[hobbit] logic dependencies and combined to alerts

[brandste at hebis.de]

Hi all,

maybe a stupid question answerd in the mailinglist many times...
(but i was not able to find it in the archive or interpret
the man)

As a new convert from bb to hobbit, first Congrats! It's
far less resource consuming then the former.

We mainly use the tool for network observation, so the conn is
our friend.
We have a couple of network-devices located on different
campi around our location. Each of the campi has a single
point of failure (SPF) at the entry. 
There is only one hobbit (former bb) working.

What i would like to do is, setting up alerts and colorchanges
depending of the state of the SPF.

Example:

location-1
  SPF  -  Switch1
       -  Switch2     - Switch 2.1
                      - Switch 2.2    - Switch 2.2.1
       -  Switch3

If SPF fails i do not need to get messages from all the
Switches behind.
This i could handle with the tag PAGE in the alerts-cfg.

	PAGE=location_1
		MAIL "NOC" SERVICE=conn REPEAT=1h
		
Using it that way, (if i understood it) the "NOC" receives 
one mail per hour if the state changes from location-1.
Here i have no idea (and not tested) whether this includes Mails
from all hosts or not.

At this stage i only need a message concerning the incident involving SPF.
If switch1 or switch3 fail, obviously a mail concerning this incident.
But no mails from connected "sub"-switches...

For receiving a message on a single incident
Including:
        HOST=switch1
             MAIL "NOC" SERVICE=conn REPEAT=1h
in the alerts-cfg, generates a mail independent from the former
        PAGE=....
or other settings?

Has anybody found a solution for message dependencies like qouted?


***

Next would be the color change.

Concerning this i found the keyword "depends", but no
sign that it will work in combination with the conn test....

 1.2.3.4  foo # depends=(testA:host1/test1,host2/test2),(testB:host3/test3),[...]

   1.1.1.1 SPF # 
  1.1.2.1 Switch1 # depends(conn:SPF/conn)
  1.1.3.1 Switch2 # depends(conn:SPF/conn)
  1.1.3.2 Switch2.1 # depends(conn:SPF/conn,conn:Switch2/conn)
  1.1.3.3 Switch2.2 # depends(conn:SPF/conn,conn:Switch2/conn)
  1.1.3.4 Switch2.2.1 # depends(conn:SPF/conn,conn:Switch2/conn,Switch2.2/conn)
  1.1.4.1 Switch3 # depends(conn:SPF/conn)

would this be the correct usage?
So if SPF fails, all page behind should be "clear?".


Is this possible with hobbit, or a future release?


Thanks in advance.

Best
   Mathias