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Stefan Stranger's Weblog - Manage your IT Infrastructure

Email Alert Notification based on Alert Descriptions

Posted over 5 years ago

by Stefan Stranger
- 3 Comments
Have you ever wanted to create email notifications for Alerts based on Alert Descriptions? This cannot be done using the E-mail Notification Channel and Subscriptions settings.

This can be done however with the use of the Notification Command Channel with uses a vbscript that sends an email based on the information in the Alert Description. All the logic and sending of the emails is done by a script.

This is probably my last blog post for some weeks because I'm going to enjoy a long holiday ;-)

Here are the steps:
1. Create a vbscript and save this script in a folder on the RMS.
  (example of script is at end of article and attached)
2. Create new Command Notification Channel
  
  Full path to file:
  c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe
3. Create Notification Subscription
4. Create Notification Device
5. Add Notification Device to Recipient
6. Done!
And now the vbscript that makes this all possible:

'Example script to use in the OpsMgr Command Notification Channel to
'send Email Notifications based on Alert Description to Solution groups.
'Some info for this script is taken from Script: Notification Logfile weblog article by Anders Bengtsson
'http://contoso.se/blog/?p=265

Option Explicit
Dim colNamedArguments
Dim AlertDescription
Dim AlertSource
Dim AlertName
Dim AlertSev
Dim AlertPrio
Dim AlertState
Dim objEmail
Dim objShell
Dim strContents
Dim strEventCreate
Dim strEventDescription
Dim strFrom
Dim strSub
Dim strBody
Dim strSMTP
Dim strTo

Set colNamedArguments = Wscript.Arguments.Named
Set objShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")

' ******************************************
' GET PARAMETERS INTO SCRIPT
' ******************************************

AlertDescription = colNamedArguments("desc")
'Use: /desc:"$Data/Context/DataItem/AlertDescription$" in Notification Command Channel Command Line parameters
AlertName = colNamedArguments("alert")
'Use: /alert:"$Data/Context/DataItem/AlertName$" in Notification Command Channel Command Line parameters
AlertSource = colNamedArguments("source")
'Use: /source:"$Data/Context/DataItem/ManagedEntityDisplayName$" in Notification Command Channel Command Line parameters
AlertSev = colNamedArguments("sev")
'Use: /sev:"$Data/Context/DataItem/Severity$" in Notification Command Channel Command Line parameters
AlertPrio = colNamedArguments("prio")
'Use: /prio:"$Data/Context/DataItem/Priority$" in Notification Command Channel Command Line parameters
AlertState = colNamedArguments("state")
'Use: /state:"$Data/Context/DataItem/ResolutionStateName$" in Notification Command Channel Command Line parameters

'Complete Notification Command Channel Command Line parameter:
' /c d:\scripts\notificationalertdescriptionv0.1.vbs /desc:"$Data/Context/DataItem/AlertDescription$" /alert:"$Data/Context/DataItem/AlertName$" /source:"$Data/Context/DataItem/ManagedEntityDisplayName$" /sev:"$Data/Context/DataItem/Severity$" /prio:"$Data/Context/DataItem/Priority$" /state:"$Data/Context/DataItem/ResolutionStateName$"

'Alert Description from OpsMgr Alert
strContents = AlertDescription

' ******************************************
' TRANSLATE SEVERITY AND PRIORITY
' ******************************************

if AlertSev = "1" Then
    AlertSev = "Critical"
elseif AlertSev = "2" then
    AlertSev = "Warning"
elseif AlertSev = "3" then
    AlertSev = "Information"
End If

if AlertPrio = "1" Then
    AlertPrio = "High"
elseif AlertPrio = "2" then
    AlertPrio = "Medium"
elseif AlertPrio = "3" then
    AlertPrio = "Low"
End If

' ******************************************
' SCRIPT LOGIC
' ******************************************
' Configure on "serverx" the string which determines to which email address an email notification should be sent.

'Change the search string
If InStr(strContents, "serverx") Then
    'Configure email address Solution Group X
    strTo = "solutiongroupx@contoso.local"
    'Send email
    Call SendEMail(strTo)
End If

'Change the search string
If InStr(strContents, "servery") Then
     'Configure email address Solution Group Y
    strTo = "solutiongroupy@contoso.local"
    'Send email
    Call SendEMail(strTo)
End If

' ******************************************
' MAIL CONFIGURATION
' ******************************************

strFrom = "opsmgrnotification@contoso.local"
strSub = "Notification from Operations Manager 2007. Severity: " & AlertSev & ". Priority: " & AlertPrio & ". State: " & AlertState
strBody = "Notification from Operations Manager" & VBCRLF & VBCRLF & "Alert Name: " & AlertName & VBCRLF & "Alert Source: " & AlertSource & VBCRLF & "Alert Description: " & AlertDescription
strSMTP = "mail.contoso.local"

' ******************************************
' SEND MESSAGE
' ******************************************
Public Function SendEmail(strTo)
    set objEmail = CreateObject("CDO.Message")
    objEmail.From = strFrom
    objEmail.To = strTo
    objEmail.Subject = strSub
    objEmail.Textbody = strBody
    objEmail.Configuration.Fields.Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusing") = 2
    objEmail.Configuration.Fields.Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserver") = strSMTP
    objEmail.Configuration.Fields.Update
    objEmail.Send
End Function
Stefan Stranger's Weblog - Manage your IT Infrastructure

Can Xplat monitor Linux Monitoring Device?

Posted over 5 years ago

by Stefan Stranger
- 2 Comments
Source: Cnet News.com

“Plat'Home, a Linux company from Japan that specializes in combining eco-friendly, small, tough hardware with their own version of Linux, is announcing another in their series of MicroServers. Kanshi BlockS Pro, made to monitor servers and various network applications, is now available in North America.”

Picture by Plat'Home Kanshi Blocks Pro

Features

Monitoring and Alerts
- Server alive monitoring by ping
- Port monitoring
- Network device monitoring by SNMPv3
- Network traffic, server monitoring (CPU load, physical memory, virtual memory, and hard disk load and usage) with MRTG (open software)
- Protocol message monitoring for SMTP, POP and IMAP
- Monitor up to 255 servers, regardless of the manufacturer
- Two Ethernet connectors to provide surveillance over different networks, such as a dedicated line and the Internet
- Receive scheduled status messages and emergency alerts
- Customize notifications according to recipient (administrator, users)
- SMTP authentication
Would it be possible to use Cross Platform Extentions to monitor this Linux monitoring box? An Linux agent for their SSD/Linux distribution should be created first ;-)

SSD/Linux is the Linux distribution developed by Plat'Home, for use with the MicroServer series. The distribution is optimized to fit on a small internal ROM, while offering all necessary functions for networking and peripheral devices.

The name of the distribution is derived from its place of development, Sotokanda in Tokyo, in imitation of BSD. It is published under a BSD-style open license.
Stefan Stranger's Weblog - Manage your IT Infrastructure

TechNet Magazine: Windows PowerShell in System Center Operations Manager

Posted over 5 years ago

by Stefan Stranger
- 1 Comments
Marco Shaw, has published an article about how Windows PowerShell can be used with System Center Operations Manager 2007 on the August Technet Magazine.

Go read this great article about PowerShell and OpsMgr 2007.

He even mentions my PowerShell Event Creator script in his article :-)

I know Marco form my first experiences with PowerShell and PowerGadgets.

Marco Shaw is an IT System Analyst for a Canadian telecommunications company. He has been working in the IT industry for more than 10 years, and he recently received a Windows PowerShell MVP award. Marco is also the Assistant Community Director of the new PowerShell Community Web site at powershellcommunity.org. He blogs at marcoshaw.blogspot.com.
Stefan Stranger's Weblog - Manage your IT Infrastructure

Thinking about buying a EEE PC

Posted over 5 years ago

by Stefan Stranger
- 0 Comments
I know this is not a topic you normally find on this weblog, but I’m thinking about buying a new EEE PC for some days now. Even had some discussion on Twitter about the EEE PC and the MSI Wind. Still haven’t made up my mind, but today I stumbled on this funny cartoon from XKDC about a New Pet.

Do you think I need a new pet? We already got some gold fishes and I always have to clean the aquarium. Maybe not such a good idea after all.
Stefan Stranger's Weblog - Manage your IT Infrastructure

OpsMgr Scripting explained

Posted over 5 years ago

by Stefan Stranger
- 0 Comments
Source: SCOMNIVORE at myITforum.com

Vin DiPippo has written a great article about about some important concepts regarding how scripts are processed by OpsMgr.

“Returning to the main topic, anyone that is a script developer has a particular paradigm in mind. The script is written and runs as written. If you've ever seen constructions that use the $...$ selectors inline (e.g. SomeVar = "$MPElement...$"), you might have assumed that there was something special about the script execution environment that somehow resolves those. The reality is that those resolutions are done before the script is ever executed. Therefore, we have a very tricky paradigm on our hands: the execution environment is completely standard, but the script body itself is "refined" by OpsMgr before it is embodied in an actual file and run. “

All together a great article that I’ve put in in my OneNote OpsMgr KB articles Notebook. As you should do too!
Stefan Stranger's Weblog - Manage your IT Infrastructure

PowerShell CMDLets for WebSphere MQ - administer queues on Windows or Linux

Posted over 5 years ago

by Stefan Stranger
- 0 Comments
Source: All About Interop

Dino Chiesa is writing about PowerShell CMDLets for WebSphere.

“It seems IBM have been busy doing CmdLets for MQ, and somehow this escaped my attention. Starting back in December 2007, Dale Lane at IBM published a series of posts about the topic of PowerShell CmdLets for MQ. There is also now an official SupportPac for this stuff, it goes by the catchy name of mo74. (direct FTP link here). In IBM-speak, a SupportPac is an add-on to the IBM product (in this case WMQ). Very good to see! Keep in mind that there are different categories of SupportPac and just because it says "support" in the name does not mean it is a "supported" part of the IBM product in the sense that you can call up their support engineers and ask for bugfix on it. mo74 is listed as Category 2, which means it is AS-IS software. SupportPacs can transition from "AS-IS" to a supported part of the product; this happens when customers demand it. Last updated April 16th, mo74 is currently at version 1.6.”

Maybe handy for people looking for way to monitor WebSphere MQ with OpsMgr 2007.

Another source for using PowerShell with remote queue managers can be found here.
Stefan Stranger's Weblog - Manage your IT Infrastructure

New Management Packs for OpsMgr 2007

Posted over 5 years ago

by Stefan Stranger
- 0 Comments
In the last couple of days new or updated Management Packs for OpsMgr 2007 are released.
- mpnotifier Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 MP for OpsMgr 2007. Date Published: 7/1/2008. http://tinyurl.com/54jyzj
- mpnotifier Microsoft Windows FRS 2000/2003 MP for OpsMgr 2007.6/30/2008 - Updated. documentation, same version, 6.0.5000.0. http://tinyurl.com/3o9orb

Features

Monitoring and Alerts