How do I configure nagios with audio notifications?

^{This was done with the authorized written permission of nagios.com}

There's been a lot of questions as to exactly how notifications work. This will attempt to explain exactly when and how host and service notifications are sent out, as well as who receives them.

When Do Notifications Occur?

The decision to send out notifications is made in the service check and host check logic. The calculations for whether a notification is to be sent are only triggered when processing a host or service check corresponding to that notification; they are not triggered simply because the has passed since a previous notification was sent. Host and service notifications occur in the following instances.

• When a hard state change occurs.
• When a host or service remains in a hard non-OK state and the time specified by the option in the host or service definition has passed since the last notification was sent
  out (for that specified host or service).

Who Gets Notified?

Each host and service definition has a option that specifies what contact groups receive notifications for that particular host or service. Contact groups can contain one or more individual contacts.

When Nagios sends out a host or service notification, it will notify each contact that is a member of any contact groups specified in the option of the service definition. Nagios realizes that a contact may be a member of more than one contact group, so it removes duplicate contact notifications before it does anything.

What Filters Must Be Passed In Order For Notifications To Be Sent?

Just because there is a need to send out a host or service notification doesn't mean that any contacts are going to get notified. There are several filters that potential notifications must pass before they are deemed worthy enough to be sent out. Even then, specific contacts may not be notified if their notification filters do not allow for the notification to be sent to them. Let's go into the filters that have to be passed in more detail.

Program-Wide Filter

The first filter that notifications must pass is a test of whether or not notifications are enabled on a program-wide basis. This is initially determined by the enable_notifications directive in the main config file, but may be changed during runtime from the web interface. If notifications are disabled on a program-wide basis, no host or service notifications can be sent out - period. If they are enabled on a program-wide basis, there are still other tests that must be passed.

Notification Methods

You can have Nagios notify you of problems and recoveries pretty much anyway you want: pager, cellphone, email, instant message, audio alert, electric shocker, etc. How notifications are sent depend on the notification commands that are defined in your object definition files. ¹

Read More

^{1Source:Nagios Notification}

^{This was done with the authorized written permission of nagios.com}

After installing alsa by using the command

sudo apt-get install alsa alsa-base alsa-utils

after that we go to configure Nagios Core to use aplay as command-line audio file player for the ALSA sound card driver.

> $: cd /usr/local/nagios/etc $: sudo nano commands.cfg

adding the following lines

define command{  command_name    play_siren  command_line    /bin/bash
> /usr/local/nagios/etc/objects/play_siren.sh  }

create a script to run the sound alarm

> $: cd objects $: sudo nano play_siren.sh

with those lines

> #!/bin/bash  /usr/bin/aplay -q /usr/share/nagios/etc/objects/alarm.wav

give to it the permissions and create a log

> $: sudo chown nagios.nagios play_siren.sh $: sudo chmod a+x

play_siren.sh

modify the file contact.cfg to say to nagios of using the sound alarm

> $: sudo nano templates.cfg:

modify the

define contact{ name generic-contact
service_notification_period 24x7
host_notification_period 24x7
service_notification_options w,u,c,r,f,s
host_notification_options d,u,r,f,s
service_notification_commands notify-service-by-email,play_siren
host_notification_commands notify-host-by-email,play_siren register 0
} ²

^{2Source:ideasnet.wordpress.com}

Extra References:

^{custom checks and notifications nagios}