Alerta Tutorial

A tutorial from scratch to writing your own alerts using alerta.io.



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from IPython.display import HTML
HTML('<iframe src="http://alerta.io" width="100%" height="500"></iframe>')

Prerequisites

Assumed environment (tested on Mac OS X):

POSIX OS
bash
git
pkill
wget

Setup

Components installed during the baseline setup (before you can actually see this notebook), executed with bash setup.sh:

Miniconda2
pip
jupyter
ipython
RISE plugin for jupyter

Install the real thing(s)

Components needed for Alerta, executed with bash install.sh:

MongoDB
Alerta server
Alerta Dashboard

Install custom packages and tools

The following dependencies for creating custom alerts from in the included examples can be installed with bash custom.sh:

lxml
url3
packaging
selenium
PhantomJS

Start everything

Processes to start (Jupyter doesn't support background processes) with bash start.sh:

MongoDB
Alerta server/API
Alerta Dashboard
Jupyter tutorial/presentation (this notebook file)

Alerta API



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from IPython.display import HTML
HTML('<iframe src="http://localhost:8090" width="100%" height="500"></iframe>')

Alerta Dashboard



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from IPython.display import HTML
HTML('<iframe src="http://localhost:8095" width="100%" height="500"></iframe>')

Alerta Top

Run this command in a Jupyter terminal (or any other):

./miniconda2/bin/alerta --endpoint http://localhost:8090 top

Rolling Your Own Alerts

Simple, Unix style



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! cd $ALERTA_TEST_DIR && ./miniconda2/bin/alerta \
    --endpoint-url "http://localhost:8090" \
    send -E Production -r localhost -e VolUnavailable \
         -S Filesystem -v ERROR -s minor \
         -t "/Volumes/XYZ not available."



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! cd $ALERTA_TEST_DIR && ./miniconda2/bin/alerta \
    --endpoint-url "http://localhost:8090" \
    delete

Same Thing, Python style



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from alerta.api import ApiClient
from alerta.alert import Alert

api = ApiClient(endpoint='http://localhost:8090')
alert = Alert(resource='localhost', event='VolUnavailable',
              service=['Filesystem'], environment='Production',
              value='ERROR', severity='minor')
res = api.send(alert)

Custom Alerts

Remember, you can do amazing stuff…



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import utils
utils.volume_is_mounted('/Volumes/Intenso64')



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utils.internet_available()



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utils.using_vpn(city='Berlin', country='Germany')



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utils.get_python_sites_status()



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from IPython.display import HTML
HTML('<iframe src="https://status.python.org" width="100%" height="500"></iframe>')



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utils.get_webpage_info('http://www.python.org', title_contains='Python')



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import sys
from os.path import join, dirname



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conda_path = join(dirname(sys.executable), 'conda')
conda_path



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utils.get_conda_list(conda_path)



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utils.get_conda_updates(conda_path)



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ks_url = 'https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/udoo/udoo-x86-the-most-powerful-maker-board-ever/'
utils.get_kickstarter_days_left(ks_url)
# uses Firefox as it doesn't need a special driver installation



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phantomjs_path = './alerta_test_directory/phantomjs-2.1.1-macosx/bin/phantomjs'
browser = utils.webdriver.PhantomJS(phantomjs_path)
utils.get_kickstarter_days_left(ks_url, browser)

Get Alerts to Get Things Done

Watch this dashboard as you perform changes on the next slides!



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from IPython.display import HTML
HTML('<iframe src="http://localhost:8095" width="100%" height="500"></iframe>')



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import my_alerts as ma
ma.start(list=True)



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rts = ma.start(name='alert_conda_outdated')
rts



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import subprocess
cmd = "%s install -y sqlite==3.8.4.1" % conda_path
print subprocess.check_output(cmd.split())



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cmd = "%s update -y sqlite" % conda_path
print subprocess.check_output(cmd.split())



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rts[0].stop()

Start Playing

Do any of these things and watch the effects in the Alerta dashboard:

closing and reopening your internet connection
disconnecting and reconnecting your VPN client
mounting and ejecting a volume (named Intenso64 above)
then, look at my_alerts.py and create your own!

Conclusions

not mentioned, yet:
- third-party integrations/plugins for Alerta
- Chrome extension
other alerting ideas:
- thresholds on bank accounts
- rules in sensor networks
Happy Alerting!