I've had a lot of problems with these alert rules - often it is trial and error to determine what combination of parameters works. At times I had to just write a separate rule for the exceptional condition, even though this adds to complexity of alerts.cfg.

I wrote this (rough & ready) script to speed testing - I find it helpful to test small adjustments to rules and as a final check/audit to make sure everything is actually alerting when you think it should. Of course you'll need to adjust the times to suit your schedule...

if [ -z "$1" ] then echo testalerts.sh hostname-in-hosts-cfg test colour exit 1 else host=$1 fi if [ -z "$2" ] then test="" else test=$2 fi if [ -z "$3" ] then COLOUR="red" else COLOUR=$3 fi

before hours = 1435005600

work time = 1435042049

after hours early = 1435053556

after hours late = 1435063556

weekend daytime = 1434770000

weekend night = 1434799000

for t in 1435005600 1435042049 1435053556 1435063556 1434770000 1434799000 do when=perl -e "print scalar localtime $t;" echo "

Testing $host for $test for duration=1 minute at $when " # --config=xxxxx to test non-production alerts.cfg xymond_alert --test $host $test --color=$COLOUR --duration=1 --time=$t | egrep " alert |\*\*\*" echo "

Testing $host for $test for duration=15 minutes at $when " xymond_alert --test $host $test --color=$COLOUR --duration=15 --time=$t | egrep " alert |\*\*\*" done

From: Xymon <xymon-bounces at xymon.com> on behalf of Root, Paul T <Paul.Root at CenturyLink.com> Sent: Friday, 17 February 2017 4:33 AM To: 'Erik'; xymon at xymon.com Subject: Re: [Xymon] Limiting repeated messages

That's what I started with, and that doesn't work. Script doesn't acknowledge the DURATION or REPEAT keywords.

From: Xymon [mailto:xymon-bounces at xymon.com] On Behalf Of Erik Sent: Friday, February 10, 2017 7:26 AM To: xymon at xymon.com Subject: Re: [Xymon] Limiting repeated messages

Using what you'd provided, here's what I'd put in your alerts.cfg

HOST=NMSRep SERVICE=LogMasterErr,NMSRepScheduler,NMSRepTask,RepDisc_Issues COLOR=red,yellow,purple RECOVERED

SCRIPT /usr/local/scripts/html_mail.pl<http://html_mail.pl> $NG-NMSRep-DEV DURATION>7d DURATION<14d REPEAT=1d

I moved the duration rules down to the "SCRIPT" line. I also added a 2nd duration rule to demonstrate you could time box this. The script will fire once per day for 7 days, after 7 days.

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