Icinga

Icinga delivers software for monitoring and managing networks and systems. This workflow lets you send actionable alerts to on-call resources when xMatters gets a signal from Icinga. Responders can initiate an incident with the press of a button, or you can build on the flow to perform automated resolution tasks.

How it works

When an alert is generated in Icinga, it sends a JSON-formatted webhook to xMatters, based on user-defined alert rules. An Icinga trigger in xMatters parses the webhook and initiates a flow. The webhook includes essential alert data you can use to enrich notifications to users or when building automated tasks.

Install the workflow

The following instructions describe how to install the workflow through the xMatters one-click installation process. If you already installed the previous, built-in version of the integration, you can find instructions here.

1. Go to the Workflow Templates page and click the Icinga tile.
2. On the Set up the Workflow tab, give the workflow a name that identifies its purpose (this must be unique in your instance), add an optional description, and set the default incident type (if applicable). Any built-in Initiate Incident steps in the workflow will automatically be set to the selected incident type.
   • You can edit these later, if needed.

     

3. Click Next to set up the connection.
4. Choose the authentication method. A trigger URL is generated based on the selected authentication method.
   
5. Copy the trigger URL — you’ll use this to configure the webhook in Icinga.
   • The trigger URL includes the recipients parameter, which specifies who should be notified. By default, this parameter is set to notify you (the logged in user), but you can set it to target any user or group you want.

     

6. Send a test signal to the trigger URL to test the connection.
   
7. Click Open Workflow to view and customize the workflow, or Close to return to the Workflows page.

Configure Icinga to send requests to the trigger URL

The following instructions describe how to configure Icinga to send signals to your triggers.

1. Download the xm-host-notification.sh, xm-service-notification.sh, and xmatters-plugin.conf files to your computer.
2. Go to the location of your Icinga scripts folder. For example: /etc/icinga/scripts.
3. Add both shell files to the scripts folder.
   • If you're using Basic Authentication, open each shell file and add -u <username>:<password> to the cURL command and insert your username and password. For example: 

     #!/bin/shecho 
     
     "Sending xMatters host notification."
     curl -i \
     -u <mmcbride>:<SecurePwd!!>
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \

4. Save your changes to the shell files, if required.
5. Open the xmatters-plugin.config file in a text editor.
6. On the XM_INTEGRATION_URL line replace <YOUR_HOST_TRIGGER_URL> and <YOUR_SERVICE_TRIGGER_URL> with the URL you copied from the Icinga trigger in Flow Designer.

   object NotificationCommand "xm-host-notification" {
   command = [ SysconfDir + "/icinga2/scripts/xm-host-notification.sh" ]
   
   env = {
   ADDRESS = "$address$"
   HOSTDISPLAYNAME = "$host.display_name$"
   HOSTNAME = "$host.name$"
   HOSTOUTPUT = "$host.output$"
   HOSTSTATE = "$host.state$"
   HOSTSTATETYPE = "$host.state_type$"
   LASTHOSTSTATECHANGE = "$host.last_state_change$"
   NOTIFICATIONAUTHOR = "$notification.author$"
   NOTIFICATIONCOMMENT = "$notification.comment$"
   NOTIFICATIONTYPE = "$notification.type$"
   SHORTDATETIME = "$icinga.short_date_time$"
   XM_INTEGRATION_URL = <YOUR_HOST_TRIGGER_URL>
   }
   }
   
   object NotificationCommand "xm-service-notification" {
   command = [ SysconfDir + "/icinga2/scripts/xm-service-notification.sh" ]
   
   env = {
   ADDRESS = "$address$"
   HOSTNAME = "$host.name$"
   LASTSERVICESTATECHANGE = "$service.last_state_change$"
   NOTIFICATIONAUTHOR = "$notification.author$"
   NOTIFICATIONCOMMENT = "$notification.comment$"
   NOTIFICATIONTYPE = "$notification.type$"
   SERVICEDISPLAYNAME = "$service.display_name$"
   SERVICENAME = "$service.name$"
   SERVICEOUTPUT = "$service.output$"
   SERVICESTATE = "$service.state$"
   SERVICESTATETYPE = "$service.state_type$"
   SHORTDATETIME = "$icinga.short_date_time$"
   XM_INTEGRATION_URL = <YOUR_SERVICE_TRIGGER_URL>
   }
   }

7. Add the target names of any recipients you want to notify when the notification fires.
   • For URL authentication, use an ampersand to attach recipients. For example, if you want to notify Emma Pearson and the on-call members in the group responsible for the Antares service, you'd add &recipients=epearson,antares to the end of the URL.
   • For other authentication types, use a question mark to attach recipients. For example, if you want to notify Barry Gull and the on-call members in the group responsible for the Cassiopeia service, you'd add ?recipients=bgull,cassiopeia to the end of the URL.
   • You must URL-encode any special characters or spaces in the target names.
8. Save the file.
9. Move the xmatters-plugin.config file to your Icinga config file folder. For example: /etc/icinga/conf.d.
10. Optional: If you have any other Icinga notification attributes, you can add them to the env part of the xmatters-plugin.conf file. You must then update the cURL commands in the shell scripts for each host/service to match.

Now add the notification to any Icinga host you want to monitor.

1. Go to the location of your Icinga hosts. For example: /etc/icinga2/conf.d/hosts.conf.
2. Add the following code to each host.
   Copy

   vars.notification["xm"] = {
   groups = [ "icingaadmins" ]
   }

3. Restart your Icinga service so all changes are captured and applied.

You're ready to use the webhook to trigger automated flows, including steps such as sending alerts and initiating incidents, though we always recommend testing before putting things into use.

Set recipients in the trigger URL

The trigger expects the recipients in the trigger URL. When you copy the URL from xMatters, it includes the recipients parameter: recipients=<yourname>. Of course, you don’t want to receive all the alerts.

To change the recipients for alerts from this webhook, swap out your name for the people or groups you want to target.

• For URL authentication, use an ampersand to attach recipients. For example, if you want to notify Emma Pearson and the on-call members in the group responsible for the Antares service, you'd add &recipients=epearson,antares to the URL.
• For other authentication types, use a question mark to attach recipients. For example, if you want to notify Barry Gull and the on-call members in the group responsible for the Cassiopeia service, you'd add ?recipients=bgull,cassiopeia to the URL.

Remember to URL-encode any special characters, including spaces, in your group names.

We recommend using groups so you can take advantage of the xMatters group features — rotations, escalations, and absences — to reach the right on-call people to jump on an issue.

How to use the workflow

When a condition you've set fires, it sends a signal to xMatters, which creates an alert and notifies the individual or the on-call members of the people or groups you set as recipients in the webhook URL. When the trigger receives a signal saying the issue is resolved, it automatically terminates related alerts in xMatters.

Next Steps

Now that you've installed the workflow, you can use it as-is, or customize it to suit your needs better. Here are some examples of things you can add to the workflow to customize it:

• Use Slack, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams steps to add collaboration channels to the flow.
• Change the severity of incidents created when a recipient selects the Initiate Incident response.
• Update the message sent to resolvers to include the information most relevant to your team.

Previous versions

While the previous, built-in version of this integration is no longer available, the instructions for it are included below for anyone who has it installed in their system already.