Configuring LifeKeeper Event Email Notification

Prerequisites

The Event Email Notification feature is included as part of the LifeKeeper core functionality and does not require additional LifeKeeper packages to be installed. It does require that email software be installed and configured on each LifeKeeper node that will generate email notification of LifeKeeper events. LifeKeeper uses the mail utility, usually installed by the mailx or s-nail package to send notifications.

The configuration of email is beyond the scope of this LifeKeeper feature. By default, LifeKeeper Event Email Notification is disabled.

Configuration Tasks

The following tasks must be performed to set up LifeKeeper Event Email Notification.

1. Ensure that the mail utility is available as noted above.

2. Identify the user or users that will receive email notices of LifeKeeper events and set LK_NOTIFY_ALIAS in the LifeKeeper defaults file /etc/default/LifeKeeper. This can be done either from the command line or by editing the file /etc/default/LifeKeeper and specifying the email address or alias or the list of email addresses or aliases that should receive notification.

   • From the command line, use the lk_confignotifyalias utility (see the lk_confignotifyalias(1M) man page for details). This utility will only accept email addresses or aliases separated by commas.

   • Or, edit the defaults file /etc/default/LifeKeeper to add the email address or alias. Search for the entry LK_NOTIFY_ALIAS= and insert the email address or alias (single or list separated by commas) to the right of the = (no white space around the =).

Verifying the Configuration

To verify that the configuration is working, initiate a LifeKeeper action (for example, start or stop LifeKeeper or bring a resource in-service manually using the LifeKeeper GUI). Verify that an email message was received by the users specified in LK_NOTIFY_ALIAS in the file /etc/default/LifeKeeper and a message was logged in the LifeKeeper log file. If an email message has not been received, follow your normal debugging procedures for email failures. The LifeKeeper log can be inspected to determine if there was a problem sending the email message. See Email Notification Troubleshooting for more information.

Disabling Event Email Notification

To disable the generation of email notices by LifeKeeper, simply remove the assignment of an email address or alias from the LK_NOTIFY_ALIAS environment variable in the file /etc/default/LifeKeeper. This can be accomplished using the lk_confignotifyalias utility from the command line with the “—disable” option (see the lk_confignotifyalias(1M) page for an example). Or, edit /etc/default/LifeKeeper and change the entry for LK_NOTIFY_ALIAS to LK_NOTIFY_ALIAS=. This must be done on each node that should be disabled from sending email messages.