Notification Message Variables

---

In notification messages, you can use the following variables to encode information about a device.

Device Variable case sensitive	Returns
%1	Info line 1 (from General of device properties)
%2	Info line 2 (from General of device properties)
%a	IP Address (from General of device properties)
%C	Device Identifier (set in the Alert setup - extra parameter for notifications) This is useful for specifying a custom sound file for sound notifications.
%c	Same as %T, returns the device type. Use %T; %c was used in previous versions.
%h	Host Name (from General of device properties)
%M	SNMP Community
%m	Detailed Event description. (SNMP traps - Returns the full SNMP trap text.) (Windows Log Entries - Returns information contained in the Windows Event Log entries.) (Syslog Entries - Returns the text contained in the Syslog message.)
%N	Notes.(from Notes of device properties)
%n	Display Name (from General of device properties)
%O	SNMP Object identifier. (This is the word "unknown" if SNMP Object box is blank.)
%R	SNMP Read Community (from SNMP of device properties)
%S	WhatsUp Gold status (such as "timed out" or "did not respond")
%s	Winsock error code
%T	Device Type (from General of device properties)
%u	Can result in the word "UP", "DOWN", "Event name", "SVCUP", or "SVCDOWN".
%V	Names of down services or monitors, followed by the word "Services"
%v	Names of down services or monitors
%W	SNMP Write Community (from SNMP of device properties)
%Y	Full service names of all UP monitored services on a device
%y	Abbreviated names of all UP monitored services on a device
%Z	List of down services using the abbreviated name if available
%(services::up)	Abbreviated names of all services that are up
%(services::down)	Abbreviated names of all services that are down
%(services::justup)	Abbreviated names of all services that just came back up with the last poll
%(services::justdown)	Abbreviated names of all services that just went down with the last poll
%(*)	Displays all of the contents of the event payload. For more information, see "The Event Notification Variable %(*)".

SystemVariable case sensitive	Returns
%A	Names of devices with down services
%D	# of Down Hosts
%d	Date format is (mm/dd/yyyy)
%e	Down Host display Names
%L	The Activity Log file, EV-yyyy-mm-dd.tab (or %Lnn where nn = last nn lines of the log file)
%Ln	Last n lines of the log file (n can go up to 99)
%l	Display Name from General of device properties
%o	# of devices with Down Services
%P	Up Host display Names
%t	Current time (hh:mm:ss)
%U	# of Up Hosts

The Event Notification Variable %(*)

Beginning with version 8.0, event functionality was introduced. To learn more about events, see "Chapter 7: Monitoring Events". With this functionality, there is a new notification variable. This variable is %(*) and is explained below.

Typically an event in WhatsUp Gold contains information about the cause of the event. For example, an SNMP trap can carry a payload that specifies the specific nature of the trap.

Note: Before version 8.0, the best you could do with SNMP trap information was to use the %u or %m notification variables.

The %u variable told you that the notification triggered due to a TRAP.

The %m variable gave you a text description of the entire trap.

The %(*) is similar to %m in that it can give you the entire contents of the trap; however what it really does is tell you the % codes that you can use to pull only the specific pieces of the trap that you are interested in reporting on in your Notification. You may not initially know what particular piece of the trap payload you are interested in.

Below is a simple "first-time" use of the %(*) variable:

1. Create a test notification that uses %(*).
2. Create an Alert on a device that uses this test notification.
3. Have this test notification triggered when the particular trap you are interested in arrives. Good candidates for test notifications are SMTP Mail and WinPopups.
4. Once you have the "expanded" %(*) you can tailor a specific notification that only displays the content of the custom trap you are particularly interested in. This is especially useful when sending notifications to space limited devices such as pagers where %m is just too much information.

Note: More information is provided in the Help Topic, "Event Variable %(*)."

Ipswitch, Inc. http://www.ipswitch.com

©Ipswitch 2003