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Notifications : Notification skins
   
Notification skins
 
The content of a notification skin
Creating custom notification skins
The three basic notifications (email, sms and htmlpost notifications) are all using something called notification skins. The notification skins are templates describing how the notification is supposed to look like when it is sent to its receiver.
If we will take a look at the notify folder we will find the following skins folders:
skins.htmlpost/
skins.mail/
skins.sms/
Each folder contains a number of notification skins divided into host and service notification filters.
host.ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
host.FLAPPINGSTART
host.FLAPPINGSTOP
host.PROBLEM
host.RECOVERY
 
service.ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
service.FLAPPINGSTART
service.FLAPPINGSTOP
service.PROBLEM
service.RECOVERY
As you can see there is one skin for the most common notification types.
The content of a notification skin
Let us take a look at what a skin looks like.
Example 1 The sms service.PROBLEM skin
#SERVICEDESC# on #HOSTNAME# is #SERVICESTATE#. #SERVICEOUTPUT#
 
This is a very simple skin. The reason for that is that you can not send too much data with a normal sms.
Example 2 The mail service.PROBLEM skin
From: op5Monitor
To: #CONTACTEMAIL#
Subject: [op5] #NOTIFICATIONTYPE#: '#SERVICEDESC#' on '#HOSTNAME#' is #SERVICESTATE#
#extra_host_vars#
op5 Monitor
Service #NOTIFICATIONTYPE# detected #LASTSERVICESTATECHANGE#.
'#SERVICEDESC#' on host '#HOSTNAME#' has passed the #SERVICESTATE# threshold.
#STATUS_URL#
Additional info;
#SERVICEOUTPUT#
Host: #HOSTNAME#
Address: #HOSTADDRESS#
Alias: #HOSTALIAS#
Status: #HOSTSTATE#
Comment: #NOTIFICATIONCOMMENT#
Service: #SERVICEDESC#
Status : #SERVICESTATE#
Latency: Check was #SERVICELATENCY# seconds behind schedule
Misc : Check took #SERVICEEXECUTIONTIME# seconds to complete
Additional links (requires configuration);
Host actions: #HOSTACTIONURL#
Host notes: #HOSTNOTESURL#Service actions: #SERVICEACTIONURL#
Service notes: #SERVICENOTESURL#
 
The mail notifications can contain a lot more data and there we add a lot more to the mail skin file.
In both Example 1 on page 166 and Example 2 on page 166 you find text like:
#SERVICEDESC#
#HOSTNAME#
That text is called keywords.
The keywords will be replaced with the value of a command line argument looking like this:
FOO=BAR
So a command line argument like the one above will generate a keyword with the name FOO having the value BAR.
Note: If a notification macro, or other value sent to a corresponding keyword, is missing in the notification command it will not stop the notification from being sent. It is only the replacement that will be missing.
Creating custom notification skins
Sometimes the default notification skins needs to be changed. This shall not be done in the default folders.
To create custom notification skins
1 Go to the notify folder:
cd /opt/monitor/op5/notify
2 Create the custom-skins folder:
mkdir custom-skins
3 Copy the skins.* folders to the custom-skins folder:
cp -R skins.* custom-skins/
4 Make the changes you like to do and the new skins will be used at directly after you have saved the changes.