Modifying an alarm definition

You can modify the severity of an alarm and whether the alarm should be alertable (see Alertable alarms), and you can specify an AIX command to be executed when the alarm occurs.

To modify an alarm definition, you need to:

Add your modifications to the $SYS_DIR/dtalarmd.update file.
Use the DTalarm command with either the -u or -v flag.
The -u flag verifies the syntax (although it does not check that all message identifiers are valid) and applies the changes immediately.

The -v flag verifies the syntax of the file (although it does not check that all message identifiers are valid). It does not apply the changes: they are applied by the dtalarmd daemon when it starts.

Syntax of lines in the dtalarmd.update file

The file consists of a number of lines. Each line contains the alarm_id keyword and the message identifier followed by optional keywords to define the required update. The keyword can be separated from its value either by a blank or by an equals sign (=). Blank lines are allowed, and comment lines beginning with '#'.

alarm_id nnnnn: Specifies the message identifier.
severity [red|yellow|green|white]: Specifies the severity.
alert [true|false]: Specifies whether the alarm should be alertable.
filter_sev [red|yellow|green|white]: Specifies the severity to which the alarm should be changed when the number of times it has occurred passes the filter threshold (for more information about message filtering, see the Problem Determination information).
filter_alert [true|false]: Specifies whether the alarm should be made alertable when the number of times it has occurred passes the filter threshold (for more information about message filtering, see the Problem Determination information).
command command: Specifies any command that can be executed from the korn shell.

Example of a line in the dtalarmd.update file

The following line sets the severity of alarm 1 to red, makes it alertable, and stops AIX tracing five seconds after the alarm is logged:

alarm_id 1 severity red alert true command sleep 5;trcstop -1

There is a sample file: $SYS_DIR/dtalarmd.sample.