Hints on global deadman alerting methods

Question

Kapacitor configuration file contains following comment in [deadman] section:

# NOTE: for this to be of use you must also globally configure at least one alerting method.

But there is no more hints about how to set this global alerting method. Some alert handlers sections have a global boolean parameter but not the basic or old-school ones like snmp, httppost or even log. Is it not available?

Kapacitor documentation shortly introduces an [Alert] section. Would it be possible to set a global log event handler here?

Answer 1

From my understanding this means that in order to use the global configuration for the [deadman] node, you need to set the default parameters for one of the possible Kapacitor [Alert node] properties (smtp, mqtt, slack, ...)

The list of supported [Alert node] is available in the documentation

This configuration is done in the Kapacitor configuration file.

Here is an example of the email property

[smtp]

  # Configure an SMTP email server
  # Will use TLS and authentication if possible
  # Only necessary for sending emails from alerts.
  enabled = true
  host = "smtp.host.com"
  port = 465
  username = "[email protected]"
  password = "password"
  # From address for outgoing mail
  from = "[email protected]"
  # List of default To addresses.
  to = ["[email protected]","[email protected]"]

  # Skip TLS certificate verify when connecting to SMTP server
  no-verify = false
  # Close idle connections after timeout
  idle-timeout = "30s"

  # If true the all alerts will be sent via Email
  # without explicitly marking them in the TICKscript.
  global = false
  # Only applies if global is true.
  # Sets all alerts in state-changes-only mode,
  # meaning alerts will only be sent if the alert state changes.
  state-changes-only = false