Nagios XI Notification Escalations

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Purpose
This document describes how to setup host and service escalations in Nagios XI.

Target Audience
This document is intended for use by Nagios XI Administrators.

Summary
This document has Service Escalations and Host Escalations sections. Service Escalations section covers:

When Are Notifications Escalated

How To Set Service Escalations in Nagios XI
Contact Groups
Overlapping Escalation Ranges
Recovery Notifications
Notification Intervals
Escalation Period
Escalation Options

Service Escalations
When Are Notifications Escalated
Notifications are escalated if and only if one or more escalation definitions matches the current notification that is being sent out. If a
host or service notification does not have any valid escalation definitions that applies to it, the contact group(s) specified in either the
host group or service definition will be used for the notification.
How To Set Service Escalations in Nagios XI
You can set service escalations in Nagios XI through the Nagios Core
Config Manager.
Select Service Escalations under the Alerting in the left panel menu
and click on Add New button.
Start entering the required information by clicking on the Modify icon and
selecting an item and by typing in the appropriate text boxes.
Generally you would define a host and the service associated with it, a
contact group (or groups) that will be notified, a config name (you can
put anything but it should be something that makes sense to you), first
and last notifications, and a notification interval.
Optionally, you can select an escalation period and escalation options.
Escalation period' and Escalation options are covered in the last part
of this document. If you are not sure what options to use, click on the
Help (question mark) icon for more information.
As a last step, put a check-mark in the box, next to Active, click Save
and Apply Configuration.

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Nagios XI Notification Escalations

If you look at the bottom two pictures on the right, you will notice that there are "holes" in the notification escalation definitions. In
particular, notifications 1 and 2 are not handled by the escalations, nor are any notifications beyond 10. For the first and second
notification, as well as all notifications beyond the tenth one, the default contact groups specified in the service definition are used (ntadmins in our case).
Contact Groups
When defining notification escalations, it is important to keep in mind that any contact groups that were members of "lower" escalations
(i.e. those with lower notification number ranges) should also be included in "higher" escalation definitions. This should be done to
ensure that anyone who gets notified of a problem continues to get notified as the problem is escalated.
Compare these two examples:

The first (or "lowest") escalation level includes both the nt-admins and managers contact groups. The last (or "highest") escalation level
includes the nt-admins, managers, and everyone contact groups.
Notice that the nt-admins contact group is included in both escalation definitions. This is done so that they continue to get paged if there
are still problems after the first two service notifications are sent out.
The managers contact group first appears in the "lower" escalation definition - they are first notified when the third problem notification
gets sent out. We want the managers group to continue to be notified if the problem continues past five notifications, so they are also
included in the "higher" escalation definition.
Overlapping Escalation Ranges
Notification escalation definitions can have notification ranges that overlap.

In the example above:

The nt-admins and managers contact groups get notified on the third notification
All three contact groups get notified on the fourth and fifth notifications
Only the on-call-support contact group gets notified on the sixth (or higher) notification

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Nagios XI Notification Escalations

Recovery Notifications
Recovery notifications are slightly different than problem notifications when it comes to escalations. Take the following example:

If after three problem notifications, a recovery notification is sent out for the service, who gets notified? The recovery is actually the
fourth notification that gets sent out. However, the escalation code is smart enough to realize that only those people who were notified
about the problem on the third notification should be notified about the recovery. In this case, the nt-admins and managers contact
groups would be notified of the recovery.
Notification Intervals
In Nagios XI you can change the frequency at which escalated notifications are sent out for a particular service by using the
Notification Interval option under the Nagios Core Config Manager Service Escalation Management. For example:

When the service notification is escalated on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th notifications, an interval of 45 minutes will be used between
notifications (instead of the default notification interval) as specified in serviceescalations-low (picture on the left). On the 6th and
subsequent notifications, the notification interval will be 60 minutes, as specified in serviceescalations-high (picture on the right).
Since it is possible to have overlapping escalation definitions for a particular hostgroup or service, and the fact that a host can be a
member of multiple hostgroups, Nagios has to make a decision on what to do as far as the notification interval is concerned when
escalation definitions overlap. In any case where there are multiple valid escalation definitions for a particular notification, Nagios will
choose the smallest notification interval. Take a look at the following example:
If you examine the pictures below, you will see that the two escalation definitions overlap on the 4th and 5th notifications. For these
notifications, Nagios will use a notification interval of 45 minutes, since it is the smallest interval present in any valid escalation
definitions for those notifications.

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Nagios XI Notification Escalations

One last note about notification intervals deals with intervals of 0. An interval of 0 means that Nagios should only send a notification out
for the first valid notification during that escalation definition. All subsequent notifications for the hostgroup or service will be
suppressed.
Escalation Period
Under normal circumstances, escalations can be used at any
time that a notification could normally be sent out for the host
or service. This "notification time window" is determined by the
Escalation period options in Nagios Core Config Manager,
under Service Escalation Management.
You can optionally restrict escalations so that they are only
used during specific time periods by using the Escalation
period drop-down menu in Nagios XI. If you do this, the
escalation will only be used during the period specified. If you
do not specify any escalation period, the escalation can be
used at any time within the "notification time window" for the
host or service.
Escalation Options
You can restrict the escalation definition so that it is only used
when the host or service is in a particular state (i.e. Recovery,
Warning, Unknown or Critical). Just use use the Escalation
Options in Nagios Core Config Manager Service Escalation
Management. Check-mark the appropriate box next to
Escalation options (w, u, c or r).
In case you do not use the Escalation options menu, the
escalation can be used when the host or service is in any state.

Host Escalations
Defining host escalations works in the same way as defining service definitions. Go to Nagios Core Config Manager, select Host
Escalations under the Alerting in the left panel menu, click on Add New button and configure your host escalations under the Host
Escalation Management in Nagios XI.

Nagios Enterprises, LLC

P.O. Box 8154
Saint Paul, MN 55108
USA

US: 1-888-NAGIOS-1
Int'l: +1 651-204-9102
Fax: +1 651-204-9103

Web: www.nagios.com
Email: sales@nagios.com

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