Introduction

• Notifications are managed from the Configuration -> Notification sub-view.
• The configuration format of notifications is XML. The JOC Cockpit offers a schema-aware XML Editor for configuration purposes.
• The configuration is applied by the JS7 - Monitor Service that inspects the workflow execution history and creates notifications as required.

Notification View

The Notification View allows to manage the configuration:

Explanation:

• If this view shows an empty configuration then the "New" button can be used to created a configuration.
• Alternatively a configuration can be added with the "Upload" button. A configuration sample is available from the jetty_base/resources/xsd/notifications/notification.xml-example file.

Configuration

Structure of the Configuration

The configuration make use of the following base elements that are available from the Configurations root element.

• Fragments: Define re-usable configuration blocks for Messages, Monitors and monitored Objects.
  • MessageFragments
    • Message
      • Defines the content that is sent e.g. by mail to a user or that is used to parameterize a command line utility, e.g. for forwarding to a System Monitor.
        • Messages for use with E-Mail represent the mail body either for use with plain text e-mails or for use with HTML e-mails.
          • Messages for use with the Command Line represent a string that can be used with the Notifications/Notification/NotificationMonitors/CommandFragmentRef element, see below.
        • Message elements can include Monitor Variables that are placeholders for values, e.g. for the Workflow Path, Order ID etc.
        • Any number of Message elements can be added.
    • MonitorFragments. Such fragments come in a number of flavors for the following notifcation types.
      • MailFragment
        • The following elements are required to send mail:
          • MessageRef: Specifies the reference to a Message element that provides the mail body.
          • Subject: Specifies the mail subject that can include Monitor Variables.
          • To: Specifies the e-mail address of the recipient. Multiple recipients can be separated by comma.
        • The following elements are optional to send mail:
          • CC: The recipient of carbon copies. Multiple recipients can be separated by comma.
          • BCC: The recipient of blind carbon copies. Multiple recipients can be separated by comma.
          • From: The e-mail address of the account that is used to send mail. Consider that it depends on your mail server configuration if a specific account has to be used or if an arbitrary account can be used.
        • For details see JS7 - Notifications - Configuration Element MailFragment
      • CommandFragment
        • MessageRef: Specifies the reference to a Message element that provides the content that should be forwarded with the Command element. The message content is available from the ${MESSAGE} Monitor Variable for use with later elements.
        • Command: Specifies the shell command for Linux/Windows that is used to forward notifications, e.g. a System Monitor Agent utility.
          • The above notification view example makes use of a shell command like this:
            • echo "${MESSAGE}" >> /tmp/notification.log
          • The echo shell command appends the content of the ${MESSAGE} Monitor Variable to a file in the /tmp directory.
      • JMSFragment
        • This fragment type is used to integrate a Java Message Queue product that implements the JMS API. The values of the attributes are specific for the JMS product in use. 
        • For details see JS7 - Notifications - Configuration Element JMSFragment.
      • NSCAFragment
        • This fragment type is used for direct connections to System Monitors that operate a Nagios-compatible NSCA service for passive checks such as Nagios®, Icinga®, Opsview®. The fragment type makes use of the JSend NSCA Java API.
        • The required connection attributes such as host, port, timeouts are specific for the respective System Monitor.
        • Consider that JSend NSCA can be used without encryption or with an XOR or TRIPLE_DES encryption. Additional encryption schemes are not supported. 
    • ObjectsFragments
      • Workflows: Any umber of workflow configurations can be added and are distinguished by a unique name that is added to this element.
        • Workflow: A specific workflow can be specified, e.g. by its name. The path attribute allows a regular expression to specify a part of the workflow path.
          • WorkflowJob: This element can be used to limit notifications to specific jobs in a workflow.
            • This includes to optionally specify the job name and/or its label.
            • When using this element then it is required to specify the criticality that can be one of ALL, NORMAL, CRITICAL.
            • Optionally the return_code_from and return_code_to attributes can be used to further limit notifications to jobs that complete with the given return code. For shell jobs the return code corresponds to the OS exit code.
• Notifications: Define the effective notification by using references to the above Fragments elements.
  • Notification: Any number of notifications can be added and are distinguished by a unique name. A notification is assigned a type that is any of SUCCESS, WARNING and ERROR. This allows to specify notifications that are used e.g. in case of job errors and warnings. And this allows to specify notifications in case of successful workflow execution. Consider that successful executions include both absence of job errors and optionally presence of job warnings.
    • NotificationMonitors: Selects one or more of the above MonitorFragments. It is possible to select multiple fragments of the same fragment type.
      • CommandFragmentRef: Selects the CommandFragment to be used.
        • MessageRef: Selects the Message element to be used with the Command.
      • MailFragmentRef: Selects the MailFragment to be used in order to send notifications by mail. If multiple MailFragment elements are referenced then different types of mail, e.g. for different recipients or with different content and layout of the mail body can be used.
      • NSCAFragmentRef: Selects the NSCAFragment to be used for direct integration with a NSCA compatible System Monitor.
      • JMSFragmentRef: Selects the JMSFragment to be used to send notifications to a Java Message Queue compatible product.
    • NotificationObjects: Selects the workflows for which notifications are created.
      • WorkflowRef: Selects a Workflows element that limits notifications to the respective workflows. Any number of workflow references can be added.

Monitor Variables

Notifications for use with E-Mail

Notifications for use with the Command Line