints for each day of the year.

Saint-Therapontius-Theraponti-of-Serdika-Sofia-Sveti-Terapont-Sofiiski

Troparion of the Holy Martyr, voice 4
He became a partaker of morals and viceroy of the apostles
in the way of your contemplation, inspired by God, you have done deeds,
therefore you have faithfully taught the word of truth,
for his faith he suffered even to the point of blood,
Holy Martyr Therapont, beg the Christ God to save our souls.

 

Saint Hieromartyr Therapont of Roman Fortress Serdika ( Sofia )
The famous Bulgarian medieval historian Matei Gramatik, who was a contemporary of Saint Nicholas of Sofia (a 15h century famous Bulgarian martyr saint) and a witness to his martyrdom in 1555, who wrote his biography with great skill, writes about this holy martyr. There he describes the situation in which St. Nicholas of Sofia lived – both geographically and spiritually.
In his description of the spiritual situation, he gives brief information about the saints of Sofia, including St. Terapont of Serdica (Sofia). He writes:

Saint-hieromartyr-Theraponti-Therapontius-of-Serdika-Sofia-icon

"When you listen for the inhabitants of Sofia, don't think about the current contemporary ones,
but for the heavenly ones, who were once co-inhabitants of us and now live with the angels.
So forth it is beneficial, to tell about 2 , 3 of them. The holy hieromartyr Therapontius, who
being a citizen of this place and a presbyter of the holy God's Church in Serdika (Sofia), lived filled
with lot of virtues and at the end, during the persecutions of Christians, has been detained by guards
by the lawless for his Christ confession. After a lot of martyrs and being enchained with a heavy
iron chains, he has been put out of the city and on a distance of one day walking, on
this place he was beheaded and henceforth he received a martyrs death for Christ.
They say on the place where his blood was shed, in that time a large oak tree has grown  and it is seen until today and there a lot of miraculous healings occur,
whenever one comes with faith."

Today a part of this trunk of the oak is kept as a sacred relic in the ancient Sofia's capital ancient church "St. Petka", where the memory of the holy martyr is celebrated every year on May 27.

Translated from: © Lives of the Saints Book. Synodal Publishing House, Sofia, 1991, edited by Parthenius, Bishop of Lefkada and Archimandrite Dr. Athanasius (Bonchev).


Another Bulgarian saint Paisios of Hilendar / Paisij Hilendarski (1722 – 1773) also mentions in his history book History of the Slavo-Bulgarians states: "There are three holy martyrs in the city of Sofia:
1) St. George;
2) St. Nicholas;
3) St. Terapontius.

This saint was a priest in town of Tran, where many people now go for healing. Where in the Turks has slayered the saint a an oak greaw and with his prayers a lot of healing is given on the place of this oak. Same manner Saints George and Nicholas suffered from the godless Turks during Selim's reign; and their holy relics give healing in this city of Sofia. "

Icon Images of St. Therapontius are known to exist today from the XIX century. There are icons icons in the Sofia church "St. Paraskeva ”, in Pernik, in the church of " St. Petka ” in Sofia, fresco in the church“ St. Dimitar ” in the village of Yarlovtsi, Transko, wherein used to an icon also whose location now is unknown.

In Tran and Godech respectively there were folk customs associated with the saint and therein and in the region he is revered as a healer and protector of the harvests.
There is also a cave in Trun, which is indicated as a refuge for the saint.
A chapel in his name was in the city, burned by the Turks in the 30s of the XIX century.

In Glory of St. Terapontius of Sofia during the Second World War and until 1957 was dedicated the Revival church "Holy Trinity ", today – Saint Great-martyr (Mina)  Menas, in the Slatina district of Sofia. The church was built on the remains of the monastery “Holy  Trinity", according to mouth to mouth tradition kept for ages. 

According to the legend, the saint was slaughtered here and this gives some reason to presume that St. Terapontius might have been one of the spiritual fathers who were serving in the monastery at that time.

Let by the holy prayers of Saint Terapont God gives forgives to our multitude of transgressions and grants more Peace, Love, Hope, Faith and goodness to everyone !

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Little known facts about the dedication to Saint Martyr George The Glory-Bringer and his veneration across contries and religions

Saturday, May 8th, 2021

saint-George-Fanuilska-icon-Zographous-Monastery-Mount-Athos

  • Largest part of body holy relics of the saints are kept in the town of Lod city 15 km (9.3 mi) southeast of Tel Aviv in the Central District of Israel. Back in the history due to the emerging veneration for saint George by both Christians and Muslims the town was temporary holding the name Georgioupolis, while his head relics is kept in Rome. There is a coptic monastery in Cairo pretending to hold personal belongings of saint George. In Saint Catherine Monastery (Mount of Sinai) are kept the three fingers of the arm of st. George. Churches dedicated to the saint started being built across the Roman empire even in the fourth century quite soon after his martyrdom, highest concentration of monasteries in his honor were born in Palestine. Biographics (Living) of saint George are written by the Byzantine authors saint Andreas of Cretes (written in 8-th century), Arcadius of Cyprus, Teodoris Quaestor, saint Gregory of Cyprus, saint Saint Symeon the Metaphrast (written 10th century).


saint-Simeon-Metaphrastes-icon

Saint Simeon Metaphrast (μεταφράξειν – translator and a historian of Byzantine empire passed on to Christ, 960 year famous for collecting and systemizing biographies of many saints, his works are important source of history on Byzantine empire)

  • Hundreds of Apocrypths are dedicated to the glorious living of the saint and his amazing miracles, written mainly in Latin, Greek, Syrac, Arabian, Coptic, Ethiopian and other multitude of other languages. The most famous apocrypha on saint is so called "Greek Vienna's Palimpsest" (5th century). as well as the "The Deeds of Saint George" (from 6-th century., as well as "The Martyrdom of George" etc. The Apocrypha's text are evidently full of hyperbolas and many unhistorical facts different from the true living facts of the saint. The fallacies and apocryphas have been condemned by the Decretum Gelasianum ( thought to be Decretal of the prolific Pope Gelasius I, bishop of Rome 492–496 ) as heretical and blemish for the memory of the saint.


Saint-George-The_Miracle-saving-of-princess-from-the-Dragon-Decani_monastery_Serbia_Circa-14-century
The miracle of Saving the Princess from the Dragon (one of the many apocryphas tradition about st. George) – Depiction Decani Monastery Serbia

  • Saint great martyr George together with The Holy Theotokos Mother Mary is a protector of Georgia (the country near Russia and not the State of the US :)).


Georgian_icon_of_Saint_George_521

Georgian Metal carved ancient icon of saint George

In Georgia the local verbal tradition assigns a family relation with the first missionary and Baptizer of Georgia saint Nino. The first Church dedicated to saint George in Georgia is built in year 335 ! by King Mirian on the burial place of Saint Nino. In 1098 year saint George has been proclaimed protector of England, after appearing in a vision to the participants to Crusades of that time. One hundred years later during reign of Richard the Lion Heart the status of protector of the Army becomes an official in the West. In year 1222 The Synod of Oxford decides, that saint George is to be venerated throughout the whole kingdom of England on 23 of April (old style calendar) – 6th of May in the current Gregorian public calendar we use – still venerated on the same date in Bulgaria even to this day, while the remembrance day of the saint has been publicly proclaimed as labor free.

Byzantine-orthodox-icon-of-saint-George-XIV-century

  • In 14th century he is proclaimed a protector of England. In the beginning of 20th century the creator of the Scout Movement Lord Baden-Powell choose saint George for a protector of the Scouts. Saint George is considered protector of Moscow and Catalonia, until 18th century he was officially venerated as a protector of Portugal. In Greece he is venerated as agios Georgios, in Russia he is venerated under alternative names Jurij / Yurij (Юрий) and Egorij (Егорий). In year 1030 Grand prince of Kiev Yaroslav established in Kiev and Novgorod monasteries in honour of saint George (Yuriev Monastery) and gives an order the remembrance of saint George to be considered throughout Russian on 26th of November. The saint has been commonly depicted in Kings coins and seals. In Islam Saint George is famous under the name Djordjis (Djordjic).


saint-George-icon-what-infidel-saw-that-believer-did-not

  • His Living is translated in Arabian in the beginning of 8th century and through Arabian-Christians becomes popular among Arabian-muslims. In Arabian apocrypha text his biography is included in "The History of Prophets and Kings" from the 10-th century, where he is presented as a pupil of one of the apostles of Isa Īsā ibn Maryam (Jesus son of Mary). In the Islamic apocrypha st. George is said to have been put to tortures, but even though killed multiple times he always have been resurrected by Allah as a faithful servent. In some Arabian icons on the horse of saint George there is a small human figure with a muslim clothes and a water vessel at hand.


saint-George-Islam-manuscript-depiction

  • The iconography depicts also the miracle in Ramela that happened during a Church being built in dedication of Saint George, where one of the bought from far a stone pillar for the Church by a poor widow has been transferred by saint George miraculously via the sea by his all powerful prayer and placed to be the second Church holder right sight holder as well as the miracle when a Saracen Muslim soldier shoot towards the icon depiction of st George as an attempt to show that the saint icon is nothing more than a painted tree and immediately onwards his hand started unbearable hurting.


saint-George-Araviiska-Miracle-making-icon-Zograph-Monastery-Holy-Mount-Athos-Sv_Georgi_Aravijska_icona

Saint George's (Aravijska)'s Miracle Making icon of Holy Mount Athos Zographous Monastery St. Mrtr. George the GloryBringer

  • The healing of the unberable came only after a Christian priest give the adive to the soldier to light up a sanctuary lamp in front of the same icon of saint George and to annoint himself with the oil from the burning chancel-lamp. After the miraculous healing the soldier confessed to be Christian and has been immediately punished with a maryrdom death. The name of the martyr is not preserved but the miraculous event is depicted on the arabian ancient icons.


saint-George-the-glorybringer-in-Church-of-saint-George-village-Zlatolist

Saint George the glorybringer in Church of saint George village Zlatolist (Bulgaria)

saint-George-icon-Hadji-Dimovo-monastery-Bulgaria-ikona-sv-Georgi

The Famous Miracle making icon of saint George from Hadji-Dimovo Monastery Bulgaria

  • Another interpretation of why there is depiction of a figure on the backside of the horse of saint George is the so called "Miracle of saint George with the Paphlagonian" that is connected with my homeland Bulgaria. The history says a young-man of Paphlagonia, who has been taken as acaptive by the bulgarians and given as a slave to a wealthy bulgarian nobleman from Preslav. Once when the slave was carrying vessel with a hot water to his master towards the second floor of the house, out of nowhere appeared saint George, he put him backwards on his horse and bring him back to Paphlagonia. In Paphlagonia at this time his parents were already serving a Memorial service for the forgiveness of the sins of their boy thinking he has been already killed in captivity. Being reunited with his parents the youngster thought he has been dreaming to see his parents again out of a sudden and what show him that the miracle translation of the boy from one location back to his parents was a reality was the vessel with water which was still held in his hand, thus as a remembrance of the miracle the boy is depicted on the back of saint George's horse.

 

There is much more to be said about this glorious saint, as there is plenty of miracles and stories monasteries and Churches events and venerations facts over the last 21 centuries in which the East and The World become Christian,  but as the Gospel says it looks all the books on the world written won't be able to contain it.

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8 October year 927 the feast of Bulgarian Orthodox Church become autocephalous independent from Constantinople

Monday, October 12th, 2020

On 8 of October 927 the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has become autocephalous, this historical event is quite memorable for me as it happens to be almo  my birthday.
Thus I found it worthy to write few raw lines on the feast. This post will probably will not be of interest to any serious historian but still might be interesting for people keen on history.

The requirement of Church organization on the Bulgarian lands that is indepedent from the center of Christianity as of then Constantinople has existed with the Glorious and World changing event of receiving Holy Baptism of the Ruler of Bulgaria Saint King Boris-Mikhail in year 864 from Constaniple's Emperor Mikhail III who ruled Byzantine Empire from year (842 – 867).
 

saint-Apostle-equal-King-Boris-Mihail-The-Baptizer-of-Bulgaria
The event for the history of the Civilillized world and the Christian history wordwide is only comparable to the act of saint emperor Constantine's Milano Edict  The Edict of Milan (Latin: Edictum Mediolanense, Greek: Διάταγμα των Μεδιολάνων, Diatagma tōn Mediolanōn) was the February AD 313 agreement to treat Christians benevolently within the Roman Empire. Which opened the doors for Christianity to not only be equal religion within the empire but even to become official religion for the Eastern Roman (Byzantine empire).

Milanos-Edict-year-313-313ad-milanedicta

Assembly of Synod of Holy Fathers

The Milano's edict is today little known both in Eastern and Western world as people have more interest for money and business than to truth, virtues and history, so I find it useful to share with readers this forgotten history …

saint-emperor-Constantine

Saint Emperor Constantine

Western Roman Emperor (and later canonized for Saint) Constantine I and Emperor Licinius, who controlled the Balkans, met in Mediolanum (modern-day Milan) and, among other things, agreed to change policies towards Christians following the Edict of Toleration issued by Emperor Galerius two years earlier in Serdica (today the city of Sofia Bulgaria).
The document is found in Lactantius' De Mortibus Persecutorum and in Eusebius of Caesarea's History of the Church.

It was already a set path for Europe to become Christian and the majority of people and missionaries all through europe has spread the Good words of the Lord Jesus Christ throgh the European lands. Many missionaries both in Greece and the Balkans as well as the far lands of Kiev and North has been preaching for the coming centuries. Christianity has become already official religion for big part of the civillized (non-barbarian) world such as the Hellenes, France, Germany, Hungary,Romania, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia etc.. Monastic life has been also well established all through europe and many missionaries has come from the far deserts of Egypt to baptize and teach Christianity in the West in Ireland, England and even the Netherlands in the 7th century. Rome as a Christian center of the Western Empire even though the hardships has established and in the rule of Charlemagne has seriously expanded Christianity in the west.

The largest unbaptized lands with a paganism at that time seems to be few tribes such as the Vikings, the Gotts, The Traks and perhaps the Slavs. The biggest part of which seems to be the Slavs who has been settled in a large parts of Balkans Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia as well as Croatia, Chech, Poland and even in far Moscow.

This people has been following a peaceful paganism and has been still unenlightened. Thanks to Saint Cyril and Methodius and 7 pupils Saint Gorazd, saint Naum, saint Sava, saint Angelarius and Saint Clement of Ohrid (known as Ohridski) tireless work for Christ to translate the Holy Bible in the so called Church-Slavonic which in practice is a form of Ancient Bulgarian (in Glagolitic Script – Glagolica) which was mainly used before saint Clement Ohridski and other pupils of Saint Methodius such as the medieval famous author of many early Christian books Constantine of Preslav who worked in the Preslav Scriptorium and Christian school.
Constantine-of-Preslav-a-Holy-Church-books-and-bible-translator-and-copier-Konstantin_Preslavski

Constantine of Preslav

Saint King Boris-Mikhail  in that time took the right decision to baptize his large for that time lands populated by Bulgarians and Slavs under his rule and enlighten them with the Gospel and faith in the Jesus Christ and the true God the Holy Trinity (the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit).

It took him quite a long to decide whether to baptize his country citizens with the faith from the Western Empire (The Latins) or the Eastern Empire (the Byzantines) who at that time has been in process of creating and establishing the Great Church Schism from year 1054, and due to that he led a corresponce to both Byzantine empire as well as pope Nicolas I. 

One of the questions asked to both the The Pope and the Byzantine emperor has been about his desire of the Bulgarian Church to be an independent Church with independent head and ruleship that is able to take an independent decisions for its destiny. He wanted that as he was understanding the importance for the Cultarial freedom of Bulgaria from Helinism or the Latins. As he found that the Pope can't offer him too much and considering the closeness of the Byzantine empire to his lands as well seeing the Eastern Christianity to be more indepth and filled with beauty he has baptized from Byzantia and has received a Byzantian archibishop.
In the beginning the church services and the preach in Bulgaria has been in Greek and due to the common Bulgarian and Slavs couldn't understand Christianity. Thanks to the Holy Brothers Cyril and Methodius and the acceptance of their pupils by saint King Boris slowly in Preslav and Pliska in 9th 10th century and Ohrid in middle of 10th – 11th century a Spiritual Schools and Scriptoriums has been established which allowed a few years later gradually to have for Bulgaria the Holy Gospel and Church services to be served in the Bulgarian language (in the better understood by both Bulgariand and Slavs cyrllic).

saint-Boris-I-Michael-Baptism-of-Bulgarians-Ioan-Skilica

The baptism of Bulgarians Ioan Skilica (John Skilica)

Saint King Boris-Mikhail completed his earthly life as a humble Monk in the last years of his life, he has put on the throne Vladimir Rasate who tried to bring back paganism and faith in Tangra after his death. When heard about the evilness of his first born son and the hostility to Christianity and his plans to overrule the work of his father Saint King Boris is famous for getting out of the Monastery fighting again his son and with a Miracle about which is written even to the Pope to have win with his weaker supporter army against Vladimir-Rasate. He has blinded his son and put on the throne his second Son, King Simeon who has been officially later recognized by Romans and Byzantines the title usually only given to Byzantine Emperors  – Basileus of Bulgarians (Emperor of Bulgarians).

On the summoned in year 893 Council of Preslav together with the enthronization of King Simeon as a Bulgarian Ruler it was taken as a decision to change the Greek language in the Church with the Old Bulgarian (liked to be called in Russian sources as Church Slavonic). During his governship King Simeon (893 – 927) has gradually changed the Greek higher clergy with a Bulgarian and Created the Bulgarian Exarchate.

Veliki-Preslav_fortress_main-ancient-Christian-center-in-the-10th-century-on-the-Balkans

Veliki Preslav Fortress 

The-medieval-world-famous-Golden_Church_in_Veliki_Preslav-the-round-Church-ruins.

The Golden Church Saint John also known as the Round Church built by Simeon I the Great in Preslav built in 907, aiming to show the
high importance of the new established Bulgarian Church – Known to have been one of most beautiful Churches in Europe

During the rulership of Simeon's (second son) successor saint King Peter I (927 – 970 ) rise on throne, thanks to his wise politics and a lot of efforts to increase the prestige and spirituality in the Church following the path of his father. The Bulgarian Church has been recognized officially by the byzantine Emperor as an independent Church with a Mother Church the Church of Constantinople (today governed by the Ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew).

During the diplomatic negotiations between the King and the ruler of Byzantines Roman Lakapin  in year 927, the emperor has re-ratified the earlier disputed
as well the Church canonical uplifting ordination  of the head of Bulgarian Church the exarch to be a Patriarch of Bulgaria.

8-october-927-the-bulgarian-church-becomes-autocephalous-independent-1

Byzantines has always questioned the title of "Basileus of Bulgarians" with which King Simeon I the Great used to sign his documents, as Basileus was believed to be only supremacy title of the Byzantine emperor. The proud Byzantines did not wanted to accept another new-born Nation with less than 3 centuries of history could be their rivalry neither political nor spiritual and morever to be on the same importance in the known World with authority of the Eastern Emperor.

The archives of Vatican keeps a copies of the decision of the emperor's synclitis (meeting) for the recognition of the Bulgarian Patriarchy officially on 8th of October.
For a First Bulgarian Patriach was selected Patriach Damian (Drystyr) nowadays the city of Silistra with a patriachal seat in medieval city of Veliki Preslav (Great Preslav). Soon after the Patrairchal seat was moved to Silistra.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Sv.Ahil_church.jpg/1280px-Sv.Ahil_church

Saint Ahil Church (Bulgarian Patriarchy) main seat in Prespa

The Eparchy of Dorostol has been existing even to this day, even though the exarchs and patriachal seat and patriachs through the centuries has been concentrated in the mother patriarchal city for our Church Preslav and in Ohrid as well as later for II centuries in city of Turnovo until 1393 when in city of Tarnovo (Trnovo) Fall raided by the Ottoman Turkish invaders. 
During the Ottoman's slavery of Bulgaria it has ceased to exist and has been reduced by the Turkish mostly under the influence of Patriarch of Constantinople to Archibishopship center in Ohrid.

History-of-Bulgarian-Patriarchy-Patriarshia-of-Tarnovo

The Patriarchal Church Ascension of Christ in Carevetz (The city of Kings) Hill Turnovo

After the Liberation of Bulgarian in the Russian-Turkish Bulgarian liberation war (1877 – 1878) in which Bulgaria has been liberated. The Bulgarian Church has been an Exarchy for a while in a dark period when the Bulgarian Church was recognized by the Phanariots (The Greeks). The Schism put over the Bulgarian Church was removed in 22 February 1945 y., few weeks after the enthronement of Patriarch Stephan I of Bulgaria. Unfortunately the next years coincided with the dark years of the imposed totalitarian regime of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP), which led to active persecution of the Church, the humilation and torture of priest and Church leaders and martyrdom of many clergymen and people who were against the unhuman kind of the new power that take over.

Boris_Nevrokopski-Metropolitan-a-saint-killed-by-the-Communistic-atheist-regime-in-Bulgaria

One of those many martyrs for Christ is a supposedly a saint Boris Razumov of Nevrokop who was killed by a order of communists by an orthodox priest to his own eparchy who has joined the party by the order of the BCP.

 

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New World Order, Secret Societies and the Bible Prophecies a movie research on secret societies and Bible Prophecies

Monday, April 30th, 2012

I've just completed watching a movie I found on youtube

 

NWO: Secret Societies and Biblical Prophecy Vol. 1

The movie is quite intriguing research on the topic of Secret Societies and connection of what happened in the world so far. The movie points at what is about to happen in the future and how there are certain groups of people who has interest for the New Wolrd Order to come.

 

The movie says how the Biblical  Prophecies, we can read in the bible has clearly foretold many of the things that happened like the re-creation of  Jewish Country (Israel). All this events to occur was foretold many hundred years ago in the Holy Bible (scriptures). The movie director is called Leonard Ulrich a person who graduated with double degree in Winnepig University  and University of Minnetoba Caneda. This presentational material is as it the author points himself a 5 years of research on secret societies and the New Wolrd Order. The movie discuss the major secret societies (occult) organizations existing of today and claims there is a connection between the different secret societies. As Ulrich's point is there is a clear connection between the major globalism, secret societies and ancient occult teachings. The movie can be classified under a conspiracy theory and some of the facts might be considered by many sceptical people a wild imagination, however all those who  took the time to research on the movie's stand points will assure the movie is based on hard truths. As the presentation wents through history and turns back to the modern days it exposes how connections between a numerous of FreeMasonry organizations, dictatorship regimes like Communism, Nazism, Hitler Stalin and the rest of the key figures in modern day history somehow had a connection with the occult / sorceries / magicians  or secret societies. All the America Founders, communism, nazism and the world wars the author claims, were initiated by this same secret soecities. The movie reveals shocking facts about the United Nations  anti-christian character as well as the facts that many of the modern day turns the major world leaders of this day are orchestrated based on ancient non-christian belief systems like Kabalah  I will stop here with my review and let you alone watch it and discern if the facts in the movie can be considered trustable. For me personally as a Christian, I'm pretty much convinced what the movie retells is pure facts. Unfortunately nowdays, most people are so deluded, so they can't see the pure facts, but prefer to believe the lie that the world is governed towards its destination by money only.  Well, I clearly see it myself how most people nowdays are blindly led to bow down in front of technology which is just a major tool for the building of this unrightous (unjustice) system proclaimed under the fuzzy name New World Order. I truly enjoyed the movie and I believe watching the movie will help many to realize that Christianity is not just some old tales but a religion based on facts and truths.

 

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How to make sure your Linux system users won’t hide or delete their .bash_history / Securing .bash_history file – Protect Linux system users shell history

Monday, July 19th, 2010

linux-bin-bash-600x600logo
If you're running multi user login Linux system, you have probably realized that there are some clever users that prefer to prevent their command line executed commands to be logged in .bash_history.
To achieve that they use a number of generally known methodologist to prevent the Linux system from logging into their $HOME/.bash_history file (of course if running bash as a default user shell).
This though nice for the user is a real nightmare for the sysadmin, since he couldn't keep track of all system command events executed by users. For instance sometimes an unprivilegd user might be responsible for executing a malicious code which crashes or breaks your server.
This is especially unpleasent, because you will find your system crashed and if it's not some of the system services that causes the issue you won’t even be able to identify which of all the users is the malicious user account and respectively the code excecuted which fail the system to the ground.
In this post I will try to tell you a basic ways that some malevolent users might use to hide their bash history from the system administrator.
I will also discuss a few possible ways to assure your users .bash_history keeps intact and possibly the commands executed by your users gets logged in in their.
The most basic way that even an unexperienced shell user will apply if he wants to prevent his .bash_history from sys admins review would be of directly wiping out the .bash_history file from his login account or alternatively emptying it with commands like:

malicious-user@server:~$ rm -f. bash_history
ormalicious-user@server:~# cat /dev/null > ~/.bash_history

In order to prevent this type of attack against cleaning the .bash_history you can use the chattr command.
To counter attack this type of history tossing method you can set your malicious-user .bash_history’s file the (append only flag) with chattr like so:

root@server:~# cd /home/malicious-user/
root@server:~# chattr +a .bash_history

It’s also recommended that the immunable flag is placed to the file ~/.profile in user home

root@server:~# chattr +i ~/.profile

It would be probably also nice to take a look at all chattr command attributes since the command is like swiss army knife for the Linux admin:
Here is all available flags that can be passed to chattr
append only (a)
compressed (c)
don~@~Yt update atime (A)
synchronous directory updates (D)
synchronous updates (S)
data journalling (j)
no dump (d)
top of directory hierarchy (T)
no tail-merging (t)
secure deletion (s)
undeletable (u)
immutable (i)

It’s also nice that setting the “append only” flag in to the user .bash_history file prevents the user to link the .bash_history file to /dev/null like so:

malicious-user@server:~$ ln -sf /dev/null ~/.bash_history
ln: cannot remove `.bash_history': Operation not permitted

malicious-user@server:~$ echo > .bash_history
bash: .bash_history: Operation not permitted

However this will just make your .bash_history append only, so the user trying to execute cat /dev/null > .bash_history won’t be able to truncate the content of .bash_history.

Unfortunately he will yet be able to delete the file with rm so this type of securing your .bash_history file from being overwritten is does not completely guarantee you that user commands will get logged.
Also in order to prevent user to play tricks and escape the .bash_history logging by changing the default bash shell variables for HISTFILE an d HISTFILESIZE, exporting them either to a different file location or a null file size.
You have to put the following bash variables to be loaded in /etc/bash.bashrc or in /etc/profile
# #Prevent unset of histfile, /etc/profile
HISTFILE=~/.bash_history
HISTSIZE=10000
HISTFILESIZE=999999
# Don't let the users enter commands that are ignored# in the history file
HISTIGNORE=""
HISTCONTROL=""
readonly HISTFILE
readonly HISTSIZE
readonly HISTFILESIZE
readonly HISTIGNORE
readonly HISTCONTROL
export HISTFILE HISTSIZE HISTFILESIZE HISTIGNORE HISTCONTROL

everytime a user logs in to your Linux system the bash commands above will be set.
The above tip is directly taken from Securing debian howto which by the way is quite an interesting and nice reading for system administrators 🙂

If you want to apply an append only attribute to all user .bash_history to all your existing Linux server system users assuming the default users directory is /home in bash you can execute the following 1 liner shell code:

#Set .bash_history as attr +a
2. find /home/ -maxdepth 3|grep -i bash_history|while read line; do chattr +a "$line"; done

Though the above steps will stop some of the users to voluntary clean their .bash_history history files it won’t a 100% guaranttee that a good cracker won’t be able to come up with a way to get around the imposed .bash_history security measures.

One possible way to get around the user command history prevention restrictions for a user is to simply using another shell from the ones available on the system:
Here is an example:

malicious-user:~$ /bin/csh
malicious-user:~>

csh shell logs by default to the file .history

Also as far as I know it should be possible for a user to simply delete the .bash_history file overwritting all the .bash_history keep up attempts up-shown.
If you need a complete statistics about accounting you’d better take a look at The GNU Accounting Utilities

In Debian the GNU Accounting Utilities are available as a package called acct, so installation of acct on Debian is as simple as:

debian:~# apt-get install acct

I won’t get into much details about acct and would probably take a look at it in my future posts.
For complete .bash_history delete prevention maybe the best practice is to useg grsecurity (grsec)

Hopefully this article is gonna be a step further in tightening up your Server or Desktop Linux based system security and will also give you some insight on .bash_history files 🙂 .

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Posted in Computer Security, Linux, System Administration | 14 Comments »

Истории Ветхого Завета мультфильм / History of Biblbe old Testament in Russian – Kids movie

Saturday, June 15th, 2013

While looking for Bulgarian Orthodox Bible to listen. I submed upon a Russian video,re-telling the story of old testament in Russian. I decided to share the movie as I liked how the story of old testament is retold. Its on very understandable language, so even kids about 5 years old can understand. It is perfect for big kids like me too. After all as the saviour Jesus Christ said all of us Christians, has to "become like Kids to see the Kingdom of Heaven". Watching such movies is  definitely a good way to strengthen faith 🙂 Enjo!


 

History of Old Testament Russian Cartoon / Истории Ветхого Завета мультфильм все серии

By the way currently Russian Orthodox Church is in big bloom and there are plenty of other Animations for kids revealing the truths of faith for the tiny one. I hope one day, if God Bless and have kids myself I will play this video to teach them the wonders of our Christian faith.

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A Russian Communist Culture classic movie Battleship Potemkin / Броненосец «Потёмкин» (фильм)

Wednesday, December 5th, 2012


 

Battleship Potemkin HQ

The movie is highly Communistic and early versions of it included a direct verses from the notable Communist Marxist Revolution leader Leon Trotsky

The movie tells a story of a Russian ship during Tsarist Russia in 1905. Due to the bad conditions on the ship and the striving the sailors are exposed to they start, their dissatisfaction progresses until a point. Where low level sailors revolt against the well established ship order – Captain, Doctor, Priest etc. and Create a little revolution taking over the ship, killing the doctor and captain and disobeying God's blessed shipped order. Also in the movie it is evident the bad attitude towards Christianity and Christian faith. The ship priest is displayed as a hypocrite which uses the "faith shield" and people naivety to control the uneasy situation on the ship.
The movie well illustrates the bad spirit of Communists and their scornful attitude towards the Russian Church and faith.
The movie's ultimate Goal as many of the materials of this strange years accent on the Communist Marxist Revolution propaganda. While watching the movie I've noticed even the small details in the movie put accent on "the wrongship" of the established ship order. Take for example the physical height of the ship doctor, he is very low in height and feeble, while the sailors themselves are high in stature and of muscular nature.

The captain himself is high and skinny illustrated as a cruel and unhuman nature, while the sailors are pictured as a good and humble "natural" people. This whole plot and even the most little detail scream "The order is not right, we need new Order". The movie director is a Jews and the General message of the movie is pro jewish, as it tries to illustrate the WhiteGuards (King's army and soldiers as evil and un-human willing to kill all jews). Another thing is the movie is filled with unhuman cruelty, as the Tsarist marching soldiers kills a multitudes of "innocent" people including babies and mothers. Obviously it was all illustrated to blacken the Russian Monarchy and its previous order and Christian faith. There is a terrible scene, where a sailor reads on a plate written the words of the Lord's Prayer and being enraged by his continuous eating of rotten bad quality boiled meat drops the plate in anger. This scene openly illustrates the whole attitude towards God and the God order on earth as well as the Russian Orthodox Church, talking clearly that the screenplay of the director was a atheist blashemer. Honestly watching the breaking the Lord's prayer's plate made me angry and then sad, because whoever initiated the movie did not know the love of Jesus and tried to spread a message that God is all guilty for human's failure's or suffering ….

It should be noted that the movie's main story line The Battleship Potemkin's revolution is a historical truth (though I don't know details), however the part of the movie displaying the city massacre by Monarchy troops is completely fictional and never happened but is just the director's desire to make the influence over the observer severe. The movie was never of great success and though the Movie Author Eisenstein expected the movie to become a hit it never did. The Odessa city movie closing part was shocking to see by the much more pious people than today and I guess it was even worser than Quentin Tarantino's movies nowadays.

The main "star" artist of the movie is Valunchik, a working class hero who initiates the battleship revolution and is depicted as "the voice of rationality in the darkness a nd of cruel Monarchy who only cares for the high people class".

Battleship Potemkin / Броненосец Потемким Russian communist revolution propaganda movie cover picture

In the western world the movie in Brussels and France the movie was highly praised and was reviewed as one of the most influential propaganda movies ever made. In Brussel's world's fair the movie was named "the greatest file of all time" "Considered one of the most important films in the history of silent pictures, as well as possibly Eisenstein's greatest work, Battleship Potemkin brought Eisenstein's theories of cinema art to the world in a powerful showcase; his emphasis on montage, his stress of intellectual contact, and his treatment of the mass instead of the individual as the protagonist. The film tells the story of the mutiny on the Russian ship Prince Potemkin during the 1905 uprising." This movie is part of the collection: Silent Films Producer: Sergei M. Eisenstein, Grigori Aleksandrov Audio/Visual: sound Keywords: Silent; War; Russian Creative Commons license: Public Domain Mark 1.0

To be honest though the movie is of a great "art" value I don't like it as it is ungodly and against the Church. Now it is rather interesting to see the movie and put it in the face of the atheist "communists" who thought the Communist revolution will take over the whole world. After 68 years of Communism and communist blocks like USSR it is now over confirming the Gospel words that "every initiative that is not from God will eventually collapse".  There is plenty said on the movie and it is one of the most important movies nowadays most of the people aged 40 – 65, who lived through Communism and within the USSR socialist block know the movie quite well (in this number my father too). Since the movie is so popular one can find a lot of information and reviews on it with critical or positive analysis. The movie could probably be classified in the Drama genre and in my view is educational perspective for people who wish to have a glimpse on communist ideology and the attitudes of the '30s – 50s in Russia, China and plenty of other countries 'round the world.

Bronenosets-Potemkin-Battleship-potemkin-sailor-raising-alert--film-cover

Movie Length: 1 horo 11 minutoj

Original Title: Броненосец “Потёмкин”
Producer Company: Mosfilm-studio
Screenplay Directory: Н. Агаджанова (N. Agaĝanova): С. Эйзенштейн (S. Eisenstein)
Assitant Directory: Г. Александров (G. Aleksandrov)
Cinematography: Э. Тиссе (E. Tisse)
Music: Д. Шостакович (D. Ŝostakoviĉ)
Actors: Александр Антонов (Aleksandr Antonov), В. Барский (V. Barskij), Григорий Александров (Grigorij Aleksandrov) , М. Гоморов (M. Gomorov), Владимир Уральский (Vladimir Uralskij), Иван Бобров (Ivan Bobrov) k.a.
Country Produced: Soviet Union (USSR)

Movie Cast The film is composed of five episodes:

  •   "Men and Maggots" (Люди и черви), in which the sailors protest at having to eat rotten meat;
  •     "Drama on the Deck" (Драма на тендре), in which the sailors mutiny and their leader, Vakulinchuk, is killed;
  •     "A Dead Man Calls for Justice" (Мёртвый взывает) in which Vakulinchuk's body is mourned over by the people of Odessa;
  •     "The Odessa Staircase" (Одесская лестница), in which Tsarist soldiers massacre the Odessans.
  •     "The Rendez-Vous with a Squadron" (Встреча с эскадрой), in which the squadron tasked with intercepting the Potemkin instead declines to engage, lowering their guns, its sailors cheer on the rebellious battleship and join the mutiny.
     

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