Creating Alerts

Security Requirements and Controls

Change triggers and actions permission

Alerts are constructed using queries and associated with one or more actions that will be triggered when then query runs. When creating an alert, the type of alert must be selected and this will adjust which configuration operations are available, which is summarized in this table:

Configuration	Standard Alert	Filter Alert
General Parameters	Standard alert option in General	Filter Alert option in General
Query	Yes, supporting aggregates and joins	Yes, aggregates and joins are not supported
Actions	Yes	Yes
Throttling	Supported, see Setting Alert Throttle Period	Supported, see Setting Alert Throttle Period
Action Retries	Yes, for a single action; when multiple actions are configured, no retry is performed if at least one action is successfully invoked.	Yes, for a single action; when multiple actions are configured, no retry is performed if at least one action is successfully invoked.

To create a new alert:

Go to the Repositories and Views page.
Select a Repository or View.
Click the Automation tab on the top bar of the User Interface and select Alerts from the menu on the left: the full list of available alerts appears. They can have labels attached to them which are displayed next to the alert name. This can be a useful way to tag the alerts with meaningful data and to help when trying to locate them with a certain tag.
Figure 179. Creating Alert from Tab
Click + New Alert
The New alert form is displayed, click Import from on the top right if you wish to import the alert from:
- Template, browse for or drag and drop a template based on an existing alert
- Package, invoke alert templates that are part of a LogScale package
Fill in the form with the information required.
Figure 180. Creating an Alert
- General
  - Select the Alert type:
    A Standard alert is triggered by the results of a query and supports aggregate query results
    A Filter alert is triggered by a single event.
    For more information on the differences between alert types, see Alerts
  - You may change the Name and enter a Description that can be used to describe more specifically what causes the alert to be triggered.
  - You can categorize alerts using Labels. Existing labels are presented as a list of checkboxes, or you can enter a new label and create and select it. These can be used within the UI to filter alerts. See Managing Alerts for more information.
  - New alerts are automatically enabled. To change this, click the Alert enabled checkbox. Disabled alerts do not execute the corresponding query or trigger actions.
  - You can use the Run on behalf of field to run the alert on behalf of another user i.e. using their permissions; click this field to get a list of available names to pick from, or directly enter the name of the user you want to run the alert as. You can see and edit this field if you have ChangeTriggersToRunAsOtherUsers, ManageOrganizations, or root system permissions.
- Query — Type the query that generates the alert and specify the desired time window. The minimum time window allowed for the query is 1 minute and the minimum allowed unit to express it is seconds.
  In the example query shown in Creating an Alert we're searching for events in which the web server recorded a log level equal to ERROR.
- Actions — you may want to add an action for LogScale to take when the alert is triggered, if you have one that's suitable for this alert.
  See Actions for more information.
  An alert will not be executed until there is at least one configured action.
  To delete an existing action, click the - next to each action.
- Throttling — enables how often an alert is triggered to be set. For more information on configuring throttling, see Setting Alert Throttle Period.
When you're done setting the properties for the new alert, click Create alert.
Note
Once the alert is saved, the query window is automatically changed to the largest unit in the Relative Time Syntax that can represent it. For example 24h is changed to 1d and 60s is changed to 1m.

Creating an Alert from a Query

You can convert a query you've just typed to a new alert:

Go to the Search tab on the top bar of the User Interface.
Type the query you need for your alert.
In the example query shown in Figure 181, “Creating Alert from Query” we're counting events in which the web server recorded a given number of warnings in the warningCode field.
Notice that the time period for the query is set to a live, continuous data range — not static data. You don't need a query to alert you to something that already happened when you created the alert. You generally need to be alerted about events that happen afterwards.
Figure 181. Creating Alert from Query
Click Save near the top right and choose the Alert option.
Provide the information required in the Save as alert page. The alert type will be automatically determined based on a query detection — if the query contains an aggregate query function such as count(), the Standard Alert type is automatically selected, with a message explaining why:
Figure 182. Automatic alert type selection

If instead a filter query is typed in the Query Editor, the Filter Alert type is selected, with a message that describes why it is recommended.
When you've finished setting the properties for the new alert, click Save Alert.