I'm a little confused about some of this. For one, I don't ack servers for maintenance, I disable the affected tests. You can cancel a disable anytime you want. Also, since you acknowledge individual services, why would acknowledging one of them prevent you getting alerts on others. Do you mean, perhaps, alerts like on the "ports" test where failures can occur in different ways?
On 03/10/2014 10:51 AM, john.r.rothlisberger at accenture.com wrote:
Oh, this is so old…
There is a simple answer (IMO) as to why you would want to cancel and ack’d alert – a new alert for an ack’d test has been received.
This has been bugging me for years. Let’s assume you ack an alert for the service “W3SVC” for 4 hours for maintenance, which you have stopped on purpose for whatever reason. Let’s assume you also monitor services for SQL, Java, etc. If one of those also fails during the 4 hours of ack time – you won’t get an alert. There are 3 tests that can have multiple components which I would like to know if new alerts arrive while a test has been ack’d: disk, procs, & svcs.
I have a situation currently where I have to address this exact scenario. As described I have multiple services and processes that I need to monitor, those are often ack’d but it doesn’t change the importance of knowing if a different process/service needs attention. Thus, I have written the perl script below which (being just written and may not be 100% - YMMV) will monitor tests that have been ack’d and look for changes. If there is a change that needs to be addressed the ack is canceled by sending a temporary green status to the host.test. The next update from the client triggers a new alert.
Maybe this will help someone else too…
Steps:
Copy contents to ~bin/watch_ackd_alerts.pl
Create directory ~server/tmp/ACKS
Log file created in ~logs
Create the following crontab entry
*/5 * * * * /home/xymon/bin/watch_ackd_alerts.pl > /dev/null 2>&1
#!/usr/bin/perl
Script Name: watch_ackd_alerts.pl
Author: John Rothlisberger
Created On: March 10, 2014
VERSION="1.03102014.09";
Purpose: A script to monitor ack'd alerts and watch for changes.
Example: The C: drive fills up and sends out a red
alert. Knowing this will
take some time to fix you ack the alert for 60 minutes.
If, during that 60
minute window the D: drive fills up you will not be
notified as the 'disk' test
has been acknowledged. This script is an attempt to
short circuit the ack and
allow for the new alert to be sent out.
Execution: Run every 5 minutes from xymon crontab:
*/5 * * * * /home/xymon/bin/watch_ackd_alerts.pl > /dev/null 2>&1
Setup COUNT and directory where to store ack info files.
$COUNT=0;
$ACKSDIR="/home/xymon/server/tmp/ACKS";
Log file
open(LOGFILE,">> /home/xymon/logs/ack_terminate.log") || die("can't open port_watch.email: $!");
input file example
servername|test|color|flags|lastchange|logtime|validtime|acktime|disabletime|sender|cookie|line1|ackmsg|dismsg|msg
Open input file
open ALERTS, "/home/xymon/server/bin/xymon 0 'xymondboard color=yellow,red' |" or die "Couldn't execute: $!";
Parse all active alerts
while (<ALERTS>) {
chomp;
@LINE=split(/\|/,$_);
$SERVERNAME=@LINE[0];
$TESTTYPE=@LINE[1];
$COLOR=@LINE[2];
$ACKTIME=@LINE[7];
$COOKIE=@LINE[10];
$LINE1=@LINE[11];
$ACKMSG=@LINE[12];
$DISMSG=@LINE[13];
$MSG=@LINE[14];
Skip all alerts except disk, procs, and svcs (others are not tested)
next if ((! $TESTTYPE == "disk") || (! $TESTTYPE == "procs") || (! $TESTTYPE == "svcs"));
If the alert has been ack'd we want to watch for any changes.
if ( $ACKTIME > 0) {
$COUNT+=1; $REDS=0; $YELLOWS=0; $REDS_CMP=0; $YELLOWS_CMP=0; $NEED_COMP=0; print LOGFILE"-------------------------------------------------------------------\n";
print LOGFILE "SERVERNAME: $SERVERNAME\n"; print LOGFILE "TESTTYPE: $TESTTYPE\n"; print LOGFILE "COLOR: $COLOR\n";If this is a new ack'd alert we will create a static file that holds
current test state.
We will use this file to decide if there have been changes to what has
been ack'd.
if (! -e "${ACKSDIR}/${SERVERNAME}${TESTTYPE}${COLOR}${ACKTIME}" ) { open DETAILS, "/home/xymon/server/bin/xymon 0 'xymondlog${SERVERNAME}.${TESTTYPE}' |" or die "Couldn't execute: $!";
open OUTFILE,">${ACKSDIR}/${SERVERNAME}${TESTTYPE}${COLOR}${ACKTIME}" or die "Couldn't execute: $!";
while (<DETAILS>) { chomp; if ( $_ =~ /^&/ ) { $_ =~ s/\&//; @DETLINE=split(/ /,$_);Change colors to numbers red=2 yellow=1 anything else = 0
if ( "$DETLINE[0]" eq "red" ) { $COL_VALUE = "2"; } elsif ( "$DETLINE[0]" eq "yellow" ) { $COL_VALUE = "1"; } else { $COL_VALUE = "0"; }Create the status file which will be used on subsequent runs.
print OUTFILE "${COL_VALUE}:${DETLINE[1]}\n"; print LOGFILE "DATE: ${COL_VALUE}:${DETLINE[1]}\n"; } } close OUTFILE;We have already recorded the initial state of the test and saved it to
a file.
Now we will check new status output with that file to see if the
alerts have changed.
} else { open DETAILS, "/home/xymon/server/bin/xymon 0 'xymondlog${SERVERNAME}.${TESTTYPE}' |" or die "Couldn't execute: $!";
while (<DETAILS>) { chomp; if ( $_ =~ /^&/ ) { $_ =~ s/\&//; @DETLINE=split(/ /,$_);Change colors to numbers red=2 yellow=1 anything else = 0
if ( "$DETLINE[0]" eq "red" ) { $COL_VALUE = "2"; } elsif ( "$DETLINE[0]" eq "yellow" ) { $COL_VALUE = "1"; } else { $COL_VALUE = "0"; } push (@COMP_contents, "${COL_VALUE}:${DETLINE[1]}"); } }Get the initial ack file that was created.
open INITFILE,"<${ACKSDIR}/${SERVERNAME}${TESTTYPE}${COLOR}${ACKTIME}" or die "Couldn't execute: $!";
while (<INITFILE>) { chomp; push (@INITFILE_contents, "$_"); } close INITFILE;Create a hash that contains the initial ack file.
%INITF = map(($_,1), at INITFILE_contents); foreach (@COMP_contents) { if ($INITF{$_}) {No change to the alert - nothing to do.
print LOGFILE "Alert hasn't changed: $_\n"; } else {Alert has changed in some form.
print LOGFILE "Alert has changed: $_\n"; @CURRENT=split(/:/,$_); $CUR_COLOR=$CURRENT[0]; $CUR_TEST=$CURRENT[1]; @ACKD_EVENT=grep (/:${CUR_TEST}/, @INITFILE_contents); @ACK_EVENT=split(/:/,$ACKD_EVENT[0]); $ACK_COLOR=$ACKD_EVENT[0]; $ACK_TEST=$ACKD_EVENT[1];Compare the current alert color with that which was saved initially.
if ( $CUR_COLOR < $ACK_EVENT[0] ) {New color is lower than initial color - leave ack alone.
print LOGFILE "NO ACTION NEEDED (new level lower thanack level).\n";
} elsif ( $CUR_COLOR > $ACK_EVENT[0] ) {New color is greater than initial ack color, dump ack so new alerts
can be sent.
if ( $ACK_COLOR == "" ) {New alert not previously detected (different service, process, or disk
alerting)
print LOGFILE "ACK COLOR $ACK_COLOR\n"; print LOGFILE "NEW ALERT - DISABLE ACK AND SEND NEWALERT.\n";
Reset the server.test status to green. Next update will reset the
alert condition effectivly
canceling the acknowledge.
open RESET, "/home/xymon/server/bin/xymon 0'status+10 ${SERVERNAME}.${TESTTYPE} green Ack Reset New Alert Rcvd.' |" or die "Couldn't execute: $!";
close RESET; } else {Level of original alert has upgraded (typically yellow->red)
print LOGFILE "ACK COLOR $ACK_COLOR\n"; print LOGFILE "OLD ALERT - DISABLE ACK AND SEND NEWALERT.\n";
Reset the server.test status to green. Next update will reset the
alert condition effectivly
canceling the acknowledge.
open RESET, "/home/xymon/server/bin/xymon 0'status+1 ${SERVERNAME}.${TESTTYPE} green Ack Reset Alert Level Changed.' |" or die "Couldn't execute: $!";
close RESET; } } else {Nothing to do here.
print LOGFILE "NO ACTION NEEDED (new level equals acklevel).\n";
} } } }}
}
When there are no ack'd alerts clean out the ACK status directory.
if ( $COUNT == 0 ) {
unlink glob "${ACKSDIR}/*";
}
Thanks,
John
Upcoming PTO:
(none)
John Rothlisberger
IT Strategy, Infrastructure & Security - Technology Growth Platform
TGP for Business Process Outsourcing
Accenture
312.693.3136 office**
*From:*Ryan Novosielski [mailto:novosirj at umdnj.edu] *Sent:* Friday, October 22, 2010 5:23 PM *To:* xymon at xymon.com *Cc:* xymon at xymon.com *Subject:* Re: [xymon] canceling acknowledgements
I'm guessing, but I don't know, that these two things would work:
- Remove the file created on the server that contains the ack notice.
- Ack the same test as the same person for 1 minute or something similar.
I was thinking about this same one the other day. The conclusion I came to was "Why on earth would I want to do that?" The only reason I could think of was a case of ack'd by accident.
----- Original Message ----- From: Larry Barber <lebarber at gmail.com <mailto:lebarber at gmail.com>> Date: Friday, October 22, 2010 9:21 pm Subject: [xymon] canceling acknowledgements To: xymon at xymon.com <mailto:xymon at xymon.com>
Is there some way to cancel an 'ack' after it has been issued?
Thanks, Larry Barber
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