Notifications Setup

The Control Panel's Notification menu lets you configure the notifications for your CP. You can select the events about which to notify your users. To configure notifications for your cloud you need to:

  • Enable notifications for your cloud - the configured subscriptions will send notifications only if you enable this option.
  • Configure gateways - select what type of notifications you want to send: SMTP/SENDMAIL emails or internal notifications in CP.
  • Add notification templates - notification templates determine the text of the messages your users will receive.
  • Add custom events - you can add custom events to send notifications when you require.
  • Create recipients lists - recipients lists include users whom you want to address certain notifications.
  • Set up subscriptions - a subscription ties all your configurations together. After you set up subscriptions your users will start receiving notifications.

After these configurations you can:

  • You need to have messaging permissions enabled to configure notification for the cloud. For more information, refer to List of all OnApp Permissions.
  • For information on managing subscriptions, gateways and other elements of notifications refer to Manage Notifications.



See also:


Enable Notifications for Your Cloud

Firstly, you need to enable notifications for your cloud. You can do this at the Configuration section. All notification sections will be available in the Control Panel if notifications are disabled for the cloud, but no notifications will be sent.

To enable notifications for your cloud:

  1. Go to Control Panel > Admin > Notifications > Configuration
  2. Move the Enable notifications slider to enable notifications. By default, this option is disabled.
  3. Specify the number of unread notifications to show. It is set to 5 by default.
  4. Specify the notification subject prefix. By default, this value is 'OnApp.' 
  5. Click the Save Configuration button


Configure Gateways

The Gateways section lets you create gateways for your notification system. Gateways are used when setting up a subscription and determine in what way users will be contacted: via email or internal notifications in CP. You can create multiple gateways to verify without any limitation.

To view your gateways go to Control Panel > Admin > Notifications > Gateways. The page that loads shows your gateways with their names and the types of the gateways: SMTP, SENDMAIL or INTERNAL. 

To add a new gateway:

  1. Go to Control Panel > Admin > Notifications > Gateways
  2. Click the New gateway or the   button
  3. On the page that loads select the delivery method for the gateway: SMTP or SENDMAIL for email notifications or INTERNAL for internal notifications in the CP
  4. Click Select to proceed to the next gateway creation step

  5. Depending on the selected delivery method fill in the following details: 

    For the Transaction Approvals functionality you need to add a SENDMAIL gateway with the System SENDMAIL Gateway label or/and an SMTP gateway with the System SMTP Gateway label.

    For the SENDMAIL delivery method:

    • Label - the name for your new gateway. The name of the gateway should not contain any special characters.
    • Primary - move the slider to the right to mark current gateway as primary. Previous primary gateway will be unmarked. 
    • From - the email address from which emails will be sent
    • Host - the server IP or URL

    For the INTERNAL delivery method:

    • Label - the name for your new gateway. The name of the gateway should not contain any special characters.

    For the SMTP delivery method:

    • Label - the name for your new gateway. The name of the gateway should not contain any special characters.
    • Primary - move the slider to the right to mark current gateway as primary. Previous primary gateway will be unmarked. 
    • From - the email address from which emails will be sent
    • Host - the server IP or URL
    • Smtp address - address of the SMTP server
    • Smtp port - port of the SMTP server
    • Smtp domain - associated domain
    • Smtp user name - user name to login into SMTP server
    • Smtp password - password to login into SMTP server
    • Smtp authentication - select an authentication mechanism from a drop-down menu: plain, login or cram_md5
    • Smtp enable starttls auto - enable the StartTLS extension
  6. Click Save to finish the creation process

For information on how to edit and delete gateways refer to Manage Notifications.


Add Notification Templates


The Notification Templates section lets you create message texts that will be sent to your users via email or internal notifications in CP. Notification templates are used when setting up a subscription for your users. There are two types of notification templates: system templates that come pre-installed with OnApp and cannot be deleted but only edited, and custom templates which you add to your cloud.

To view your notification templates go to Control Panel > Admin > Notifications > Notification Templates. The page that loads shows your notification templates with their labels, indicators whether this is a system or a custom template and the template's text. If a template contains a long message, only the beginning of the text will be displayed.


To add a new notification template:

  1. Go to Control Panel > Admin > Notifications > Notification Templates
  2. Click the New notification template or the  button
  3. On the page that loads fill in the label and the text of the template. The label of the template should not contain any special characters. The text of the template is the message which your users will receive.
  4. Click the Save button to add the notification template.

If you add a '%{message}' text to the template, the notification will contain the full text of the event that is written into logs. If you add a '%{name}' text to the template, the notification will contain the name of the user who will receive the notification. You can set %{message} and %{name} placeholders for almost any type of event, however, the following events will have the different placeholders available:

  • federation new announcement - {label} and {period_for_federation_announcement} placeholders.
  • federation templates changed - {label} placeholder.

For custom events you can only set the %{message} and %{name} placeholders. 



Add Custom Event Types

The Events page shows the events which occurred in the cloud and about which users were notified. To view the list of events go to Control Panel > Admin > Notifications > Events. The page that loads shows the list of events which have occurred in the system with their details:

  • Date - the time and date when the event occurred
  • Event Type - the type of the event
  • Data -  the text of the notification that was sent about the event 

OnApp currently offers two event types, system event types and custom event types. To view the list of system event types go to Control Panel > Admin > Notifications > Event Types > System Event Types. The page that loads shows the list of system event types registered in system with their details:


  • ID - the ID of the event
  • Event Type - the type of the event

If required you can add a custom event type which can later be selected when setting up a subscription. 

To add a custom event type:

  1. Go to Control Panel > Admin > Notifications > Event Types > Custom Event types tab
  2. Click the Create new Event type button
  3. On the page that loads enter a name and a description for you custom event type
  4. Click Create to save the new event type

Trigger Custom Events

If required, you can trigger the event from the list of custom events manually. When you trigger a custom event type, a new popup window appears where you can enter the text of the message to be passed into the notification template. Triggered custom events are displayed in the Events section together with the system events that have occurred in the cloud.

To trigger a custom event:

  1. Go to Control Panel > Admin > Notifications > Event Types > Custom Event types tab.
  2. Click the Actions icon next to the event type you want to trigger and select Trigger.
  3. Enter a text which will be included into your notification.
  4. Click Trigger to send the notifications.

For information on how to delete event types for a particular period of time refer to Manage Notifications.


Create Recipients Lists

Recipients lists determine to whom of your users notifications will be sent. If required, you can add different recipients lists for different events. One recipients list can be used in multiple subscriptions and you can create multiple recipients lists, as well. If you want to send notifications to emails that are not registered in your OnApp cloud, you need to add such contacts as external recipients. Recipients lists can include both OnApp users and external recipients. 


External Recipients


If you want to send notifications to emails that are not registered in your OnApp cloud you can add them to your External Recipients. Later these contacts can be added to recipients lists of users who will receive notifications about certain events.

To view the list of external recipients go to Control Panel > Admin > Notifications > External Recipients. The page that loads shows the added external contacts with their name and email.

To add a new external recipient:

  1. Go to Control Panel > Admin > Notifications > External Recipients
  2. Click the New External Recipient or the  button
  3. On the page that loads enter a name for recipient and their email address. The name of the recipient should not contain any special characters
  4. Click Submit to save the recipient


Recipients Lists

The Recipients Lists section lets you create lists of users whom you want to notify about certain events. Recipients lists are used when setting up a subscription to select whom of the users to notify about which events in the cloud.

To view your recipients lists go to Control Panel > Admin > Notifications > Recipients Lists. The page that loads shows all your recipients lists. 

Click the label of the recipient list to view its list of users with their emails.

To add a new recipients list:

  1. Go to Control Panel > Admin > Notifications > Recipients Lists
  2. Click the New Recipients List or the   button
  3. On the page that loads fill in the name and select the recipients from the drop-down list. The name of the list should not contain any special characters. External recipients will also appear in the drop-down list
  4. Click Create to save the new recipients list


For information on how to edit and delete recipients lists refer to Manage Notifications.


Set up Subscriptions

Using the Subscriptions section you determine who of your users are notified about which events. A subscription is the final step of a notifications configuration which ties together a recipients list, a gateway and a notification template.

To view the list of subscriptions go to Control Panel > Admin > Notifications > Subscriptions. The page that loads shows your subscriptions with the following details:

  • Name - the label of the subscription. 
  • Event Type - the event type with which the subscription is associated.
  • Template - the subscription's notification template. Click the template to view its details.
  • Gateways - the name of the gateway and the means by which the notifications will be sent. Click the gateway to view its details.
  • Recipients Lists - the subscription's recipients list. Click the label of the recipients list to view the list of users in it and their emails.


Create New Subscription

To add a new subscription:

  1. Go to Control Panel > Admin > Notifications > Subscriptions
  2. Click the New Subscription or the  button
  3. On the page that loads fill in the following details:
    • Name - the label for the subscription
    • Recipients list - select from the drop-down menu the list of recipients to whom the notifications will be sent. You can use one recipients list for several subscriptions
    • Gateways - select from the drop-down list the gateway for the subscription. The gateway determines whether notifications will be send via email or internal notifications in CP. You can use one gateway for several subscriptions.
  4. Click the  button to add an event
  5. In the new popup windows that appears fill in the following details:
    • Event - select from the drop-down list the event about which the notifications will be sent. Every time the event takes place a notification will be sent to users from the recipients list you select
    • Notification template - select from the drop-down list the event and the notifications template for the subscription. You can use one notification template for several subscription

    You can create multiple events for the custom events which are non-deletable but open to editing. These custom events include reset password instructions, unlock instructions, set password instructions, and confirmation instructions.  

  6. Click the Add button
  7. Click Submit to add the subscription


You can set up notifications for the following events:

  • All compute resources status - all compute resources in a compute zone have changed their statuses to to Online/Offline/Inactive
  • Auto healing failed diagnostics - the disk automatic repair failed due to some errors detected
  • Auto healing processing disk repair - the disk automatic repair has been initiated
  • Can't schedule transaction - a transaction could not be scheduled in the cloud
  • Autobackup failed - the backup creation limit has been reached
  • Daemon notification - the status of the OnApp engine has changed to Active/Up/Inactive
  • Daily storage health report - the daily storage health report will be sent in the notification
  • Failed task - a task failed in the cloud
  • Failover compute resource - deprecated option, it will be removed in the next version
  • Failover process - failover process has been initiated
  • Federation new announcement -  new notification that will be sent to all the buyers who are subscribed to the selected zone
  • Federation templates changed - the templates have underwent some changes. These changes may include adding a new template, changing the limits of the existing template or deleting one
  • Generate hourly stats failed - hourly statistics failed to be generated
  • Hourly storage health report - the hourly storage health report will be sent in the notification
  • Compute resource missing CPU flags - a compute resource without CPU flags has been detected in the cloud
  • Compute resource status - one of the compute resources in the cloud has changed its status to Online/Offline/Inactive
  • Compute resource group responsive - an unresponsive compute zone has been detected in the cloud
  • Maintenance mode - the Control Panel has been switched to maintenance mode
  • Reclaim baremetal compute resource - a baremetal server has been deleted. It has been removed from the DB, but it may remain working. To fully remove the baremetal server it might be required to reboot the compute resource on which it was running.
  • Service addon event - an event with custom message, which is used during creation of service add-on 'Raise event' action
  • System resources - a hardware resource of the CP server is exhausted
  • Processes status - deprecated option, it will be removed in the next version
  • Wrong activated logical volumes - the system has detected VSs' disks that are either activated on the wrong compute resource or on two compute resources simultaneously 
  • Custom event - this is your custom event configured at Control Panel > Notifications > Event Types > Custom Event types tab
  • Internal server error - an internal server error occurred in the system
  • Pending approval - a transaction that requires approval has been requested
  • Approved - a transaction that requires approval has been approved
  • Declined - a transaction that requires approval has been declined

For information on how to edit and delete subscriptions refer to Manage Notifications.


Check Notifications Delivery

The Deliveries section shows all the notification deliveries in your cloud. If a subscription has a recipient list which contains multiple users, a separate delivery will be displayed for each of the recipients of the notification. At Control Panel > Admin > Notifications > Deliveries you can see the deliveries in your system with the following details:

  • Status - whether the notification was delivered. This status can indicate that the delivery is Complete, Running or Failed.
  • ID - the ID of the delivery
  • Subscription Name - the subscription within which this delivery was initiated. Click the label of the subscription to view its details.
  • Recipient - the user to whom the notification is to be delivered
  • Destination - the destination to which the notification was delivered: SMTP or SENDMAIL for email notifications and INTERNAL for notifications in CP
  • Date - the time when the notification was sent

For information on how to delete deliveries for a particular period of time refer to Manage Notifications.


View Internal Notifications in CP

Your Notifications are displayed as a bell near your Profile icon and contain the internal notifications received by your Control Panel. These notifications are configured at Control Panel > Admin > Notifications. The notification count includes only unread notifications. You can configure the amount of unread notifications at Control Panel > Admin > Notifications > Configuration. Each of the notifications is displayed with the following details:

  • Topic - the event about which the notification is sent
  • Message - the message of the notification. The message of an unread notification is displayed in bold. Click the message to view its full text. The notification will include the text generated by the alert and the text from the notification template.
  • Date - the time when the notification was delivered

For information on how to delete notifications for a particular period of time refer to Manage Notifications.