[Xymon] Feature request -- additional info in "disabled" notification

[J.C. Cleaver]

On Thu, January 21, 2016 6:13 am, Shawn Heisey wrote:
> Currently I get an email notification when a test is disabled.  The
> subject is "Xymon host:test disabled [cfid:xxx]".  I'm running 4.3.23
> with the patch from 4.3.24 that fixes http response code parsing.
>
> It would be extremely helpful if this notification email included the
> basic auth username of the person who disabled the test, the reason that
> they entered, and the duration of the disable.  Having the IP address of
> the computer that made the disable request would also be useful.
> Looking at the "X-Fordwarded-For" http header might be required.
>
> I have not delved into the source code for test disabling, so currently
> I have no idea how difficult this idea is to implement.  If I find the
> time, I may look into the source code to see if I can implement it
> myself and contribute the change to the project.
>
> I would think this has been requested before, but using some simple
> searches, I could not locate a similar request in my own archive of this
> mailing list, which goes back to early 2011.
>
> Thanks,
> Shawn

The NOTIFY message type in alerts.cfg actually can provide this data now,
as it's sent at the same time as the underlying disable command is, and it
includes the username and disable message (but not IP... that would make
sense to add). Those are the emails that include the text "Monitoring of
%s:%s has been DISABLED by %s for %d minutes\n%s"

Within "regular" alert messages, I think this is something that would be
easy to get in in v4.4. We're already sending in the modification details
now, so the disable state and/or current ack state aren't too much more of
an alteration, just additional info.


Unfortunately, the 'disable's themselves are just arbitrary text blobs.
The username, or anything else placed in are controlled by the submitting
agent, so a disable submitted by a --maint-sender -allowed source could
simply include a raw text message.

Adding some more metadata into the format would be a nice future feature,
bringing it somewhere a little more inline with what a 'modify' message
can do.


Regards,
-jc