Alerter Configuration

Alerters send one-off alerts when a monitor fails. They can also send an alert when it succeeds again.

An alerter knows if it is urgent or not; if a monitor defined as non-urgent fails, an urgent alerter will not trigger for it. This means you can avoid receiving SMS alerts for things which don’t require your immediate attention.

Alerters can also have a time configuration for hours when they are or are not allowed to alert. They can also send an alert at the end of the silence period for any monitors which are currently failed.

Alerters are defined in the main configuration file, which by default is monitor.ini. The section name is the name of your alerter, which you should then add to the alerters configuration value.

Common options

These options are common to all alerter types.

type
Type

string

Required

true

the type of the alerter; one of those in the list below.

depend
Type

comma-separated list of string

Required

false

Default

none

a list of monitors this alerter depends on. If any of them fail, no attempt will be made to send the alert.

limit
Type

integer

Required

false

Default

1

the (virtual) number of times a monitor must have failed before this alerter fires for it. You can use this to escalate an alert to another email address or text messaging, for example. See the tolerance Monitor configuration option.

dry_run
Type

boolean

Required

false

Default

false

makes an alerter do everything except actually send the message, and instead will print some information about what it would do.

ooh_success
Type

boolean

Required

false

Default

false

makes an alerter trigger its success action even if out of hours

groups
Type

comma-separated list of string

Required

false

Default

default

list of monitor groups this alerter should fire for. See the group setting for monitors.

only_failures
Type

boolean

Required

false

Default

false

if true, only send alerts for failures (or catchups)

tz
Type

string

Required

false

Default

UTC

the timezone to use in alert messages. See also times_tz.

repeat
Type

boolean

Required

false

Default

false

fire this alerter (for a failed monitor) every iteration

urgent
Type

boolean

Required

false

if the alerter should be urgent or not. The default varies from alerter to alerter. Typically, those which send “page” style alerts such as SMS default to urgent. You can use this option to override that in e.g. the case of the SNS alerter, which could be urgent if sending SMSes, but non-urgent if sending emails.

Time restrictions

All alerters accept time period configuration. By default, an alerter is active at all times, so you will always immediately receive an alert at the point where a monitor has failed enough (more times than the limit). To set limits on when an alerter can send, use the configuration values below.

Note that the times_type option sets the timezone all the values are interpreted as. The default is the local timezone of the host evaluating the logic.

day
Type

comma-separated list of integer

Required

false

Default

all days

which days an alerter can operate on. 0 is Monday, 6 is Sunday.

times_type
Type

string

Required

false

Default

always

one of always, only, or not. only means that the limits specify the period the alerter is allowed to operate in. not means the specify the period it isn’t, and outside of that time it is allowed.

time_lower
Type

string

Required

when times_type is not always

the lower end of the time range. Must be lower than time_upper. The format is HH:mm in 24-hour clock.

time_upper
Type

string

Required

when times_type is not always

the upper end of the time range. Must be lower than time_lower. The format is HH:mm in 24-hour clock.

times_tz
Type

string

Required

false

Default

the host’s local time

the timezone for day, time_lower and time_upper to be interpreted in.

delay
Type

boolean

Required

false

Default

false

set to true to have the alerter send a “catch-up” alert about a failed monitor if it failed during a time the alerter was not allowed to send, and is still failed as the alerter enters the time it is allowed to send. If the monitor fails and recovers during the not-allowed time, no alert is sent either way.

Time examples

These snippets omit the alerter-specific configuration values.

Don’t trigger during the hours I’m in the office (8:30am to 5:30pm, Monday to Friday):

[out_of_hours]
type=some-alerter-type
times_type=not
time_lower=08:30
time_upper_17:30
days=0,1,2,3,4

Don’t send at antisocial times, but let me know later if something broke and hasn’t recovered yet:

[polite_alerter]
type=some-alerter-type
times_type=only
time_lower=07:30
time_upper=22:00
delay=1

Alerters

Note

The type of the alerter is the first word in its heading.