Nagios Support Forum

Under Incident Management, the Acknowledgements and Comments page lists all Acknowledgement actions.

Do these Acknowledgements and Comments clear once the Host or Service recovers?

No they do not clear upon recovery, these entries must be manually deleted. I still have an entry on that page going back to June 25th...

I too have some old entries dating back over two years, but also, more recent Acknowledgements have cleared on their own.

I'll have to test this again, maybe you can do the same?

Thanks for clarifying. One reason for this discrepancy is if the 'persistent' option was left unchecked when the comment was filled out. If you do not check the persistent option, the comment will automatically be deleted the next time Nagios is restarted (i.e. 'apply config'). If checked, it will remain until you manually delete it.

Perhaps you're using an older version of Nagios? That option states: "Make sure to enter your name and fill in a brief description of what you are doing in the comment field. If you would like the host comment to remain once the acknowledgement is removed, check the Persistent Comment checkbox."

I think we're looking at slightly different things.
My screenshot above is from the 'add comment' section of the Service Status Detail page > Advanced (tab) > Add comment. Here it is with the path in the background:
You're looking at All Host/Service Problems > Host or Service Status Detail (Overview tab / the 1st window to appear) Quick Actions > Acknowledge this problem

I have confirmed in Nagios XI 5.2.5, both Hosts and Service Acknowledgements clear automatically from the Acknowledgement page listing and the Host/Service Details page once the device recovers.

Old items exist in the listing, but also have warnings on the host/service and or existed prior to Nagios 5. So perhaps that is why there are left overs in the listing still?

Also, confirmed our Acknowledgement options differ. See below.

bwallace wrote:I think we're looking at slightly different things.
My screenshot above is from the 'add comment' section of the Service Status Detail page > Advanced (tab) > Add comment. Here it is with the path in the background:

add comment path.jpg

You're looking at All Host/Service Problems > Host or Service Status Detail (Overview tab / the 1st window to appear) Quick Actions > Acknowledge this problem

ack prob persist comment.jpg

Regardless, the discussion is about the Acknowledgements page and how it clears.

Through testing I have confirmed that both Hosts and Services automatically clear once the alarm clears. These Acknowledgements were created with default settings and tested with downtime of 10 minutes. Hosts & Services that recovered after 10 min downtime are cleared automatically. However, I also see legit alarms (Hosts & Services) that were down for more than a day did not cleat automatically.

1. Can you explain this behavior?

2. Perhaps the person that acknowledged the alarm check the persistent option you speak of, is there a way to confirm?
Update: The technician that acknowledged the alarm believes he checked the persistent option, so this makes sense.

Thanks for the update. I just did some more testing and found that the outcomes differ, it all depends if persist comment was enable or not.

Scenario one:
Persistent comment left unchecked -- Acknowledgements are indeed removed from the 'Acknowledgements and Comments' section when the host or service recovers. Scenario two:
Enable persistent comment -- then the Acknowledgement will remain once the host / service recovers. This must be manually deleted.
Hope this clears things up!

So with default values, the Acknowledgments will in fact clear once a device recovers. Exactly how it should function.

We were just about to test the persistent option as well. Thank you for your time.