<!--startmeta
custom_edit_url: "https://github.com/netdata/netdata/edit/master/src/health/notifications/custom/README.md"
meta_yaml: "https://github.com/netdata/netdata/edit/master/src/health/notifications/custom/metadata.yaml"
sidebar_label: "Custom"
learn_status: "Published"
learn_rel_path: "Alerts & Notifications/Notifications/Agent Dispatched Notifications"
message: "DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE DIRECTLY, IT IS GENERATED BY THE NOTIFICATION'S metadata.yaml FILE"
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# Custom


<img src="https://netdata.cloud/img/custom.png" width="150"/>


Netdata Agent's alert notification feature allows you to send custom notifications to any endpoint you choose.



<img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/maintained%20by-Netdata-%2300ab44" />

## Setup

### Prerequisites

#### 

- Access to the terminal where Netdata Agent is running



### Configuration

#### File

The configuration file name for this integration is `health_alarm_notify.conf`.


You can edit the configuration file using the `edit-config` script from the
Netdata [config directory](/docs/netdata-agent/configuration/README.md#the-netdata-config-directory).

```bash
cd /etc/netdata 2>/dev/null || cd /opt/netdata/etc/netdata
sudo ./edit-config health_alarm_notify.conf
```
#### Options

The following options can be defined for this notification

<details open><summary>Config Options</summary>

| Name | Description | Default | Required |
|:----|:-----------|:-------|:--------:|
| SEND_CUSTOM | Set `SEND_CUSTOM` to YES | YES | yes |
| DEFAULT_RECIPIENT_CUSTOM | This value is dependent on how you handle the `${to}` variable inside the `custom_sender()` function. |  | yes |
| custom_sender() | You can look at the other senders in `/usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/alarm-notify.sh` for examples of how to modify the function in this configuration file. |  | no |

##### DEFAULT_RECIPIENT_CUSTOM

All roles will default to this variable if left unconfigured. You can edit `DEFAULT_RECIPIENT_CUSTOM` with the variable you want, in the following entries at the bottom of the same file:
```
role_recipients_custom[sysadmin]="systems"
role_recipients_custom[domainadmin]="domains"
role_recipients_custom[dba]="databases systems"
role_recipients_custom[webmaster]="marketing development"
role_recipients_custom[proxyadmin]="proxy-admin"
role_recipients_custom[sitemgr]="sites"
```


##### custom_sender()

The following is a sample custom_sender() function in health_alarm_notify.conf, to send an SMS via an imaginary HTTPS endpoint to the SMS gateway:
```
custom_sender() {
    # example human readable SMS
    local msg="${host} ${status_message}: ${alarm} ${raised_for}"

    # limit it to 160 characters and encode it for use in a URL
    urlencode "${msg:0:160}" >/dev/null; msg="${REPLY}"

    # a space separated list of the recipients to send alarms to
    to="${1}"

    for phone in ${to}; do
      httpcode=$(docurl -X POST \
            --data-urlencode "From=XXX" \
            --data-urlencode "To=${phone}" \
            --data-urlencode "Body=${msg}" \
            -u "${accountsid}:${accounttoken}" \
        https://domain.website.com/)

      if [ "${httpcode}" = "200" ]; then
        info "sent custom notification ${msg} to ${phone}"
        sent=$((sent + 1))
      else
        error "failed to send custom notification ${msg} to ${phone} with HTTP error code ${httpcode}."
      fi
    done
}
```

The supported variables that you can use for the function's `msg` variable are:

| Variable name               | Description                                                                      |
|:---------------------------:|:---------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| `${alarm}`                  | Like "name = value units"                                                        |
| `${status_message}`         | Like "needs attention", "recovered", "is critical"                               |
| `${severity}`               | Like "Escalated to CRITICAL", "Recovered from WARNING"                           |
| `${raised_for}`             | Like "(alarm was raised for 10 minutes)"                                         |
| `${host}`                   | The host generated this event                                                    |
| `${url_host}`               | Same as ${host} but URL encoded                                                  |
| `${unique_id}`              | The unique id of this event                                                      |
| `${alarm_id}`               | The unique id of the alarm that generated this event                             |
| `${event_id}`               | The incremental id of the event, for this alarm id                               |
| `${when}`                   | The timestamp this event occurred                                                |
| `${name}`                   | The name of the alarm, as given in netdata health.d entries                      |
| `${url_name}`               | Same as ${name} but URL encoded                                                  |
| `${chart}`                  | The name of the chart (type.id)                                                  |
| `${url_chart}`              | Same as ${chart} but URL encoded                                                 |
| `${status}`                 | The current status : REMOVED, UNINITIALIZED, UNDEFINED, CLEAR, WARNING, CRITICAL |
| `${old_status}`             | The previous status: REMOVED, UNINITIALIZED, UNDEFINED, CLEAR, WARNING, CRITICAL |
| `${value}`                  | The current value of the alarm                                                   |
| `${old_value}`              | The previous value of the alarm                                                  |
| `${src}`                    | The line number and file the alarm has been configured                           |
| `${duration}`               | The duration in seconds of the previous alarm state                              |
| `${duration_txt}`           | Same as ${duration} for humans                                                   |
| `${non_clear_duration}`     | The total duration in seconds this is/was non-clear                              |
| `${non_clear_duration_txt}` | Same as ${non_clear_duration} for humans                                         |
| `${units}`                  | The units of the value                                                           |
| `${info}`                   | A short description of the alarm                                                 |
| `${value_string}`           | Friendly value (with units)                                                      |
| `${old_value_string}`       | Friendly old value (with units)                                                  |
| `${image}`                  | The URL of an image to represent the status of the alarm                         |
| `${color}`                  | A color in  AABBCC format for the alarm                                          |
| `${goto_url}`               | The URL the user can click to see the netdata dashboard                          |
| `${calc_expression}`        | The expression evaluated to provide the value for the alarm                      |
| `${calc_param_values}`      | The value of the variables in the evaluated expression                           |
| `${total_warnings}`         | The total number of alarms in WARNING state on the host                          |
| `${total_critical}`         | The total number of alarms in CRITICAL state on the host                         |


</details>

#### Examples

##### Basic Configuration



```yaml
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# custom notifications

SEND_CUSTOM="YES"
DEFAULT_RECIPIENT_CUSTOM=""

# The custom_sender() is a custom function to do whatever you need to do
custom_sender() {
    # example human readable SMS
    local msg="${host} ${status_message}: ${alarm} ${raised_for}"

    # limit it to 160 characters and encode it for use in a URL
    urlencode "${msg:0:160}" >/dev/null; msg="${REPLY}"

    # a space separated list of the recipients to send alarms to
    to="${1}"

    for phone in ${to}; do
      httpcode=$(docurl -X POST \
            --data-urlencode "From=XXX" \
            --data-urlencode "To=${phone}" \
            --data-urlencode "Body=${msg}" \
            -u "${accountsid}:${accounttoken}" \
        https://domain.website.com/)

      if [ "${httpcode}" = "200" ]; then
        info "sent custom notification ${msg} to ${phone}"
        sent=$((sent + 1))
      else
        error "failed to send custom notification ${msg} to ${phone} with HTTP error code ${httpcode}."
      fi
    done
}

```


## Troubleshooting

### Test Notification

You can run the following command by hand, to test alerts configuration:

```bash
# become user netdata
sudo su -s /bin/bash netdata

# enable debugging info on the console
export NETDATA_ALARM_NOTIFY_DEBUG=1

# send test alarms to sysadmin
/usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/alarm-notify.sh test

# send test alarms to any role
/usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/alarm-notify.sh test "ROLE"
```

Note that this will test _all_ alert mechanisms for the selected role.


