Acknowledging Device Problems

Use the Acknowledge command, available from the Monitor Menu, to acknowledge failures or problems in the network. When you acknowledge a problem, the InterMapper program does the following:

Why are Acknowledgements useful?

Acknowledgments allow the network administrator to see the state of the network, as well as the responses that have been made to the current set of problems.

Use Acknowledgements to:

Acknowledging a problem

To acknowledge a problem with a device:

  1. Click the device(s) you want to acknowledge.
  2. From the Monitor menu, choose Acknowledge... (Cmd-' or Ctrl-'). The Acknowledge window appears.
    Note: The window does not appear for interfaces, and only Basic acknowledgements are available.
  3. If you want keep the device in Acknowledgement mode for a specific period of time, or for an indefinite period, choose Indefinite or Timed... in the Ack column.
  4. If you want to suppress notifications for devices that depend on this device, click to select the Block notifications for dependent devices check box.
  5. Enter a comment, then click Acknowledge. The selected device's icon changes to blue, and your comment is written to the Event Log file. Notifications are cancelled for the selected device for the duration of this outage.

Basic, Timed and Indefinite Acknowledgements

InterMapper offers three kinds of acknowledgements for devices:

Basic

The device is acknowledged, and notifications are suppressed until it gets better or worse. The icon turns blue to indicate that someone has taken responsibility for it, and that no further notifications will be sent.

As soon as the device's state changes to any other status, its acknowledge status is automatically cleared, and notifications resume. From then on, notifications are sent for any subsequent failures.

Note: The Acknowledge window does not appear for interfaces, and only Basic acknowledgements are available.


Down, with Basic Acknowledgement



Timed

The device is acknowledged, and notifications suppressed for the specified period of time. The icon turns blue (if it's not okay), and the wrench badge appears to show that notifications will be blocked for the specified time. In this case, the state of the device is OK.


Up, with Timed Acknowledgement
Indefinite

The device remains acknowledged until the operator unacknowledges it.

As with the Timed acknowledgement, the icon turns blue and the wrench badge appears to remind the operator that notifications are suppressed. In this case, the device is DOWN.

Down, with Indefinite Acknowledgment

Notes:

Acknowledgements and Dependencies

When you acknowledge a device, use the Block notifications for dependent devices check box to specify whether the acknowledged device should be considered in finding dependencies. Checking the box suppresses notifications for any device "on the other side" of the device being acknowledged.

To suppress notifications for all devices that are dependent on the selected device:

For more information on dependencies and dependent devices, see Using Notification Dependencies.

Unacknowledging a Device

Use the Unacknowledge command to restore the device to its current notification state.

To remove the acknowledgement for a device:

  1. Click to select the device, or choose multiple devices.
  2. From the Monitor menu, choose Un-Acknowledge. The selected devices are returned to their current notification states, and their notifications are no longer suppressed.