Nagios Paging Using Twilio

I use Nagios to monitor the health of a few servers, and would like to be paged if something goes wrong.

When I set it up a couple of years ago, I used SMS Gateway which was $10 for 100 SMSes. I was able to page with a simple curl command. However I’d get the odd page that wouldn’t go through, and despite being very responsive, the support wasn’t very reassuring.

Now that I’ve depleted my 100 pages, I figured I’d move over to Twilio because they’re pretty slick, and the reliability has to be better.

Some Nagios code, first:

define contactgroup{
        contactgroup_name       important
        alias                   Sean Buzz
        members                 sean, page
}
define contact{
        contact_name                    page
        alias                           page
        service_notification_commands   notify-by-page
        host_notification_commands      host-notify-by-page
        service_notification_period 24x7
        host_notification_period 24x7
        service_notification_options w,u,c,r
        host_notification_options d,u,r
        pager                           nobody@localhost
}
define service{
        use                             local-service         ; Name of service template to use
        host_name                       localhost
        service_description             smallpayroll.ca
        contact_groups                  important
        check_command                   check_http_string!smallpayroll.ca!Easy to use
        }

The first stanza creates a contact group called “important” that emails sean, and pages. The second stanza implements the “host-notify-by-page” and “notify-by-page” which do the actual paging. The final stanza is an example of a service that would get paged on. If the check_http_string check fails, the “important” contact group is notified.

The code to page is as follows:

define command {
        command_name    notify-by-page
        command_line    curl --data-urlencode "From=YOURTWILIONUMBER" --data-urlencode "To=YOURCELL" --data-urlencode "Body=[Nagios] $NOTIFICATIONTYPE$ $HOSTALIAS$/$SERVICEDESC$ is $SERVICESTATE$" https://SID:TOKEN@api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/SID/SMS/Messages >> /tmp/sms
}
define command {
        command_name    host-notify-by-page
        command_line    curl --data-urlencode "From=YOURTWILIONUMBER" --data-urlencode "To=YOURCELL" --data-urlencode "Body=[Nagios] $HOSTSTATE$ alert for $HOSTNAME$" https://SID:TOKEN@api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/SID/SMS/Messages >> /tmp/sms
}

To get the SID and TOKEN (note there are two instances of the SID, the second is in the URL right after accounts) go to your dashboard and look at the top:

To get a number click on Numbers then Buy a Number:

Then search for a number. It should be in the USA, as it looks like Canadian numbers don’t support SMS. You can verify this by clicking on “Buy”:

Buy the number for $1/month. You don’t have to set up any URLs with it if you’re doing outbound only.

YOURCELL should be obvious :) It could also be templated within Nagios.

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