1 Title: Recurring Scheduled Downtimes - adhoc via command and also via rule set
9 Check_MK now supports <i>recurring scheduled downtimes</i> (or simply
10 <i>recurring downtimes</i>). Let's assume that you have a couple of servers
11 that are rebooted once a week always at the same time. You surely do not
12 want any notifications about that, you also do not want to have these hosts
13 displayed as "problems" in the problem views.
15 Up to now the only useful tool in such situations was the notification
16 period. But that way you can just suppress notifications - not the problem
17 display. Also setting up notification periods requires configuration
20 The new recurring downtimes create normal scheduled downtimes for you on
21 a regular base. This is a direct enhancement of the downtimes that already
22 exist. They now have a new field where you can specify an interval in which
23 the downtime should be repeated. Everything is then handled by the monitoring
24 core (CMC) and no external cron job is involved. This has a few advantages:
26 LI:No cron job is needed
27 LI:The recurring downtimes are visible in the <i>Downtimes</i> view - even if they are currently not active
28 LI:Recurring downtimes can be set and removed by using the existing downtime commands
30 You can create recurring downtimes in two ways:
34 The easiest way is to just use the same commands as for creating one-time
35 downtimes. The command box now has a new option <i>Repeat this downtime
36 on a regular base every ____</i>. You can choose between <i>hourly</i>,
37 <i>daily</i> and <i>weekly</i>. If you e.g. create a downtime for 12:34 on
38 Monday and select <i>weekly</i> then this downtime will be repeated on every
39 Monday from now on. Changes in the daylight saving time are compensated,
40 so the time of day (12:34) will be valid in and out of DST.
42 Such downtimes behave exactly like one-time downtimes - with the single
43 difference that they are not being deleted when they end but shifted to the
44 next interval instead.
49 There is a second way to create recurring downtimes: two new WATO rule sets
50 called <i>Recurring downtimes for hosts</i> and <i>Recurring downtimes for
51 services</i>. Using these you can base the downtimes on WATO folders and host
52 tags. While this could also by done by selecting host and services via the GUI
53 and applying commands - it still has one advantage: You can specify downtimes
54 for objects that <i>still do not exist</i>. If you create a recurring downtime
55 for all servers with the tag <i>Windows</i> then also Windows hosts that
56 will be added at a later time will automatically get that recurring downtime.
58 Recurring downtimes that have been created via a rule can not be deleted by
59 the operator via a command, of course. All downtime views have a new column
60 <i>Origin</i> that shows you wether a downtime exists due to a <i>command</i>
61 or due to <i>configuration</i>.