Custom Notification Methods
Learn how to create your own notification method
You may want to use an existing Nagios Core notification script in Opsview Monitor.
Adding/Writing Your Own Notification Method
To add this a custom notification method:
- Check the Notification script for any dependencies. This may require additional software to be installed on the Opsview Monitor Orchestrator server (and Collector).
- Test the Notification script. Opsview Monitor provides a way of simulating the environment variables that Nagios Core will set at notification time. If you intend to run this notification on Collector, you should test on those servers too:
# Test Host
sudo -u opsview /opt/opsview/coreutils/utils/test_notifications hostproblem /path/to/notificationscript [other parameters]
# Test Service
sudo -u opsview /opt/opsview/coreutils/utils/test_notifications serviceproblem /path/to/notificationscript [other parameters]
- Put your script into /opt/opsview/monitoringscripts/notifications/ on the Opsview Orchestrator server, as the opsview user.
- Go to Configuration > Notification Methods and click 'Add New' to set the appropriate configuration (see below):

- Each User will then have to select this Notification Method to one of their Notification Profiles.
- Go to Configuration > Apply Changes to make the new setup live.
- Cause a failure to test that the notification is sent.
Writing Your Own Notification Script
Your notification script should be written to expect any input regarding the notification alert from Nagios Core via environment variables - see the Macro Availability Chart at http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/3_0/macros.html.
The only environment variables available for Notification Methods are:
- NAGIOS_CONTACTALIAS
- NAGIOS_CONTACTEMAIL
- NAGIOS_CONTACTGROUPLIST
- NAGIOS_CONTACTNAME
- NAGIOS_CONTACTPAGER
- NAGIOS_HOSTACKAUTHOR
- NAGIOS_HOSTACKCOMMENT
- NAGIOS_HOSTADDRESS
- NAGIOS_HOSTALIAS
- NAGIOS_HOSTATTEMPT
- NAGIOS_HOSTDOWNTIME
- NAGIOS_HOSTDURATION
- NAGIOS_HOSTGROUPALIAS
- NAGIOS_HOSTGROUPNAME
- NAGIOS_HOSTNAME
- NAGIOS_HOSTNOTIFICATIONNUMBER
- NAGIOS_HOSTOUTPUT
- NAGIOS_HOSTPROBLEMID
- NAGIOS_HOSTSTATE
- NAGIOS_HOSTSTATEID
- NAGIOS_HOSTSTATETYPE
- NAGIOS_LASTHOSTCHECK
- NAGIOS_LASTHOSTDOWN
- NAGIOS_LASTHOSTPROBLEMID
- NAGIOS_LASTHOSTSTATE
- NAGIOS_LASTHOSTSTATECHANGE
- NAGIOS_LASTHOSTUNREACHABLE
- NAGIOS_LASTHOSTUP
- NAGIOS_LASTSERVICECHECK
- NAGIOS_LASTSERVICECRITICAL
- NAGIOS_LASTSERVICEOK
- NAGIOS_LASTSERVICEPROBLEMID
- NAGIOS_LASTSERVICESTATE
- NAGIOS_LASTSERVICESTATECHANGE
- NAGIOS_LASTSERVICEWARNING
- NAGIOS_LASTSTATECHANGE
- NAGIOS_LONGDATETIME
- NAGIOS_LONGHOSTOUTPUT
- NAGIOS_LONGSERVICEOUTPUT
- NAGIOS_NOTIFICATIONAUTHOR
- NAGIOS_NOTIFICATIONCOMMENT
- NAGIOS_NOTIFICATIONNUMBER
- NAGIOS_NOTIFICATIONTYPE
- NAGIOS_SERVICEACKAUTHOR
- NAGIOS_SERVICEACKCOMMENT
- NAGIOS_SERVICEATTEMPT
- NAGIOS_SERVICEDESC
- NAGIOS_SERVICEDOWNTIME
- NAGIOS_SERVICEDURATION
- NAGIOS_SERVICENOTES
- NAGIOS_SERVICENOTIFICATIONNUMBER
- NAGIOS_SERVICEOUTPUT
- NAGIOS_SERVICEPROBLEMID
- NAGIOS_SERVICESTATE
- NAGIOS_SERVICESTATEID
- NAGIOS_SERVICESTATETYPE
- NAGIOS_SHORTDATETIME
- NAGIOS_TIMET
- OPSVIEW_KEYWORDS
For example, in perl, reference the HOSTNAME variables using:
print "$ENV{NAGIOS_HOSTNAME}\n";
In bash, use:
echo $NAGIOS_HOSTNAME
A useful trick in bash to see all available environment variables is to
add at the top of a Notification Method :
{ date; echo "Called with $@"; env; echo; } >> /tmp/env.txt
To distinguish between a service alert and a Host alert, do something like (in perl):
if ( $ENV{NAGIOS_SERVICEDESC} ) {
# This is a service alert
} else {
# This is a Host alert
}
Global settings should be stored either in the script or via command arguments.
OUTPUT
The environment Variables SERVICEOUTPUT, HOSTOUTPUT, LONGSERVICEOUTPUT, LONGHOSTOUTPUT hold the output from a plugin. The first two hold only the first line of the output, while the remainder is in the LONG variables.
Note that the left and right angle brackets (<>) are stripped from the output.
CONTACTGROUPLIST
This environment variable holds all the contact groups that this Host/service belongs to, in a comma-separated list. Contact groups will be of the form:
- HostgroupX_servicegroupY
- kZ_NAME
You can use this to get the list of keyword names that the Host/Service is related to by:
@keywords = grep { s/k\d+_// } (split ",", $ENV{NAGIOS_CONTACTGROUPLIST})
Testing Notification Scripts
As mentioned above, notification scripts can be tested on both the Orchestrator and Collectors by using:
sudo -iu opsview /opt/opsview/coreutils/utils/test_notifications hostproblem /path/to/notificationscript [other parameters]
Some scripts may require extra configuration to test them. For example, to test the VictorOps notification method, ensure the access key is set in the UI and then use the following:
export NAGIOS__CONTACTVICTOROPS_ROUTING_KEY="<routing_key>"
/opt/opsview/coreutils/utils/test_notifications hostproblem /opt/opsview/monitoringscripts/notifications/notify_by_victorops
where the routing key is set as per your VictorOps routing configuration.
This particular notification method logs to /var/log/opsview/opsview.log, but you need to check within each script where logging is sent (in many cases script output is captured in a file located in /tmp/).
Updated 10 months ago