throttling alerts

[Rob McBroom <mailinglist0 (at) skurfer.com>]

From time to time, something will happen that causes Xymon to lose its mind. (For instance, if the LDAP server can’t be reached and the Xymon server is unable to lookup the username/UID of the “xymon” user.) I understand why it’s happening and I don’t think Xymon is doing anything wrong here, but these events generate hundreds of e-mails and dozens of SMS messages, so I’m looking for ways to control it.

Is there a way to configure alerting with a rule like this: If you see 5 systems lose connection in a 10 second period, it’s obviously not true so shut up about it already.

Maybe I should be addressing this at the MTA level. If so, any tips there? (I’m using Postfix.)

-- 
Rob McBroom
<http://www.skurfer.com/>