Specifications

Basic System Administration
314 VMware, Inc.
Understanding Alarms
Alarmssendnotificationmessageswhenselectedeventsoccurtooronhostsorvirtual
machines.Alarmsindicatethestatuslevelsofanobjectorcollectionofobjectsinthe
hierarchy.Alarmscanbedefinedatallhierarchicallevels,includingfolders,
datacenters,clusters,resourcepools,hosts,andvirtualmachines.
Alarmsareinherited
fromparentlevelsandcannotbechangedoroverriddenatachild
level.Whenyouaddnewalarmstoanyobjectyoucontributetothecollectionofalarms
thatareinforceatanyofitschildlevels.
Whenanalarmiscreated,VirtualCenterverifiestheuserpermissionstoperform
the
actionsontherelevantdatacenters,hosts,andvirtualmachines.Afterthealarmis
created,thealarmisperformedevenifthecreatingusernolongerhaspermissionto
createthealarm.
Alarmsareappliedtoeitherhostsorvirtualmachines.Eachalarmhasatriggering
eventandanotificationmethod.
There
aretwokindsofalarmtriggers:
 Percentage—Monitorshostprocessor(orCPU)usage,hostmemoryusage,
virtualmachineprocessor(orCPU)usage,virtualmachinememory,andvirtual
machineheartbeat.
ThetriggeringoptionsareIsAbove(percent)andIsBelow(percent).Thedefault
monitorforvirtualmachineheartbeatissettoIsBelow.Thedefaultmonitorfor
all
otherpercentageoptionsissettoIsAbove.
 State—Monitorhoststateandvirtualmachinestate.
Thetriggeringoptionsare:Is(state)andIsNot(state).
Thereareseveraltypesofalarmnotificationmethods:
 Sendanotificationemailmessage
SMTPsendsanemailmessage.TheSMTPmustbereadywhentheemailmessage
issent.TherearetwowaystosetSMTP:throughVirtualCenterorthrough
MicrosoftOutlookExpress.TheVirtualCentersetupisnotalwaysneededifthe
SMTPsettinginOutlookExpressiscorrect.

TheVirtualCenterServergeneratesthesubjectandbodytextoftheemailmessage.
OnlytheTolist(receiver)isrequiredfromuserinput.Specifytheemailmessage
addresswherethemessageshouldbesent.Separatethenamesofmultiple
recipientswithcommasorsemicolons.