Step 2: Turn on Default Notifications

This section describes how to turn default notifications on in Horizon.

Horizon uses notifications to inform users about events in the network without requiring them to log in to the web UI. Notifications are commonly sent through email and text or pager messages, but can be customized to send to a variety of external systems. For additional information, including alternative notification mechanisms, see Notifications in the Deep Dive section and the notifd reference section.

Enable notifications

Notifications are disabled by default in a fresh Horizon installation, as indicated by the red bell symbol in the top menu bar:

Portion of Horizon top menu bar displaying a red notification bell symbol

Follow these steps to enable notifications:

  1. Log out of the admin account and log in as the user that you created in Step 1: First-Time Sign In.

  2. Click the gear symbol in the top-right of the screen.

  3. Under Event Management, select On beside Notification Status, and click Update.

The bell symbol in the top menu bar turns green, indicating that notifications are enabled globally.

This procedure is functionally equivalent to editing ${OPENNMS_HOME}/etc/notifd-configuration.xml and setting status="on" in the top-level notifd-configuration element. This configuration file update happens immediately, with no need to restart Horizon.

Notification definitions

The following event notifications are defined by default:

Event Notification Default State

High threshold

OFF

High threshold rearmed

OFF

Low threshold

OFF

Low threshold rearmed

OFF

interfaceDeleted

ON

interfaceDown

ON

nodeAdded

ON

nodeDown

ON

nodeLostService

ON

You can turn each of them on or off on the Configure Event Notifications page. See Notifications in the Deep Dive section for more information.

Configure destination paths

A destination path specifies the "who" (recipient), "when" (delay), and "how" (method) of a notification. It also specifies the escalation targets.

Configuring destination paths separately for individual events lets you use the same information for multiple notifications. This encourages reuse and minimizes duplication.

You must specify a destination path to receive notifications from Horizon. Email-Admin is defined by default, and is the notification path when no other paths are specified. It sends email notifications to all users in the Admin group.

For Email-Admin to work, you have to configure your email server. Instructions for this are beyond the scope of the Quick Start guide.

For this example, we will specify a destination path that sends browser pop-up notifications to users in the Admin group (currently, the default admin account and the personalized user account that you created in Step 1: First-Time Sign In).

  1. Click the gear symbol in the top-right of the screen.

  2. Under Event Management, click Configure Notifications  Configure Destination Paths.

  3. Click New Path and configure it:

    • Specify a name for the path (for example, "Browser") and define an initial delay. The initial delay specifies how long Horizon will wait before sending the first notification.

    • Click Edit.

    • Under Send to Selected Groups, select the Admin group.

    • Click Next Step.

    • You are prompted to define the time to wait between sending notifications to each member of a group. For the purpose of this Quick Start guide, do not specify a delay interval, and click Next Step.

    • Select Browser from the list of commands and make sure that it is on.

    • Click Next Step.

      The Admin group and the email address that you specified appear in the Initial Targets list.

  4. Verify the settings, and click Finish.

Users in the Admin group will see pop-up notifications in their browsers about events in Horizon.