Notifications¶
In the modern networking world, it’s imperative to have a granular view of system behavior and performance. Staying ahead of potential issues and acting promptly upon them can significantly elevate operational efficiency and network reliability. The detailed Notification Settings allow administrators to view and customize the alert preferences, ensuring that they receive timely and relevant information about critical network events. This feature is not just about being informed, but also about gaining insights into the nuances of network behavior.
Introduction¶
flexiWAN notifications settings are available from Account > Notification settings. Settings can be changed on account, group and organization levels. To learn more Account hierarchy and management see the following documentation section.
The page shows several areas:
Applies to / Entity - Currently set organization and its settings
Email notifications - Email recipients management
Webhook notifications - Configure Webhook integration with services such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zapier, and many more.
Notification table - Displays current / default notification settings.
The table contains the following notification settings:
Device Connection - Monitor the connection status of your devices.
Device RAM / Memory Usage - Track memory consumption and potential overuse.
Failed Self Healing - Be alerted if automated recovery processes encounter issues.
Hard Drive Usage - Monitor storage utilization to prevent potential data overflow.
Internet Connection Loss - Immediate alerts for lost connectivity.
Link Status - Know the real-time status of your vital network links.
Tunnel and Link Drop Rate - Stay informed about data transmission integrity.
Tunnel and Link Round Trip Time - Gauge link performance and latency.
Missing Interface IP - Detect configuration or network anomalies.
Tunnel in Pending Mode - Monitor tunnel establishment processes.
vRouter Operation - Immediate status on whether vRouters are active or have stopped.
Software Update - Receive updates on system software modifications.
Static Route Failure - Track the efficiency of your manually set routes.
Temperature - Ensure your devices operate within optimal temperature ranges.
Tunnel Connection or Disconnection - Maintain oversight on tunnel stability.
Each of these points can be fine-tuned based on severity, ensuring you receive alerts that align with your organization’s priorities. With this feature, flexiWAN SD-WAN empowers administrators with actionable insights, enhancing proactive network management.
Email recipients¶
Notification email recipients can be viewed from the Email notifications button. It shows a list of flexiManage users that can receive email alerts.
The table shows all users associated with this flexiManage account, this includes all organizations, groups and users. Admin account is listed first and rest are all invited accounts. Page offers the following email notification alerts:
Critical alerts - sends critical alerts to user, e.g. device disconnected.
Warning alerts - sends warning to a user, e.g. tunnel drop rate is at certain number.
Daily summary - sends daily digest of all alerts that occured in the past 24 hours.
To subscribe to any of the above alerts, simply mark the checkbox. To add a new email for alerts, first add the email via Users page, then the recipient will be displayed under Manage Notifications Emails.
Webhooks integration¶
flexiWAN’s advanced notification system is designed not only to keep administrators informed but also to easily integrate with popular webhook-based services. By leveraging webhooks, flexiWAN can seamlessly push real-time alerts and notifications to third-party platforms such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zapier, and many more.
How it works:
Customization: Users can configure which specific events trigger notifications based on their organizational needs.
Event Detection: When a specified event occurs in the flexiWAN environment, the system prepares a notification package.
Webhook Activation: Instead of simply displaying the notification in the dashboard, flexiWAN uses the configured webhook URL to forward this package.
Third-party Platform Processing: The webhook service (e.g., Slack or Zapier) receives the data and processes it as per the predefined instructions. This could be as simple as sending a message to a Slack channel or as complex as initiating a multi-step automated workflow in Zapier.
Real-time Alerting: Team members receive real-time alerts on their preferred platforms, ensuring prompt attention and action.
Webhooks can be configured from Notifications settings by clicking on Webhook notifications button.
Once Manage webhooks notifications popup opens, simply insert URL to connect your flexiManage account to 3rd party Webhooks service. Its also possible to define or limit the type of alerts that can be sent.
In essence, by integrating with leading webhook services, flexiWAN ensures that its notifications reach the right people at the right time, in the most convenient manner. Whether it’s a simple chatbot message or a complex automation sequence, users have the flexibility to tailor their notification workflows to best suit their operational needs.
Defaults and custom values¶
Users can personalize each notification by clicking the yellow settings icon located in the Actions column. While flexiWAN provides default settings as a recommended baseline, users have the flexibility to adjust and refine these settings to suit their preferences.
The following settings can be customized:
Severity - can change the severity of the alert to warning or critical.
Email alerts - enables or disables email alert for specific notification
Send webhook - enables Webhook triger for the specific notification
Notify on resolution - when enabled, system will send email on alert resolution.
Once notifications are custom set, users can save by clicking on the Apply button.
Customized notification settings can also be set as account defaults, which all new organizations will use. To save settings as account defaults, simply click on Set as account default button.
Settings can also be applied to existing organizations. To do that, switch to organization from the Identitiy drop down, and then click on Reset to account defaults.
Finally, in case of an error or to simply start from the start, to reset to flexiWAN defaults simply click on Reset to system defaults button from the drop down menu.
Notifications page¶
Notifications are accessible from the Troubleshooting > Notifications page. They are organized based on the time of occurrence, with the most recent appearing at the top.
Notifications can have three states:
Active - refers to a notification indicating an ongoing event. Some events may require attention or monitoring, while some will be resolved automatically.
Resolved - refers to a notification that has been addressed or dealt with, indicating that the underlying issue or condition that triggered the notification has been rectified or is no longer of concern. Once a notification is marked as resolved, it moves from an “Active” to a “Resolved” or “resolved” status.
Info - refers to a notification that is related to policies or application.
Note
Users can resolve a notification manually if its no longer active or should they think its not relevant.
Note
Tunnel notification filter works for notifications received from release 6.3.X.
Complete list of notification types can be found from Account > Notification settings, from where each notification can be also configured / customized.
Notifications are shown in table. Lets focus on a single notification as shown in the following image:
The following columns exist:
Time - exact time when notification has occured
Notification - type of notification
Target - Refers to device or tunnel the notification is related to.
Value - shows number for loss or latency.
Severity - may be critical or warning.
Status - shows if the event has been resolved or still ongoing.
Actions - allows marking notification as resolved and also as read / unread.
In the case of the image above, it shows there’s an issue with tunnel 1 from the device Instambul.
Device state can be marked as resolved by clicking on the icon from the Actions menu:
Once resolved, state will switch from Active to Resolved.
Filtering¶
Notifications can be sorted using various filters, to provide a more streamlined and comprehensive list for easier analysis. On top of the page, notification can be listed as Active or Resolved
An example of notifications filtered by Resolved state:
An example of notifications filtered by Active state:
From the Filter menu, notifications can also be filtered by several attributes such as date, status, severity or device number and tunnel number.
Once filtered, notifications can also be deleted by clicking Delete All Notifications matching the filter from the action menu.
