Handling Notifications

[jkinning]

This more of a general questions on how most people manage notifications. I was thinking about using an Exchange Distribution Group which I could then manage members via AD and just link the [email protected] to the appropriate hosts, services, etc. Then if a user needed to be notified I could just add them to the Distribution Group and they would get notified. The downside I am noticing is a member within this group is unable to acknowledge the alert so until it gets corrected all members in this group will get constantly get email messages.

If I have to add member to Nagios in order for these users to acknowledge the alerts can I do so giving them read-only access? Or what is the best access to provide to all my users to acknowledge alerts. Is it better to create groups within Nagios and assign users but I am trying to eliminate the administration overhead of user management.

How do you manage your users and notifications within your Nagios XI environment?

[slansing]

The way I would handle this is a mix of Notification Escalations and a Distribution Group in Exchange. The Escalations would help you account for contacts who are either unable to solve the issue, or are not available.

[jkinning]

That is a great idea. Then maybe just have a "generic" user account with the read-only check box to login and view what they want? Is that what most people use for their Help Desk as well, an account with read-only rights?

[abrist]

Is that what most people use for their Help Desk as well, an account with read-only rights?

Yes, though it is very much dependent on the institution. Read only users are also good for NOCs and for custom dashboards using the ticket/user backend api.

[WillemDH]

We work in a 5 man team for +- 600 servers, and each person follows up Nagios alerts one day a week. Problems are acknowledged by a quick action which creates an incident in our itil tool (vmware incident manager) and is sent to the right team. User can enable notifications for themselves through the Nagios gui or ask our team to make them a contact. Notifications are sent based on priority templates, low prio does not send email, medium prio sends email to a shared mailbox, high prio go to on duty blackberry.

Grtz

Willem

[abrist]

@WillemDH: Have you tried out the new sms notification options? If so, did it help?

[WillemDH]

Hey Andy,

Well.. After researching several solutions etc, my boss suddenly decided we would wait with SMS notifications, as another team is in the process of migrating to a VoIP solution. it seems one small part of this solution is an SMS device for alerting medical personnel when elderly people leave the building or are stuck somewhere.
So I will have to use that same device instead of the mulitech isms modem, as he doesn't want two sms modems... To be continued, as I have absolutely no information about this device...

Grtz

Willem

[tmcdonald]

We can keep this thread open until you have more info on the new device.

[slansing]

Thanks for showing how you set this up in your environment Willem! @jkinning, any ideas pop out that you want to try? We're more than happy to help walk you through it.