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Alert Builder Reference

This is a reference for the Alert Builder Moolet.

You can change the behavior of the Alert Builder by editing the configuration properties in the $MOOGSOFT_HOME/config/moolets/alert_builder.conf configuration file. It contains the following properties:

name

Name of the Alert Builder Moolet. Do not change.

Type

String

Required

Yes

Default

"AlertBuilder"

classname

Moolet class name. Do not change.

Type

String

Required

Yes

Default

4"CAlertBuilder"

run_on_startup

Determines whether the Alert Builder runs when Moogsoft Enterprise starts. By default, it is set to true, so that when Moogfarmd starts, it automatically creates an instance of the Alert Builder. In this case you can stop it using farmd_ctrl.

Type

Boolean

Required

Yes

Default

true

moobot

Specifies a JavaScript file found in $MOOGSOFT_HOME/moobots, which defines the Alert Builder Moobot, which creates alerts.

Type

String

Required

Yes

Default

AlertBuilder.js

metric_path_moolet

Determines whether or not Moogsoft Enterprise includes the Alert Builder in the Event Processing metric for Self Monitoring.

Type

Boolean

Required

Yes

Default

true

event_streams

A list of event streams, which the Alert Builder Moolet processes in this instance of Moogfarmd. The LAMs can be configured to send events on different streams. Moogfarmd, as specified in the Alert Builder configuration, then decides whether or not to process them. If Moogsoft Enterprise runs multiple Moogfarmds, you can have different event streams being processed by different Alert Builder Moolets.

You can comment out event_streams, or provide an empty list. Then, the Alert Builder processes every event that is published on the default /Events topic on the Message Bus.

You configure the Alert Builder Moolet by giving it a list of strings, for example, [ “App A”, “App B” ]. The result is that the Alert Builder listens for events published on /Events/AppA, and /Events/AppB, and processes that data. Importantly, in this example, events published to /Events or any other stream are ignored. You can have Moogfarmds that process completely separate event streams, or, multiple Moogfarmds that process some different event streams and some common event streams. You would do this when some of the alerts are common to all the applications that are being processed, but some are specific only to a given application. In this way, you can cluster alerts separately for each application by configuring the Sigalisers to only processes alerts from a specific upstream Alert Builder Moolet.

For example, if you have two separate applications that share the same network infrastructure: in Moogfarmd 1, you can have as the event streams, application A and networks, and, in Moogfarmd 2, you can have application B and networks. With this configuration, you can detect alerts and then create Situations that are relevant for just application A and similarly just for application B; however, if there is common networking infrastructure and problems occur with network failures across applications A and B, the Alert Builder can cluster these into Situations.

Type

String

Required

No

Default

[ "AppA" ]

Note

When using LAMs to stream events to the Workflow Engine, be sure to add a comment to the event_handlers line of the corresponding Moolet config file. When event_streams and event_handlers are used simultaneously, the Workflow Engine picks up default events in addition to the streamed events.

Example Moolet config file:

#
# Configuration for Event Workflows Moolet
#
{    
name            : "Event Workflows",
classname       : "com.moogsoft.farmd.moolet.workflowengine.CWorkflowEngine",    run_on_startup  : true,    
metric_path_moolet : true,    
moobot          : [ "WorkflowEngine.js", "DejaVu.js" ],    # event_handlers : [ "Event"],
message_type: "event",    

# Specify a list of streams for the Workflow Engine to listen to.     
# Reference the streams set in the filter section of the LAM     
# configuration. Defaults to the generic event stream.       

, event_streams : [ "AppA" ]
}

threads

Specifies the number of threads in the Alert Builder. Choose a value to match the event rate experienced by your system that allows time for alert creation.

Type

String

Required

Yes

Default

4

events_analyser_config

Allows you to specify a different Events Analyser configuration, for tokenizing and analysis rules, for each Alert Builder Moolet. If no configuration file is specified, the system default events_analyser.conf is used.

Type

String

Required

No

Default

"events_analyser.conf"

priming_stream_name

Stream name under which the Events Analyser runs in order to calculate token and alert entropies. If set to null, all alerts from all streams are included in the entropy calculations.

Type

String

Required

Yes

Default

null

priming_stream_from_topic

If set to true, Moogfarmd extracts the priming stream name from the event's stream. If set to false, Moogfarmd uses the stream configured in priming_stream_name.

Type

Boolean

Required

Yes

Default

false