DT Gateway System Alerts

The DT Gateway allows the user to create system alerts using JavaScript expressions. Values in the expressions can come from PubSub websocket topics and include values like system metrics, application metrics, and custom application counters. Alert configurations are stored in the Hadoop cluster and therefore persist across gateway restarts; however, some state information about the alert (such as: whether it is active or not and a historical record of when it was triggered in the past) will be lost when the gateway is restarted, since it is stored in memory.

Alerts and Topics

As described above the trigger for an alert is a JavaScript expression potentially involving a variety of metrics. When the expression evaluates to true and remains so for a configured duration, the alert becomes active and email is sent to a configured list of addresses. Likewise, when the condition turns false, the alert becomes inactive and another email about the state change is sent.

Here is an example for simple JavaScript condition; we can make a REST call to create an alert named xyz which emails to someone@company.com when the number of running applications is greater than 5 for at least 60 seconds; the JSON object is the payload:

PUT /ws/v2/systemAlerts/alerts/xyz

{
  "condition":"_topic['cluster.metrics'].numAppsRunning > 5",
  "email":"someone@company.com",
  "description": "No.of apps running is more than 5",
  "timeThresholdMillis":"60000"
}

When the number of running applications is greater than 5 for more than 60 seconds, a simple email will be sent to someone@company.com, stating that the alert is in effect, and when the number of running applications drops below 6, another email will be sent, stating that the alert is no longer in effect.

The condition is a simple JavaScript expression which the user can build from various system or application-specific values. These values are available as fields of JavaScript objects representing WebSocket topics obtained with expressions of the form _topic[<topic_name>]. The topic names can be looked up using the GET /ws/v2/systemAlerts/topicData REST API call shown below (please note that alert names may contain special characters such as spaces, slashes and percents but they must be URL-encoded before making REST API calls such as Get, Put, and Delete):

GET /ws/v2/systemAlerts/topicData

{
  "applications.<applicationId>.logicalOperators": {...},
  "applications.<applicationId>.physicalOperators": {...},
  "applications.<applicationId>.containers": {...},
  "applications.<applicationId>": {...}
  "cluster.metrics": {...},
  "applications": {...}
}

where <applicationId> refers to the application id of a running application (which typically has the form application_1482319446115_4314). These topics exist for every running application. The alert condition can refer to multiple such topic values and can be any valid JavaScript expressions that return a boolean. A comma separated list of email addresses can be specified.

Configuring SMTP for Email

SMTP needs to be configured for the gateway to be able to send alert emails via an SMTP server. Make a note of the following steps before attempting to configure SMTP in the gateway.

  • make sure there is an SMTP server in the network the gateway will have access to. Note down the SMTP server's hostname and port number (please see the note below regarding encryption-type).
  • if the SMTP server supports or requires TLS or SSL encryption, determine the encryption-type for the communication between the gateway and the SMTP server. The values for encryption-type are "tls", "ssl" or "none" (i.e. no encryption). In case "tls" or "ssl" is used, ensure appropriate certificates are installed to establish trust.
  • determine the authentication-type for your SMTP server. The only supported values are "password" (i.e. authentication using username and password) or "none" (i.e. no authentication).
  • if you choose the "password" authentication-type, you will need the SMTP-username and SMTP-password to be used by the gateway to authenticate with the SMTP server.
  • determine the "fromAddr" and the "fromName" for the emails sent by the gateway which the email recipient will see as the sender of the emails. Note that for certain SMTP servers the "fromAddr" and the SMTP-username may need to match or else the latter overrides the former.
  • determine a "test-address" where you can receive emails to verify validity of the SMTP configuration.
  • in case you choose the "password" authentication-type, you will need to set up an SSL keystore as described here. The gateway uses the keystore to encrypt and decrypt your SMTP-password.

You can use the following APIs to set or retrieve the SMTP configuration. Note that the JSON sample following the PUT request is the payload of the request.

PUT /ws/v2/config/smtp

{
"host": "smtp.gmail.com",
"port": "587",
"fromAddr": "no-reply@mydomain.com",
"fromName": "Do Not Reply",
"encryptionType": "tls",
"authType": "password",
"username": "smtp-user@mydomain.com",
"password": "secret_password",
"testAddr": "testuser@yourdomain.com"
}

Contents of the JSON Object:

JSON Key Value
host the SMTP hostname
port the SMTP port on the SMTP server
fromAddr the "from-address" described above i.e. the address from which the alert email is sent
fromName the "from-name" described above i.e. the user friendly string for the "from-address"
encryptionType the "encryption-type" value described above i.e. "tls", "ssl" or "none"
authType the "authentication-type" value described above i.e. "password" or "none"
username the "SMTP-username" value described above
password the "SMTP-password" value described above
testAddr the "test-address" value described above. The gateway sends a test email to this address when you use this API to set the SMTP configuration.

A note about password: if you omit the "password" value in your JSON object in the API, the gateway will use the existing saved password so the client does not need to include the password in subsequent API calls. Note that the GET API (described below) never returns the password of the SMTP configuration, hence the DataTorrent console is able to use this feature without either displaying or requiring the user to re-enter the previous password. Note that the JSON sample following the GET request is the value returned from the GET request.

GET /ws/v2/config/smtp

{
"host": "smtp.gmail.com",
"port": "587",
"fromAddr": "no-reply@mydomain.com",
"fromName": "Do Not Reply",
"encryptionType": "tls",
"authType": "password",
"username": "smtp-user@mydomain.com",
"testAddr": "testuser@yourdomain.com"
}

The GET API returns the existing SMTP configuration in the gateway. As mentioned above, the SMTP-password value is never returned for security reasons.

Managing and viewing alerts

The following operations are available in the Gateway REST API:

  • Create an alert

  • Delete an alert

  • Get alert history

  • View content and status of alerts

  • View all the current data in the _topic array

Creating an alert

To create an alert, the user needs to specify the alert name, condition, email address and duration in milliseconds. As explained above, the condition can refer to values in various topic objects including system metrics, application metrics, and custom application counters and must yield a Boolean value.

Complex JavaScript Expressions :

The following example shows how to issue a REST request to create an alert named WordCountAppNotRunning which emails to phil@company.com and mike@company.com when the WordCount app is not in the RUNNING state for at least 60 seconds.

PUT /ws/v2/systemAlerts/alerts/WordCountAppNotRunning

{
  "condition": "_topic['applications.application_1480063135007_0543']['state'] != 'RUNNING'",
  "email":"phil@company.com, mike@company.com",
  "description": "WordCount Application is not running",
  "timeThresholdMillis":"60000"
}

The above alert works for the current invocation of the WordCount application; however, when the application is restarted, a new application id is generated for which this alert will no longer work. To avoid having to update the application id in the condition each time the application restarts, we can write a more complex JavaScript expression to find the application id for the given application as shown below:

var alert = false;
var appId = undefined;
var appsInfo = _topic['applications'].apps;

for(i = 0; i < appsInfo.length; i++)
{
    if (appsInfo[i].name == 'WordCount')
    {
        appId = appsInfo[i].id;
        break;
    }
}
if (appId != undefined)
{
    alert  = _topic['applications.' + appId]['state']  !=  'RUNNING' ;
}
alert;

The JavaScript expression must however be written as a single line; tools such as javascriptcompressor are useful for this purpose. Any HTML in the expression also needs to be escaped. Here is new alert with the revised complex expression compressed to a single line:

PUT /ws/v2/systemAlerts/alerts/WordCountAppNotRunning

{
  "condition": "var alert=false;var appId=undefined;var appsInfo=_topic['applications'].apps;for(i=0;i<appsInfo.length;i++){if(appsInfo[i].name=='WordCount'){appId=appsInfo[i].id;break}}if(appId!=undefined){alert=_topic['applications.'+appId]['state']!='RUNNING'}alert;",
   "email":"phil@company.com, mike@company.com",
   "description": "WordCount Application is not running",
   "timeThresholdMillis":"60000"
}

Deleting an alert

We can delete an alert with the DELETE REST API request:

DELETE /ws/v2/systemAlerts/alerts/{name}

Alerts history

We can get the alerts history with the GET REST API request:

GET /ws/v2/systemAlerts/history

It returns a result of the following form:

{
"history": [{
    "name": "xyz",
    "inTime": "1481235199598",
    "outTime": "1481235251088",
    "message": "No.of apps running is more than 5"
},{
    "name": "checkCsvParserNotRunning",
    "inTime": "1481235251087",
    "outTime": "1481235549648",
    "message": "Application is not running"
}],
}

The alert history comprises the alert name, time it became active (inTime), time it became inactive (outTime) and message. The alert history is obtained through the gateway, so whenever gateway is restarted the alerts history gets cleared.

Viewing the content and the status of alerts

We can get the content and status of alerts with the GET REST API web request:

GET /ws/v2/systemAlerts/alerts/{name}

It returns a result of the following form:

{
 "name": "checkLatencyApp",
 "condition": "var alert=false;var appId=undefined;var appsInfo=_topic['applications'].apps;for(i=0;i<appsInfo.length;i++){if(appsInfo[i].name=='xyzApp'){appId=appsInfo[i].id;break}}if(appId!=undefined){var expTopic='applications.'+appId+'.physicalOperators';var operators=_topic[expTopic].operators;for(i=0;(i<operators.length);++i){if(operators[i].latencyMA>50){alert=true;break}}}alert;",
 "email": "phil@company.com, mike@company.com",
 "description": "checking latency > 50",
 "timeThresholdMillis": "10000",
 "alertStatus": {
   "isInAlert": true,
   "inTime": "1481264665450",
   "emailSent": true,
   "message": "checking latency > 50"
  }
}

The result includes the alert name, condition, email addresses, description and duration. It also alert status info such as isInAlert which indicates whether it is still active or not, inTime which represents the time the alert became active, emailSent which, as the name suggests, indicates if email was sent, and message which is similar to the description.

Viewing all the current data in the _topic array

This section is already covered under Alerts and Topics .