We already know how notifications work in Nagios. The previous chapters described how Nagios sends information to the users when a problem occurs and how it decides to notify people. Previously, our examples were limited to sending an e-mail 24 hours a day or only during working days.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
Setting up notifications effectively—when they should be sent; how they should be sent; and how to use multiple methods of notifying users, such as setting up Nagios to send a text message to your mobile during the day or to send you a message on Jabber or HipChat only when you are online
Using escalations that allow sending information about the host or service status when it is failing for a long period of time—for example, notifying a manager when a critical service has been down for over four hours
Sending commands via the Nagios external commands, such as adding comments on hosts and services, modifying notification settings...