Configuring email notification for Server Automation

You can configure Server Automation to automatically notify you by email when your Automation Plans have completed. After you have enabled email notification, you receive an email to the email addresses that you specified. The email notification includes details about the success or failure of the plan, and optionally provides comprehensive execution details for each step in the plan. The notification service is disabled by default. To set up email notification, you must install and configure the notification service by running BigFix Tasks.

About this task

To install and set up the email notification feature, you must complete the following short configuration steps:
  • Run a Task to download and install the notification service, which is the underlying component that Server Automation uses to send automatic email notification.
  • After you have installed the notification service, you must then configure the notification service, and then configure notification for Server Automation and specify the email addresses to which you want the notifications to be sent.

Complete the following steps to set up email notification for Server Automation.

Procedure

  1. To install the notification service, from the Notification node of the navigation tree in Server Automation, run one of the following Tasks, depending on whether you are installing the notification service on Windows® or Linux®:
    • Task 2238 Install Latest Notification Service to install the notification service on Microsoft® Windows®. When you run the Task, target the BigFix server and enter the port number on which you want the notification service to listen. This Task downloads and installs the notification service.
    • Task 2241 Install Latest Notification Service (RHEL) to install the notification service on Linux®. When you run the Task, target the BigFix server and enter the port number on which you want the notification service to listen. This Task downloads and installs the notification service.
    If the installation does not complete successfully, check to see if a Task has become relevant in the Notification > Warnings folder. If there is a Task that is relevant in the Warnings folder, run the relevant Task. After the Task has completed, run the installation Task again.
  2. Activate analysis 159 Notification Service Details for Server Automation and the notification service analysis 2243 Notification Service Details from the Notification > Activate Analyses folder.
  3. Run Task 2240 Configure Settings for Notification Service to configure the settings for the email notification service. Complete the form, as follows, and then click Take Action:
    • Notification Service Port: you can change the value here to update the port number that the notification service listens on, as set in Task 2238 Install Latest Notification Service or Task 2241 Install Latest Notification Service (RHEL). If this port number is later changed, the notification service is restarted.
    • From Email Address: you can change the value here to update the default From email address that is displayed in the From field as configured in Task 2244 Send an Email Notification, which is the Task that you use to send email notifications. You can change this value at run time.
    • SMTP Method: select an SMTP method for the notification service, either Plain or None. If you select None, SMTP authentication is disabled and the User name and Password fields are disabled. If you select Plain, authentication with a user name and password is required.
    • SMTP Host: enter the IP address, host name or fully qualified domain name of the SMTP server. This is a required field.
    • SMTP Port: accept the default port number value of 25 or enter a different value for the port number of the SMTP server. This is a required field.
    • User name: enter the user name for the email account. This is a required field if you selected Plain as the SMTP method.
    • Password: enter the password for the email account. This is a required field if you selected Plain as the SMTP method.
    • Confirm Password: confirm the password that you entered in the previous field. This is a required field if you selected Plain as the SMTP method.
  4. From the Notification node of the navigation tree in Server Automation, select and run Task 153 Configure Email Notification Settings for Server Automation, as follows:
    • Enable global notification: select an option to enable or disable email notification by default for all plans at a global, system-wide level. If you select Yes to enable notification, you must enter one or more email addresses in the Globally defined email addresses field.
    • Globally defined email addresses: enter an email address for each recipient that you want to receive email notification. Use a comma to separate email addresses. Do not press enter to place email addresses on separate lines.
    • Sender Email Address: you can add the value here to update the default Sender Email Address to send the email notifications.
    • Include global recipients: select an option to include or exclude global email recipients by default.
    • Your message: enter a message to send with all email notifications by default. For new plans, this is the default message that is displayed in the Message section on the Settings tab.
    • Append plan execution detail: select an option to include or exclude the system-generated execution details with the email notification by default. If you select Yes, details of name and ID of any timeouts, failures, and details of any excluded non-reporting endpoints for each step in the Automation Plan are included in the email notification.
    Note:
    • If the Sender Email Address is left blank, the default From email address of Task 153 will be set to ServerAutomationPlanEngine@Bigfix.com.
    • Task 152 is superseded and all the actions including sender email information are managed by Task 153.
    Note: You can override these global settings for individual Automation Plans from the Notification section in the Settings tab for each plan.
    After you run Task 153 Configure Email Notification Settings for Server Automation, new, existing, and legacy plans are affected as follows:
    New plans
    New plans are populated with the global values. The Use Global Settings option is selected by default in each new plan. When you save a new plan, the plan is then treated as an existing plan and the rules for existing plans are applied.
    Existing plans
    For existing plans, only plans with Use Global Settings or Send to global recipients selected are affected by global value changes in Task 153 Configure Email Notification Settings for Server Automation. So when you change values using Task 153, the settings in the plan do not change, it is the values that the settings reference that are changed. This means the runtime behavior of the plan in relation to notification is also updated but the plan definition remains unchanged.
    Legacy plans
    Legacy plans are plans that were created before the notification feature was available. All global settings are applied until the next time the plan is saved. Legacy plans do not have any plan-specific settings until they are next saved.
  5. To change any of the configuration settings for the plan, click Settings and from the Notification section, you can configure the plan-specific notification settings, as follows:
    • From the Enable notification for this plan section, select an option to enable or disable email notification. There are three options here and these options control whether email notification is enabled. One option is to use the default settings as configured globally and the global option displayed, one option to enable notification, and one to disable notification. This section controls only whether email notification is enabled, it does not control whether default settings are applied for the plan recipients and message content. So if you select Use Global Settings, you must set the recipients for the plan and message content separately.
    • In the Recipients section, you can enter email notification recipients for this specific plan. By expanding the View Global Recipients twisty, you can view the list of email notification recipients defined globally at the current time. If you want the email notification for this plan to be sent to the list of globally defined recipients, check the Send to global recipients box. When this option is checked, the email notification is sent to the global recipients as well as any email addresses you entered in the Recipients field.
    • In the Sender Email Address section, change the default Sender Email Address if needed. This overrides the information configured using Task 153.
    • In the Message content section, enter a plan-specific message that you want to be sent with the email notification. By default, the global default message is populated in this field as set in Task 153.
    • To send the system-generated plan execution details with the email notification, check the Append Plan execution detail check box. The system-generated plan execution detail includes detailed information of name and ID of any timeouts or failures in the plan.
    Note:
    • When Automation Plan settings are configured to use the global values, any subsequent updates to the global values as configured using Task 153 Configure Email Notification Settings for Server Automation are automatically applied to the values used in the Automation Plan. New plans and legacy plans default behavior is to use the global values.
  6. Run the Automation Plan. When the plan action is stopped, an email notification is sent according to your settings.

Results

Email notification is set up based on your configuration settings and email notifications are sent for Automation Plans for which notification is configured when the plans complete. If you want email notification to be sent during plan execution, you can add Task 2244 Send an email notification at the point in the plan at which you want the notification to be sent. For example, if you have a 10-step plan and you want a notification to be sent after step 5, add Task 165 as step 6 in the plan.

If you want to disable email notification at any point, use Server Automation Task 153 Configure Email Notification Settings for Server Automation. If you disable notification, legacy plans and plans that are configured to use the global settings will no longer send email notifications.

More information

If you want to change the list of global email addresses (Email Recipient List) or Sender email address, use Task 153 Configure Email Notification Settings for Server Automation. If you run Task 153 Configure Email Notification Settings for Server Automation entering a list of email addresses (Email Recipient List) or Sender email address, the global email addresses (Email Recipients and Sender Email Address) that you enter will replace any global email addresses that were configured previously. If you want to remove the notification service, run Task ID 2239 Uninstall Notification Service to uninstall the notification service on Microsoft® Windows®, and run Task ID 2242 Uninstall Notification Service (RHEL) to uninstall the service on Linux®.