Defining notification servers

A notification server is the managed system that performs notification and event collection on behalf of other PATROL Agents.

Why use a notification server?

With a notification server, you can centrally manage your event filtering and notification rules. For example, if you need to modify a notification script or change notification rules, you make the change only on the notification servers and not on each agent.

Notification servers also provide redundancy when you use a primary and backup notification server.

Using primary and backup notification servers

To ensure availability, you should assign both a primary and a backup notification for each remote agent. A notification server could be a primary notification server for some remote agents and a backup notification server for other remote agents. Hence, a server that acts as a backup notification server does not need to be idle.

To assure availability in critical environments, the backup notification server should be on a separate computer and network segment.

After you have configured a primary and backup notification server, you can use the PATROL Configuration Manager to copy the settings to the other notification servers. If you use this method, make sure that you use the same notification script file name and directory path on all notification servers.

Notification server connectivity

When identifying a notification server, make certain that there are no connectivity problems between the notification server and the agents that it serves.

Providing security

To improve security, create an operating system account on the notification server systems to be used specifically for remote notification. This configuration avoids having to use the PATROL login, which might be common throughout your environment. You can configure the notification server so that it is unable to fully login to the notification server system by using the operating system. For example, on UNIX, give the notification server login an invalid login shell, such as /bin/false.

Configuring a notification server

This section describes how to configure a server as a notification server.

To configure a notification server

1. From the PATROL console, access the managed system you are using as your notification server and display the KM menu commands as described in Accessing KM commands and InfoBoxes.
2. Select the KM menu command Event Management > Quick Config > Notification Server.
   The Quick Config - Notification Server dialog box opens.

3. Use the Quick Config - Notification Server dialog box to specify the notification server properties. These properties are described in the following table:

   Quick Config - Notification Server dialog box properties

   Property	Description
   Default Email Account	the default e-mail address (notification target) that receives e-mails when an object goes into an alarm or warning state All events for PATROL objects that do not have defined notification targets are sent to this e-mail address. If you do not want any notifications sent until you configure notification for specific PATROL applications or parameters, enter NONE as your default e-mail account or leave this field empty.
   Notification Command	the complete path and file name of the notification script or command used to send notifications
   Perform Alert Test	specifies whether you want to perform an alert test after the changes are accepted If this is your first time using the PATROL for Microsoft Windows Servers, you should perform an alert test and verify that the notifications are received.

4. Define the notification server properties and click Accept.
5. Repeat this task for the server you are using as the backup notification server.