Notifications: filtering based on user (target) attributes

Icinga 2
1
  • Version used: 2.12.3
  • Operating System and version: Linux (Debian Bullseye)

I am happily using icinga2 for monitoring quite a lot of services.
Notifications are sent to a variety of users.
Notifications are sent via a variety of channels (e.g. email, XMPP, Matrix).

I think, I am using a quite typical apply sections for defining targets for notifications (here for Matrix notifications):

apply Notification "matrix-host" to Host {
  import "matrix-host-notification"
  user_groups = host.vars.notification.matrix.groups
  assign where host.vars.notification.matrix
}

apply Notification "matrix-service" to Service {
  import "matrix-service-notification"
  user_groups = host.vars.notification.matrix.groups
  assign where ( service.vars.notification.matrix || host.vars.notification.matrix.all_services )
}

But not all users are interested in all notification channels, thus some users lack the attribute for an email address, an XMPP address or a matrix room ID.

This results in error messages like the one below:

Notification command for object 'foo' (PID: -1, arguments: 'sh' '-c' '') terminated with exit code 3, output: Error: Non-optional macro 'user.vars.matrix.room' used in argument '-m' is missing.

(here the NotificationCommand refers to a specific attribute of the user, which simply does not exist)

I am not sure, how to handle this situation properly.

I see two options, but neither of them feels really desirable for me:

  • A) split the user accounts (and groups) into multiple notification-specific objects (e.g. foo is split into foo-email, foo-xmpp, …)
  • B) ensure that the required attributes exist (even if empty) for each user and handle an empty target gracefully in the notification scripts (exiting early with success → doing nothing)

But I hope, that there is a better way for achieving my goal? Maybe some kind of conditional execution of the notification command (based on specific user attributes)?

Thank you for your thoughts!

2

C) Add eMail address(es) pointing to /dev/null to the respective users.

3

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

C) Add eMail address(es) pointing to /dev/null to the respective users.

I would consider this to be equivalent to (B): you need to assign magic values (null, "", /dev/null, …) and interprete them as “do nothing” indicators in the respective notification scripts.

I was hoping, that I could avoid filling all these user attributes manually. Some kind of filtered/conditional execution (or application) of the notification commands would feel so much better …