Create and Manage Alerts

Overview

You can use this document to learn how to:

• Create and update alerts
• Review and understand alert rules

To complement an existing monitor, you can create an alert rule that will notify you when your website meets specific and configurable conditions. 

(Before you can create an alert, you must already have a monitor. To learn how to create a monitor, see Create and Manage Monitors.)

Create an alert for an existing monitor

An alert triggers when certain conditions are met for a monitored resource. 

By default, two alerts are automatically created for every monitor. If your site enters a down state or the site sends a response a code that is not 200 from 3 or more locations, then the alert triggers and sends an email. 

1. In the StackPath Control Portal, in the left-side navigation menu, click Monitoring. 
2. Locate and select the desired monitor. 
3. In the left-side navigation menu, click Alerting. 
4. Click Create Alert. 
5. For Metric, select how to display the error's value in the portal.
   • To display a response code, click Status Code. 
   • To display a phrase (Up, Down, Slow) select Status. 
6. For Condition, select the condition or situation that will trigger the alert. 
7. For Value, enter how to display the alert's value in the portal. 
   • If you selected Status Code, then in Value, enter a numerical value between 200 and 600.
   • If you selected Status, then in Value, select Up, Down, or Slow. 

     Status	Description
     Up	A monitor is Up when StackPath receives any response, which can include error status codes, such as a 5xx error message.
     Down	A monitor is Down when StackPath cannot connect to the monitored resource, the URL/IP address resolves, or if there is another error. Errors include name server lookup failures, timeouts, or SSL certificate errors.  A connection is attempted again to verify the state. Timeouts are capped at 20 seconds, regardless of what has been configured in the portal. A Down status will not be recorded for error pages or HTTP status codes. For example, a 500 internal server error is considered Up because the monitor received a response from the monitored resource.
     Slow	A monitor is Slow when any response time is greater than 500 milliseconds.

8. For Minimum Locations, enter the number of locations that must meet the condition in order to trigger the alert. 
   • You can enter 1; however, StackPath recommends that you enter at least 3 to reduce false positives, such as an issue with an individual location node and not your site. 
9. For Trigger Delay, enter a time in minutes to indicate when to send the notifications after the alert's condition has been met.  
10. (Optional) If you want to continually receive alerts until the issue is resolved, slide Trigger Until Fixed to On, and then enter a time in minutes on how often you want to receive the alerts. 
    • To receive only one alert, then slide Trigger Until Fixed to Off. 
11. Click Save Alert. 

View and understand existing alerts

By default, StackPath creates two alerts for every monitor. If you site enters a down state or Stackpath receives a non-200 response code from 3 or more locations, then the alerts will trigger. As an option, you can update these default alerts.

1. In the StackPath Control Portal, in the left-side navigation menu, click Monitoring. 
2. Locate and select the desired monitor. 
3. In the left-side navigation menu, click Alerting. 
4. Review the table of alerts: 

   Column	Description
   Metric	This column displays if the alert uses a response code (Code) or phrase (Status) to display the status.
   Condition	This column displays the condition that will cause the alert to trigger.
   Value	This column displays the response code (200, 400, etc.) or the response message (Up, Down, Slow.)
   Locations	This column displays the number of locations where the alert is enabled.  To add or remove a location, see Add or remove locations for an existing monitor.
   Actions	This column displays how and when you will be notified of the triggered alert. For example:  Wait 2m indicates that you will receive a notification 2 minutes after the condition has been met.  Notify user via email indicates that you will be notified via email about the triggered alert.  Stop indicates that you will only receive one notification for the triggered alert. (As an option, you can configure alerts to send regular notifications until the issue has been resolved. In this case, this column will display Repeat every #m.)
   Status	This column displays if the alert is on or off.

Enable or disable an existing rule

1. In the StackPath Control Portal, in the left-side navigation menu, click Monitoring. 
2. Locate and select the desired monitor. 
3. In the left-side navigation menu, click Alerting. 
4. Locate the desired alert, and then under Status, slide to on or off.