Feb 23, 2010 5:51 PM
BEST way to use Zenoss to send SMS alerts
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I've been through these forums a bit trying to find the best way to get SMS alerts out of Zenoss. There are several threads on the issue and a variety of solutions are presented. Some seem to work, some don't. Some use zensnpp, some don't. None of them seem easy to implement.
Here's the goal: I have an external modem and access to a dial-up SMS gateway service. I'd like to have certain critical events trigger an SMS alert that will go out the modem and show up on three or four cell phones (one of them mine). What's the easiest, best-supported way to get this done?
I have considered using web-based SMS gateways to get this done, but that is unsatisfactory. We have a non-redundant Internet connection. If it goes down, no alerts will ever go out, thus the modem. POTS lines just don't go down, even in a power failure (and a UPS will keep Zenoss and the modem alive long enough to let us know the power is out).
Can somebody help a poor guy out? I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one out here who'd like a relatively quick, non-hacked-together solution to this problem.
Thanks in advance!
From what I've read up on, it seems that executing an event command is the best way to accomplish your goal. Filter so that it would only execute on those critical alerts, then you could either send the SMS and a normal alert or check to see if you can ping an internet address and if not, then send the SMS.
I'm assuming that the SMS link will only be activated in the case that Internet service is down. Complicated, but I understand why you're looking into it.
http://www.plus.net/support/dial-up/setup/linux.shtml
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/306968/ppp-demand-dial-with-modem-bank-in-linux
We want to use this for all critical alerts, not just for ISP-down alerts. What I need help with is how to get Zenoss to talk through the modem (via /dev/tty0 I would assume) so that it will dial the SMS gateway and then speak the proper protocol to send an SMS message. I'm sure there's a very complicated way to do this with shell scripts and such. I'm wondering if there is an easier way to do it.
To my knowledge, that functionality is not built into Zenoss.
The reason it's not built into Zenoss because there are many different ways to implement sending SMS. There are lots of different modems and phones that could be configured to work via the command line and scripting. Depending on your SMS provider, you could use phone#@provider and do it via email. You could use something like http://www.clickatel.com/ or http://www.pagerduty.com/.
Thanks,
Matt Ray
Zenoss Community Manager
community.zenoss.org
But as far as I can tell, the built-in pager system does not work "out of the box." The docs devote roughly a single paragraph to the SNPP/pager setup. Basically it says put in the phone number of your device (i.e. my cell phone since nobody has pagers these days). Using the "test" function yields a "Test failed: socket.error - (111, 'Connection refused')" so that's of no use at all. There's no troubleshooting info in the admin guide to take you past this point, or at least none I could find by searching for "SNPP" and "pager" through the whole PDF.
After spending some quality time with Google, it looks like Sendpage may be one of the better options for getting a modem hooked up and sending SMS messages using a TAP dial-up gateway. Now the question is how to implement this within Zenoss without spending the next two weeks messing around with scripts and such.
I'm off to search the Zenoss forums for specific examples. Hopefully I'll find something that can get me started. If I get it working I'll try posting how I did it. Web-based SMS gateways are quick and easy but are of no use at all if your connection fails. Hence the modem and a good old reliable POTS line.
A little off topic, so please be patient. Don't get too comfortable with POTS lines. While they are more reliable than most circuits (due to the really low physical requirements), they are still succeptible to serious downtime. In our neighborhood, Verizon just had a construction company run a pile driver through two 3600 pair cables that fed most of the local town. It took over two weeks to repair them. Yes, that's an extreme example.
My point is that if you use a POTS line as a backup (or any other type of circuit for that matter), I would make sure that you put in some cyclic mechanism that allows you to verify that it is working. If there is no regular method of testing, it may not be there when you need it.
And yes, I really am a phone guy!
PG
I see your point, but in the last three years our T1's have been down quite a few times. POTS lines? Never. Not even once. Shocking but true.
What I'm likely going to do is use a combination of either SMS-via-web, SMS-via-POTS, and offsite monitoring (pings and/or heartbeats) to ensure we always know when something drastic has happened. The SMS-via-POTS is (apparently) the most difficult to implement so I'm trying to get it out of the way first.
Check out this article: http://www.dynowski.com/blog/?p=62
we use a product build by topex that has a builtin pop3 client and make email to sms and sms to email gateway... it work perfectly
That configuration still relies on your network to send messages though doesn't it? The best solution is to directly connect equipment that is off the network that Zenoss is monitoring.
it's an internal device connected directly to zenoss, not an external service, so yes, my switch can goes down, also my sms gateway but modem too can broken.... for myself it's an acceptable risk.
i've two zenoss server for different usage but look each other sms gateway so if one is unrechable i recive an sms that alert me and i've a deduntand internal network topology.
for small installation, yes, a modem is the best way
OK, I've narrowed down my choices to either Sendpage (www.sendpage.org) and QuickPage (qpage.org). Both seem to have people that like them and use them. Sendpage looks like it might be more polished but I'm not sure.
Any recommendations from the gallery? Who's using Sendpage? Who's using QuickPage? What do you like or dislike about either?
Got Zenoss working with QuickPage and wrote up a HOWTO
Excellent HOWTO! This is just what I needed and will save me a lot of fumbling around. Many thanks, sir!
CAN THE FORUM ADMINS MAKE HIS HOWTO A STICKY TOPIC??? It would be much appreciate by many besides just me.
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