It’s still ZCM month here at yourLinuxGuy.com / yourZpmGuy.com …! And here’s a bonus third post for the month…
When the 10.2.1 patch came down a couple weeks ago at the end of the work day, I launched the deployment for my first stage (my ZCM servers) and headed home for dinner. Sure, the patch turned out later to have fixed some problems of mine, and that was cool on its own. But you what was cooler? While I was sitting at dinner, I got the email letting me know the “Server” stage was complete, the servers were rebooted, and it was waiting for administrator approval to continue to the next stage. It just put a dopey grin on my face.
How do you configure these awesome, helpful notifications, you ask?
Step 1: Like most configuration in ZCM, go to the ZCC -> “Configuration” page. There, click the “Event and Messaging” item to reveal the two main settings, “Centralized Message Logging” for the “E-mail Notification” settings, and “SMTP Settings” for the actual relay address (and optional credentials, if needed). Just configure those main two things for the email part, or modify some other good stuff there like UDP messaging or SNMP stuff if you want while you’re in there. Of course, it should go without saying that your mail server should either (1.) allow relay from your ZCM server(s) to the final destination (by credential or not), or (2.) be the final destination of the email.
Step 2: Make sure that when you build your staged updates deployment structure, you choose the option to “Advance To Next Stage Manually and Notify When Complete”. The “Manual” part means that it will not just blast through your whole staged structure without you logging in between each stage and clicking “Start Pending Stage” under the “Deploying System Updates” section. This is a very good thing! The “Notify” means it will email you, which is what we wanted all along.
The afore-mentioned resulting email looks a bit like this:
Subject:ZENworks System Update stage has completed
Update Update for ZCM (10.2.1) has completed stage Servers and the next stage is waiting for administrator action.
Hope that helps! It sure makes my life easier when it’s update time…
🙂