Assigning Alerts to Devices

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Note: Before you can assign an alert to a device, you must define the notification you want to use. For more information, see "Defining Notifications".

WhatsUp Gold can alert you when:

• A device does not respond to polling.
• A monitored service on a device goes down or comes back up.
• An SNMP trap has been received for a device(s).

In order to receive a notification, you need to define the alert. In addition, you can receive multiple notifications by setting different trigger values. You can have up to 10 alerts for each device.

Note: You can assign alerts to a group of devices at once; see "Assigning Alerts to Selected Devices".

Using the Alerts Dialog

You use the Alerts dialog box to:

• Enable logging
• Enable an alarm sound
• Configure an alert to use a notification and/or enable alerts

To use Alerts:

1. Double-click the device to view the device properties, and then click Alerts.

Note: To do this for a subnet icon or container icon, right-click the icon, select Properties, then click Alerts.

2. If alerts are not enabled and no notifications are assigned, the Alerts dialog box is similar to the following:
   

   If alerts have been assigned to the device, they appear in the list box. If the alerts are enabled, they appear in a black font, but if they were assigned and subsequently disabled, they appear in gray. Each device can have up to 10 alerts.

   
3. Make sure Enable Alerts is selected.
4. If you want to log "UP" and "DOWN" events for this device, make sure Enable Logging is selected. These entries can be viewed on the Log dialog box of a device. (Right-click the device, select Quick Status and then select Log.)

Assigning Alerts to Selected Devices

To set alerts for selected devices:

1. Select the device(s).

Note: This can be done by clicking on the desired devices while holding down the Ctrl key. You can also left-click and drag the selection box to select multiple devices. Right-click and select Add Alerts to selected devices, and the Alerts dialog box appears.

2. Enable Alerts. This must be selected for assigned alerts to be executed.
3. Enable Logging. Select this if you want WhatsUp Gold to write an entry in the Events Log whenever the device(s) goes down or comes back up after being down.

Note: Alerts that have been added to any of the selected devices appear in the dialog box. There is a tri-state check box beside all alerts.

• If the alert is assigned to ALL selected devices, the check box is selected and is white.
• If the alert is assigned to SOME of the selected devices, the check box is selected and is gray.
• You can toggle the check box through the different states by clicking on it and seeing the different states.
• If you want to remove the alert from the selected devices, continue clicking the check box until the check mark is removed.
• You can also assign the alert to all of the selected devices by clicking the check box until the check mark appears and the box is white.

4. To add an alert, click the Add button and the Add Alert dialog box appears.
5. To edit an alert, click the Edit button and the Edit Alert dialog box appears.

Assigning a Notification to an Alert

Note: Before you can assign a notification to an alert, you must define the notification. For more information, see "Defining Notifications".

To assign a notification, you add it to the list box on the Alerts dialog box.

1. On the Alerts dialog box (right-click a device, select Properties, and then click Alerts), click the Add button to view the "Add Alert" dialog box. The appearance of this dialog box varies slightly depending on the particular notification that is selected in the list box at the top of the dialog box.
   
2. Select a pre-defined notification, from the list box. All defined notifications are available from this list. If you don't see the exact notification you need, click the browse button to create a new one (in the notification library).

Note: To play the alarm sounds, you must have a sound card and speakers installed on your system. Do not enable sounds if you plan to run WhatsUp Gold as an NT service. If WUG is run as a service and has a sound notification configured as "continuous" then you will not have the WUG console available to silence the alarm.

3. Enter a Trigger. WhatsUp Gold sends the selected notification after this number of failed checks. We recommend that this number be at least 4.
4. Device Identifier. Enter any information you want to associate with this specific notification type. For example, you would enter an Item digital code for a beeper. For a voice notification you would enter a wave file. Other specific notifications may use this identifier in different ways.
   • For a beeper, this is a unique numeric code that identifies the device (for example, the IP address). This code is sent to the beeper following an "Up" or "Down" code. It is only valid for beeper notifications. Note: You can use the asterisk (*) character to separate numbers in an IP address.
   • For a voice notification, this is a wave file that identifies the device (for example, your recorded voice). To do this, record a .wav file for the device; for example, the recording could say "Server one." When the device goes down, the voice message will be "Server one is down." The default method ([auto]) is to look for the file display_name.wav (for example, server1.wav). If the file is not found, it plays the file ahost.wav, which says "a host," as in "A host is down."
5. Time Period. Specify when you want to receive this notification from this device. Click Change to change the default setting of 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
   
6. Actions:
   • (Optional) Auto send UP alert after sending DOWN alert. When selected, the notification is sent when the device or service comes back up after a down notification. (Valid for all notifications except sound notifications).
   • Send alert even if console response. When checked, this alert will be generated even if the alarm on this device has been acknowledged on the WhatsUp Gold console (by selecting Monitor->Acknowledge).
   • On SNMP Trap. When this option is enabled, and the edit box to the right of it is empty, the specified notification will be sent when any SNMP trap is received for the device. If the edit box contains a trap number or numbers, notification is sent only if a trap with the specified number is received. Separate multiple entries in the text box with a comma. An SNMP manageable device is identified on the map with a star in the upper right-hand corner of the device. This star changes to a magenta color when an SNMP trap is received. For more information on SNMP traps, see "Monitoring SNMP Service".

     You can enter a number for one of the six standard traps. If you are unsure of a trap number, you can view the Events Log (after enabling traps) to see what number is associated with a particular trap.

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