vmware - updating vcenter email alert for monitoring

January 16, 2013

I’ve used the following powershell script to assist with setting up a consistant email alert on various vmware envionrments.

# Usage ; # Please manually connect to vCenter, use "Connect-VIServer" -- this promotes usernames and passwords not beings saved with script. # Update below variable with email(s) use comma as delimita $MailtoAddresses= “[email protected]”

#—-These Alarms will send a single email message and not repeat —- $LowPriorityAlarms=“Timed out starting Secondary VM”,` “No compatible host for Secondary VM”,` “Virtual Machine Fault Tolerance vLockStep interval Status Changed”,` “Migration error”,` “Exit standby error”,` “License error”,` “Virtual machine Fault Tolerance state changed”,` “VMKernel NIC not configured correctly”,` “Unmanaged workload detected on SIOC-enabled datastore”,` “Host IPMI System Event Log status”,` “Host Baseboard Management Controller status”,` “License user threshold monitoring”,` “Datastore capability alarm”,` “Storage DRS recommendation”,` “Storage DRS not supported on host”,` “Datastore is in multiple datacenters”,` “Insufficient vSphere HA failover resources”,` “License capacity monitoring”,` “Pre-4.1 host connected to SIOC-enabled datastore”,` “Virtual machine cpu usage”,` “Virtual machine memory usage”,` “License inventory monitoring”

#—-These Alarms will repeat every 24 hours—- $MediumPriorityAlarms=` “Virtual machine error”,` “Health status changed alarm”,` “Host cpu usage”,` “Health status monitoring”,` “Host memory usage”,` “Cannot find vSphere HA master agent”,` “vSphere HA host status”,` “Host service console swap rates”,` “vSphere HA virtual machine monitoring action”,` “vSphere HA virtual machine monitoring error”

#—-These Alarms will repeat every 2 hours—- $HighPriorityAlarms=` “Host connection and power state”,` “Host processor status”,` “Host memory status”,` “Host hardware fan status”,` “Host hardware voltage”,` “Host hardware temperature status”,` “Host hardware power status”,` “Host hardware system board status”,` “Host battery status”,` “Status of other host hardware objects”,` “Host storage status”,` “Host error”,` “Host connection failure”,` “Cannot connect to storage”,` “Network connectivity lost”,` “Network uplink redundancy lost”,` “Network uplink redundancy degraded”,` “Thin-provisioned LUN capacity exceeded”,` “Datastore cluster is out of space”,` “vSphere HA failover in progress”,` “vSphere HA virtual machine failover failed”,` “Datastore usage on disk”

#—Set Alarm Action for Low Priority Alarms— Foreach ($LowPriorityAlarm in $LowPriorityAlarms) { Get-AlarmDefinition -Name “$LowPriorityAlarm” | Get-AlarmAction -ActionType SendEmail| Remove-AlarmAction -Confirm:$false Get-AlarmDefinition -Name “$LowPriorityAlarm” | New-AlarmAction -Email -To @($MailtoAddresses) # Get-AlarmDefinition -Name “$LowPriorityAlarm” | Get-AlarmAction -ActionType SendEmail | New-AlarmActionTrigger -StartStatus “Green” -EndStatus “Yellow” Get-AlarmDefinition -Name “$LowPriorityAlarm” | Get-AlarmAction -ActionType SendEmail | New-AlarmActionTrigger -StartStatus “Yellow” -EndStatus “Red” # This ActionTrigger is enabled by default. # Get-AlarmDefinition -Name “$LowPriorityAlarm” | Get-AlarmAction -ActionType SendEmail | New-AlarmActionTrigger -StartStatus “Red” -EndStatus “Yellow” # Get-AlarmDefinition -Name “$LowPriorityAlarm” | Get-AlarmAction -ActionType SendEmail | New-AlarmActionTrigger -StartStatus “Yellow” -EndStatus “Green” }

#—Set Alarm Action for Medium Priority Alarms— Foreach ($MediumPriorityAlarm in $MediumPriorityAlarms) { Get-AlarmDefinition -Name “$MediumPriorityAlarm” | Get-AlarmAction -ActionType SendEmail| Remove-AlarmAction -Confirm:$false Set-AlarmDefinition “$MediumPriorityAlarm” -ActionRepeatMinutes (60 * 24) # 24 Hours Get-AlarmDefinition -Name “$MediumPriorityAlarm” | New-AlarmAction -Email -To @($MailtoAddresses) # Get-AlarmDefinition -Name “$MediumPriorityAlarm” | Get-AlarmAction -ActionType SendEmail | New-AlarmActionTrigger -StartStatus “Green” -EndStatus “Yellow” Get-AlarmDefinition -Name “$MediumPriorityAlarm” | Get-AlarmAction -ActionType SendEmail | Get-AlarmActionTrigger | Select -First 1 | Remove-AlarmActionTrigger -Confirm:$false Get-AlarmDefinition -Name “$MediumPriorityAlarm” | Get-AlarmAction -ActionType SendEmail | New-AlarmActionTrigger -StartStatus “Yellow” -EndStatus “Red” -Repeat # Get-AlarmDefinition -Name “$MediumPriorityAlarm” | Get-AlarmAction -ActionType SendEmail | New-AlarmActionTrigger -StartStatus “Red” -EndStatus “Yellow” # Get-AlarmDefinition -Name “$MediumPriorityAlarm” | Get-AlarmAction -ActionType SendEmail | New-AlarmActionTrigger -StartStatus “Yellow” -EndStatus “Green” }

#---Set Alarm Action for High Priority Alarms--- Foreach ($HighPriorityAlarm in $HighPriorityAlarms) { Get-AlarmDefinition -Name "$HighPriorityAlarm" | Get-AlarmAction -ActionType SendEmail| Remove-AlarmAction -Confirm:$false Set-AlarmDefinition "$HighPriorityAlarm" -ActionRepeatMinutes (60 * 2) # 2 hours Get-AlarmDefinition -Name "$HighPriorityAlarm" | New-AlarmAction -Email -To @($MailtoAddresses) # Get-AlarmDefinition -Name "$HighPriorityAlarm" | Get-AlarmAction -ActionType SendEmail | New-AlarmActionTrigger -StartStatus "Green" -EndStatus "Yellow" Get-AlarmDefinition -Name "$HighPriorityAlarm" | Get-AlarmAction -ActionType SendEmail | Get-AlarmActionTrigger | Select -First 1 | Remove-AlarmActionTrigger -Confirm:$false Get-AlarmDefinition -Name "$HighPriorityAlarm" | Get-AlarmAction -ActionType SendEmail | New-AlarmActionTrigger -StartStatus "Yellow" -EndStatus "Red" -Repeat # Get-AlarmDefinition -Name "$HighPriorityAlarm" | Get-AlarmAction -ActionType SendEmail | New-AlarmActionTrigger -StartStatus "Red" -EndStatus "Yellow" # Get-AlarmDefinition -Name "$HighPriorityAlarm" | Get-AlarmAction -ActionType SendEmail | New-AlarmActionTrigger -StartStatus "Yellow" -EndStatus "Green" } This is another version i created that just grabs all alarms and sets email trigger. Note that it will delete all the current triggers (so ensure you dont have SNMP traps etc that you need)

# v3 : grab all alarms from vcenter (so should work all versions) and use these for alarm variables # Usage ; # Please manually connect to vCenter, use "Connect-VIServer" -- this promotes usernames and passwords not beings saved with script. # Any alarm that is currently active will send email alert -- please confirm appropriate values for tiggers before running this script.

#Set Notification emails here; $MailTo= “[email protected]”

#define alarms to be set; $Alarms = Get-AlarmDefinition | sort Name | select name | ft -HideTableHeaders

foreach ($Alarm in $Alarms) { # Delete Trigger; Get-AlarmDefinition -Name “$Alarm" | Get-AlarmAction | Remove-AlarmAction -Confirm:$false

# Create Trigger; Get-AlarmDefinition -Name “$Alarm" | New-AlarmAction -Email -To “$MailTo” }

UPDATE : I generally use the following script now. Less to maintain, and covers any alarms that have not been managed.

# Author : Darren Taylor # v5 : grab all alarms from vcenter (so should work all versions) and use these for alarm variables # Usage ; # Please manually connect to vCenter, use “Connect-VIServer” – this promotes usernames and passwords not being saved with script. # Any alarm that is currently active will send email alert – please confirm appropriate values for tiggers before running this script. # # Note ; # This script needs to be modified to exclude alarms that are not critical (exclusive rather than inclusive) # Once Exceptions list is updated, re-run script.

# ——————- VARIABLES ————————-

#Set Notification emails here; $MailTo= “[email protected]”

# These are the names of the alarms to ignore – i.e. do NOT setup email alert # THESE ALARMS ARE CONSIDERED NON CRITICAL $Exceptions= ` “Virtual machine cpu usage”,` “Virtual machine memory usage”

# ——————- CODE ONLY BELOW ——————-

# TODO: # Change triggers on some alarms?

#define alarms to be set; (ALL ALARMS) $Alarms = Get-AlarmDefinition | sort name | select name

foreach ($Alarm in $Alarms) {

# Test variable in array Write-Host “Setting Alarm… " -NoNewLine; Write-Host $Alarm.Name -NoNewLine;

# Delete Trigger; (clears all existing EMAIL triggers) Get-AlarmDefinition -Name $Alarm.Name | Get-AlarmAction -ActionType:SendEmail | Remove-AlarmAction -Confirm:$false;

# Exceptions to email trigger $SetAlarm = 1; foreach ($Exception in $Exceptions) {if($Alarm.Name -eq $Exception){$SetAlarm=0; Write-Host " Ignored” -foregroundcolor red;}}

# Create Trigger; if($SetAlarm -eq “1”){Get-AlarmDefinition -Name $Alarm.Name | New-AlarmAction -Email -To $MailTo}

}