Dell OpenManage Server Administrator Version 7.3 User's Guide

When you set alert actions for an event, you can specify the action to display an alert on the server. To perform this action, Server Administrator sends a message to /dev/console. If the Server Administrator system is running an X Window System, the messsage is not displayed. To see the alert message on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux system when the X Window System is running, you must start xconsole or xterm -C before the event occurs. To see the alert message on a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server system when the X Window System is running, you must start a terminal such as xterm -C before the event occurs.

When you set Alert Actions for an event, you can specify the action to Broadcast a message. To perform this action, Server Administrator executes the wall command, which sends the message to everybody logged in with their message permission set to Yes. If the Server Administrator system is running an X Window System, the message is not displayed by default. To see the broadcast message when the X Window System is running, you must start a terminal such as xterm or gnome-terminal before the event occurs.

When you set Alert Actions for an event, you can specify the action to Execute application. There are limitations on the applications that Server Administrator can execute. To ensure proper execution:

• Do not specify X Window System based applications because Server Administrator cannot execute such applications properly.
• Do not specify applications that require input from the user because Server Administrator cannot execute such applications properly.
• Redirect stdout and stderr to a file when specifying the application so that you can see any output or error messages.
• If you want to execute multiple applications (or commands) for an alert, create a script to do that and insert the full path to the script in the Absolute path to the application box.