Overview
The configuration for SMTP-based alert notifications has two components:
- Configuration of an SMTP gateway by the Delphix system administrator
- Configuration of one or more alert profiles (if needed)
Configuring the SMTP Gateway
Prior to having email-based alerts function properly, many organizations require that an SMTP gateway be configured, through which all outbound email is sent.
Before email-based alerts can function properly, many organizations require that an SMTP gateway be configured, through which all outbound email is sent.
- Contact the appropriate administrator for you site in order to determine the properly SMTP gateway settings.
- Login to the Delphix Setup application as sysadmin or another user with system administrator privileges.
- On the Dashboard screen, locate the Serviceability section, and click Modify.
Serviceability for SMTP Gateway
- If not checked already, check the box next to Use an existing SNMP server?
- At a minimum, enter the required information:
- SMTP Server Name of IP Address
- SMTP port
- From Email Address
This will be the email address from which all alert email will be sent.
- Click Test to verify that you are able to receive email properly.
- Click Save to save changes.
For further information, see the “Serviceability” section of Setting Up the Delphix Engine.
Alert Profiles
An alert profile is composed of two things:
- Filter Specification: A filter, or combination of filters, that specifies which alerts are of interest.
- Alert Action: This specifies the email addresses to which the Delphix Engine will send email when an alert matches the filter specification.
By default, the Delphix Engine has a single alert profile configured with the following parameters:
- Filter Specification: Match any alert with a severity level of CRITICAL or WARNING.
- Alert Actions: Send email to the address defined for user delphix_admin.
Using the CLI, it is possible to:
- Modify the system default alert profile
- Create additional profiles in addition to the default one
- Set multiple actions for a single profile, such as "email dephix_admin" and "email user1@mycompany.com".
Simple Filters
- Filtered by Owner of alerts target – for example, objects owned by user 1
Complex Filters
Complex filters combine/modify other sub-filters:
- “And” filter – Used when all conditions defined must be met for the filter to notify the user with an email
- “Or” filter – Used when either one or the other of the conditions defined in the filters must be met for the filter to notify the user with an email
- “Not” filter – Used to exclude items
Limitations
- This is a CLI feature.
- Alert Profiles do not override permission settings. If you do not have Read permission on an object then your alert profile will never get triggered for that objects alerts, regardless of your filter settings.
- A simple profile
- A profile with two filters
- A complicated profile
For more information, see CLI Cookbook: Creating Alert Profiles.
A Simple Profile
A simple profile approach matches the Delphix out-of-the-box default alert profiles. To create a simple alert profile using the CLI as seen in the figure below, go into the alert profile section of the command line interface (CLI) and create a new profile. Line four prompts the engine to send an email when the filters are triggered. The following three command lines refer to the filter specifications. Follow two severity levels: warning and critical. This will trigger an email alert when any warning or critical events occur.
Simple Alert Profile example in the CLI
A Compound Alert Profile
Creating a compound alert profile in the CLI will combine two filters together. This profile triggers an email about any alert on objects owned by the delphix_admin plus any other alert that is critical. The compound alert profile creates two filters. The first one will be the target owner filter, which in this case is delphix_admin. The second filter is the severity filter, allowing users to match anything that is critical. Combine these two filters using the OR logic so that if any of the sub-filters match, the whole filter matches. An example of this can be seen in the figure below.
Alert Profile using OR logic
While working in the CLI, the first four lines describe a simple alert profile. The distinction between simple and compound alert profiles is that in a compound profile, the top-level filter uses an OR filter with sub-filters for target owner and severity level, as seen in line five of the figure below.
Complex Alert Profile
A complex alert profile uses the profile filter created in the compound alert profile and modifies it. For the example shown in the figure below, you have a VDB named test_instance that you do not need any emails about. The following commands will create an effective filter.
- Create an OR filter with two sub filters: target owner and event type.
- Create a NOT filter which will exclude the VDB (test_instance) from which you do not want to receive notifications.
- Use the AND logic to combine all these filters together, as seen below.
Complex Alert Profile
Below is an example of the command lines used to set up this complex profile.
Creating Alert Profiles
SSH into your engine's CLI using your delphix_admin username and password
ssh delphix_admin@yourdelphixengine
Start creating your new profile
delphix alert > profile delphix alert profile > create delphix alert profile create * > ls
Set Action(s)
Use AlertActionEmailList if you want to specify a list of email addresses for this profile.delphix alert profile create *> set actions.0.type=AlertActionEmailList delphix alert profile create *> set actions.0.addresses.0=<email address to send to> delphix alert profile create *> set actions.0.addresses.1=<additional email address> delphix alert profile create *> set actions.0.addresses.2=<additional email address>
Or, use AlertActionEmailUser if you just want the emails to go to the email address associated with this Delphix user.
delphix alert profile create *> set actions.0.type=AlertActionEmailUser
It is possible to add more than one action here, so you may use both AlertActionEmailList and AlertActionEmailUser if desired.
Set filter
Here is an example of setting a simple severity filter. With this filter, emails will be sent for any CRITICAL or WARNING alerts.delphix alert profile create *> set filterSpec.type=SeverityFilter delphix alert profile create *> set filterSpec.severityLevels.0=CRITICAL delphix alert profile create *> set filterSpec.severityLevels.1=WARNING
Here is an example of setting a simple target-owner filter. With this filter, emails will be sent for any alert whose target is owned by delphix_admin.
delphix alert profile create *> set filterSpec.type=TargetOwnerFilter delphix alert profile create *> set filterSpec.owners.0=delphix_admin
Here is an example of a compound filter. With this filter, we combine the above two filters – an email is send when an alert is CRITICAL or WARNING, and the alert's target is owned by delphix_admin.
delphix alert profile create *> set filterSpec.type=AndFilter delphix alert profile create *> set filterSpec.subFilters.0.type=SeverityFilter delphix alert profile create *> set filterSpec.subFilters.0.severityLevels.0=CRITICAL delphix alert profile create *> set filterSpec.subFilters.0.severityLevels.1=WARNING delphix alert profile create *> set filterSpec.subFilters.1.type=TargetOwnerFilter delphix alert profile create *> set filterSpec.subFilters.1.owners.0=delphix_admin
Commit your changes
delphix alert profile create *> commit
Profile Filters
As seen above, you can use different filter types to customize which alerts the Delphix Engine will send emails about. The various filter types are listed below.
Simple Filters
Filter Type | Purpose | Example | Allowed Values |
|---|---|---|---|
SeverityFilter | Match based on the alert's severity level (critical, warning, informational) | severityLevels.0=CRITICAL severityLevels.1=WARNING This would match any alert whose severity level is CRITICAL or WARNING. | 1 or more of:
|
EventFilter | Match based on the alert's event type. | eventTypes.0=fault.* This would match any alert that is generated due to a newly-raised fault on the engine. | One or more text entries, optionally using the * wildcard. |
TargetFilter | Match based on the alert's target. | targets.0=”Group/DB” This would match any alert whose target is the database “DB” located in the group “Group”. | Any object in the system. 1 or more objects may be specified. |
| TargetOwnerFilter | Match based on the owner of the alert's target. | owners.0=delphix_admin This would match any alert whose target's owner is the delphix_admin user. | Any user in the system. 1 or more users may be specified. |
Compound Filters
These filters combine/modify the behavior of other filters, called "subfilters". The subfilters may be of any type (simple or complex).
Filter Type | Purpose | Number of subfilters required |
|---|---|---|
AndFilter | This filter matches if all subfilters match | 2 or more |
| OrFilters | This filter matches if any subfilter matches. | 2 or more |
NotFilter | This filter matches if the subfilter does not match. | 1 |
Action Types
With the AlertActionEmailUser type, notification emails will be sent to the email address of the user who owns the alert profile.
With the AlertActionEmailList type, a list of email addresses must be specified in the "addresses" array. Notification emails will be sent to these addresses.
Email Format Options
To change the format, while updating an alert profile:
delphix alert profile ALERT_PROFILE-X update *> set actions.0.format=<JSON|TEXT>