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3 Custom alertscripts

Overview

If you are not satisfied with existing media types for sending alerts there is an alternative way to do that. You can create a script that will handle the notification your way.

Alert scripts are executed on Zabbix server. These scripts should be located in the directory defined in the server configuration file AlertScriptsPath variable.

Here is an example alert script:

#!/bin/bash
       
       to=$1
       subject=$2
       body=$3
       
       cat <<EOF | mail -s "$subject" "$to"
       $body
       EOF

Starting from version 3.4 Zabbix checks for the exit code of the executed commands and scripts. Any exit code which is different from 0 is considered as a command execution error. In such case Zabbix will try to repeat failed execution.

Environment variables are not preserved or created for the script, so they should be handled explicitly.

Configuration

To configure custom alertscripts as the media type:

  • Go to Alerts → Media types
  • Click on Create media type

The Media type tab contains general media type attributes:

All mandatory input fields are marked with a red asterisk.

The following parameters are specific for the script media type:

Parameter Description
Script name Enter the name of the script file (for example, alertscript.sh).
Script parameters Add optional script parameters.
These parameters will be passed to the script as command-line arguments in the order in which they are defined.

Script parameters support {ALERT.SENDTO}, {ALERT.SUBJECT}, and {ALERT.MESSAGE} macros and, since Zabbix 6.4.0, all macros that are supported in notifications and user macros.

See common media type parameters for details on how to configure default messages and alert processing options.

Even if an alert script doesn't use default messages, message templates for operation types used by this media type must still be defined, otherwise, a notification will not be sent.

If more than one script media type is configured, these scripts may be processed in parallel by alerter processes. The total number of alerter processes is limited by the StartAlerters parameter.

Media type testing

To test a configured script media type:

  • Locate the relevant script in the list of media types.
  • Click on Test in the last column of the list (a testing window will open).
  • Edit the script parameter values, if needed (editing affects the test procedure only, the actual values will not be changed).
  • Click on Test.

User media

Once the media type is configured, go to the Users → Users section and edit user profile to assign media of this type to the user. Steps for setting up user media, being common for all media types, are described on the Media types page.

Note, that when defining a user media, a Send to field cannot be empty. If this field will not be used in an alertscript, enter any combination of supported characters to bypass validation requirements.