Email integration and how to include alarm details in the alarm message being emailed.

Products

DX Unified Infrastructure Management (Nimsoft / UIM)

Issue/Introduction

I am sending alarms to SNOW through email and want to include all alarm details being displayed in Nimsoft to be sent in the mail. Please let me know the message variables to include in the mail template.

Environment

Release: 9.0.2 or higher
Component: UNIFIED INFRASTRUCTURE MGMT

Cause

Guidance

Resolution

Profiles can override the default message template and email subject. Email messages are formatted by the emailgtw probe. The emailgtw probe's DEFAULT is set to send emails using an HTML format. If desired, HTML format can be DISABLED by changing a flag in the emailgtw configuration. This flag is not exposed by the configuration GUI, but can be accessed using Raw Configuration: (just do this for the specific emailgtw profile, e.g., admin, Operator, LinuxOperators, Joe, etc) if so desired.

1. Highlight emailgtw probe.
2. Select Raw Configure...
3. Select the "use_html" key in the "setup" folder
4. Press the "Edit" button, change the value to "no", and press "OK" if you want to use plain text.
5. Press the "OK" button to apply the change and close the Raw Configure Tool.
6. Deactivate emailgtw probe.
7. Activate emailgtw probe.

***Note that you can use either an html or .txt email template but NOT both.

Other options: You can change the Subject or message body on an overall level or per specific emailgtw PROFILE.

IMPORTANT:
If you enter a $ sign in the Subject field and wait a moment, you will get a drop-down of message variable fields you can use. This will include message, subsystem, count, etc.

Tips: To get a "category" of the alarm, the subsystem is probably your best bet. It should be the $subsys variable. This would mean making sure the subsystem IDs set by the alarms are useful, but most of the probes set fairly useful subsystem IDs by default. You may need to tweak some to fit into categories that are most useful to you though. You can Edit the emailgtw template file as you see fit, e.g., add origin, etc, and call it whatever you like, for instance <user1>.txt or template1.html if you're not using a plain text template.

WARNING: template.txt is the original email template text file so don't overwrite that one.

[Alarm message]
Level: $level_exp ($level)
Subsystem: $subsys
Message: $message
NimID: $nimid
Sent: $nimts_exp ($nimts)
Source: $source
Domain: $domain
Robot: $robot
ProbeID: $prid
Hostname: $hostname
SubsystemID: $sid
Event: $supp_key
Arrival: $arrival_exp ($arrival)
Suppressed: $supptime_exp ($supptime)
Count: $suppcount
Exported by: $exported_by
Export type: $exported_type

Profile: $profile

etc

For instance, to add origin, a common request from customers, add one line to the template:

Origin: $origin and then when finished, place this file into: .../Program Files (x86)/Nimsoft/probes/gateway/emailgtw/ and reference it in the profile for that specific user using the Raw Configure option for the emailgtw probe.

For example, Under Setup->Profile Key and Value would be: template <user1>.txt

e.g., adding origin below...

You can click the button in the emailgtw probe to edit the template.html and add variables to the alarm message to be emailed.

.....
<tr>
<td width="25%">$source[$hostname_strip]</td>
<td width="25%">$subsys</td>
<td width="25%">Robot: $robot</td>
<td width="25%">Probe: $prid</td>
<td width="25%">Origin: $origin</td>
</tr>
...

Additional Information

As an alternative, instead of using the HTML template, you can use a plain text template.

You can add quite a number of message variables that will affect all alarms. Most of them are listed below, but there are a few more.

When you have your cursor in the Subject window of the alarm gateway enter a $ and you will see the valid message variables.

Edit the template.txt in the emailgtw directory, e.g., ...\Program Files (x86)\Nimsoft\probes\gateway\emailgtw

[Alarm message]
Level: $level_exp ($level)
PreviousLevel:$prevlevel
Subsystem: $subsys
Message: $message
Count $count
NimID: $nimid
Sent: $nimts_exp ($nimts)
Source: $source
Domain: $domain
Hub: $hub
Robot: $robot
ProbeID: $prid
Hostname: $hostname
SubsystemID: $sid
Event: $supp_key
AOTimeStamp: $aots
Arrival: $arrival_exp ($arrival)
Suppressed: $supptime_exp ($supptime)
Count: $suppcount
Origin: $origin
TimeZone: $supptime_tzexp
AssignedAt: $assigned_at
AssignedTo: $assigned_to
AO_Argument $ao_argument
UserTag1: $user_tag1
UserTag2: $user_tag2

Then reference the template.txt in the emailgtw via the GUI->Setup icon->General-Template.

Then deselect the 'Use HTML format' checkbox.

Click Ok and the emailgtw will restart.

To test the alarm results, you can setup a nas AO rule to ensure you get an email when you generate an alarm.

You can send a test alarm with the string you're filtering on, via nas->Status Tab->Rt-click in the window and 'Send Test alarm' using a string that will trigger your alarm.

Here is an example of the plain text alarm when received via email.

Nimsoft Message: Alarm from <host>

<email_address>
6:45 PM (0 minutes ago)
to me

[UIM Alarm message]
Level: critical (5)
PreviousLevel:5
Subsystem: Process
Message: wininit.exe: Process wininit.exe is running with process id = 444.
Count 11
NimID: MB51723322-26640
Sent: 12/05/19 15:35:35 (1575588935)
Source: ##.##.###.###
Domain: <uim_domain>
Hub: <uim_hub>
Robot: <uim_robot>
ProbeID: processes
Hostname: <hostname>
SubsystemID: 1.1.2
Event: process/wininit.exe/process_state
AOTimeStamp: 1575589538
Arrival: 12/05/19 15:35:41 (1575588941)
Suppressed: 12/05/19 15:45:35 (1575589535)
Count: 10
Origin: <origin>
TimeZone: 12/05/19 15:45:35
AssignedAt: 1575589120
AssignedTo: <userid>
AO_Argument <email_address>
UserTag1: xx|yyy|zzz
UserTag2: MyRobot|Test1|Test2