6.4

Reference Guide
68 VMware, Inc.
Red, Yellow, or Green alert triggers email to the same or different recipients. The process to add recipients is
the same for all trigger levels.
1Click the On Red Alert, On Yellow Alert, or On Green Alert tab and select Send mail.
2 Select the frequency for the email to be sent.
3Click Add and type a fully qualified email address for each recipient for the respective trigger level alert.
4 To delete a recipient, select the recipient’s email address in the Mail Recipients pane and click Remove.
Use the preconfigured subject and content of the alert emails for Red, Yellow, or Green alerts. You can add
content as required. VMware recommends leaving the preconfigured subject and content and if necessary, add
additional information.
Another method to send an alert notification is:
1 Select Run Command under the pertinent alert state.
2 Browse to the script to run or use a command line argument to run on the alert trigger.
The preconfigured WScript command creates an event in the Application Event Log and can be
customized to include vCenter Server Heartbeat specific informational variables as detailed in Table 9-1.
The following command line argument creates an event in the Application Event Log listing the machine
that caused the alert, the time the alert occurred, the name, and details of the alert:
WScript //T:10 $(installdir)\bin\alert.vbs "VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat alert on
$EventHost at $EventTime because $EventName ($EventDetail). Event Id is $EventId"
3Click OK.
Test Alert Reporting
Click Test Alert Reporting to run a test alert email. This way you can avoid triggering an actual alert during
the operation of the active server.
Configure Event Log Files
vCenter Server Heartbeat allows you to configure Event Log files to direct where the log file is stored and the
number of events to be recorded.
To configure default settings for log files
1Click Logs: Configure and select the General tab to define the filename and path of the exported
comma-separated variable (CSV) file.
2 Type a path and filename or use Browse and navigate the file.
3 Adjust the length of the event list to meet your needs by increasing or decreasing the value (the default is
to record 300 events) in the Record at most field.
4Click OK.
Configure Log File Email Recipients
Use vCenter Server Heartbeat to email the log to specified personnel at predetermined intervals.
Table 9-1. Script Variables
Variable Value
$EventId Id of event as listed above
$EventName Human-readable name of event
$EventDetail Detail message for event
$EventTime Time at which event occurred