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Use the custom notification method built into the Netdata Agent (custom_sender()) to send alerts from Netdata health checks to Flashduty On-call. Each alert on one chart of one host maps to one Flashduty alert: an escalation from WARNING to CRITICAL merges into it, and the CLEAR notification from Netdata recovers it. This integration works with the open-source Netdata Agent, including Docker deployments and Parent/Child streaming setups. It needs neither a Netdata Cloud account nor a paid plan.

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In Flashduty On-call

You can obtain an integration push URL in either of the following ways.

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Use a dedicated integration

Choose this method when you do not need to route alerts to different channels.
  1. In the Flashduty console, select Channel and open a channel
  2. Select Configuration → Integrations → Private integration, then click Add an integration
  3. Select Netdata, then click Save
  4. Open the generated integration card and copy the Push URL

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Use a shared integration

Choose this method when you need to route alerts to different channels based on the payload.
  1. In the Flashduty console, select Integration Center → Alert Events
  2. Select Netdata and enter an integration name
  3. Configure the default route and select a channel; after creation, add more rules under Route if needed
  4. Click Save and copy the generated Push URL

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Prerequisites

  • Network: the host running the Netdata Agent must be able to reach the Flashduty push URL (for example https://api.flashcat.cloud).
  • curl: the notification script sends requests with curl. The official Netdata packages and Docker image already include it.
  • Permissions: you need to be able to edit files in the Netdata configuration directory (usually /etc/netdata).

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In Netdata

1

Open the notification configuration file

Go to the Netdata configuration directory and open health_alarm_notify.conf with edit-config:
For a Docker deployment, enter the container first and run the same commands:
edit-config copies the default configuration into /etc/netdata before opening it. For a Docker deployment, make sure /etc/netdata is on a persistent volume, otherwise the configuration is lost when the container is recreated.
2

Add the Flashduty notification

Append the template below to the end of the file, replace FLASHDUTY_PUSH_URL with the full push URL of your Flashduty integration (including the integration_key parameter), and save the file.
  • Appending to the end of the file overrides the custom_sender() function and variables of the same name in the default configuration.
  • DEFAULT_RECIPIENT_CUSTOM routes alerts for every role (sysadmin, webmaster, dba, and so on) to this notification. The value is not sent to Flashduty; any non-empty string works.
  • Each field is encoded separately with --data-urlencode, so quotes, spaces, and non-ASCII text in alert descriptions do not break the request.
Netdata reads this file again for every notification, so you do not need to restart Netdata after saving.
3

Send a test notification

Run the test command that ships with Netdata as the netdata user:
For a Docker deployment:
For a static installation (/opt/netdata), the script is at /opt/netdata/usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/alarm-notify.sh.The test command sends WARNING, CRITICAL, and CLEAR notifications in turn. When each prints # OK, the push URL and integration key are correct. Flashduty recognizes these as test notifications (alert test_alarm on chart test.chart) and only returns success without creating an alert.

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Alert Key

Flashduty builds the Alert Key from the host, chart, and alarm fields.
  • host is the host name that raised the alert. When a Parent node evaluates alerts for a Child node, host is the Child’s host name.
  • chart is the chart instance of the alert, for example disk_space./ or disk_space./data. When one alert template applies to several mount points, network interfaces, or containers, each chart produces its own alert.
  • alarm is the alert name, that is, the alarm or template value in the health.d configuration.
Changes to the alert status, value, description, or duration do not change the Alert Key. The Alert Key also stays the same when the alert fires again after Netdata restarts. The alarm_id in Netdata notifications is unique only within one Agent (the test command, for example, sends alarm_id 1 on every Agent), so Flashduty does not use it.

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Status and severity

Netdata sends notifications only for the WARNING, CRITICAL, and CLEAR states. When an alert rises from WARNING to CRITICAL, Flashduty opens a new Critical alert and keeps the Warning alert open. When it drops from CRITICAL to WARNING, the event merges into the existing Critical alert. The CLEAR notification closes both. Netdata sends CLEAR only when an alert changes from WARNING or CRITICAL to CLEAR.

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Labels

The alert title is <host>: <summary>. Older Netdata versions that do not send summary use the alert name instead.

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FAQ

No. The Netdata Cloud webhook notification requires a Space on a paid plan, and its alert notifications carry no node (host) field, so alerts with the same name and chart on different hosts cannot be told apart. Flashduty rejects such requests with missing host. Configure the custom notification on this page on each Agent (or on the Parent node) instead.
The same alert sent by the Parent and the Child has the same host, chart, and alarm, so it merges into one Flashduty alert rather than creating two. To reduce the number of notifications, enable alert notifications on the Parent only.
  • HTTP error code 000: the host cannot connect to Flashduty. Check DNS, proxy, and firewall settings
  • HTTP error code 4xx: check that FLASHDUTY_PUSH_URL is complete, the integration_key is correct, and the host, chart, alarm, and status fields in the template are unchanged
  • custom_sender() is not configured: the template was not appended to the end of the file, or the file is not /etc/netdata/health_alarm_notify.conf
Set NETDATA_ALARM_NOTIFY_DEBUG=1 before the test command to see the full curl command and the response from Flashduty.
Make sure the template keeps status=${status} and old_status=${old_status}, and that the host, chart, and alarm fields are unchanged. If an alert’s role is set to silent in the Netdata alert configuration, none of its notifications, including CLEAR, are sent.After netdatacli reload-health or a Netdata restart, alerts are evaluated again from UNINITIALIZED. If the alert condition no longer holds at that point, Netdata moves straight to CLEAR without sending a notification, and you need to close the matching Flashduty alert by hand. Keep this in mind when you change the threshold of an active alert.
For more on these fields, see the Netdata documentation on Agent notifications and Custom notifications.