Generate InfluxQL query from TICK script, which we can run on influxdb to test if alert is configured properly

1

We were exploring the Kapacitor for alerting. We have decided to do put all the alert in version control and have a CI which will configure the alert on the Kapacitor.

We are facing the following challenges:

  1. How to test these alert locally, so that I will be sure that my alert would work?
  2. Is there any way, we can generate InfluxQL query from tick script?
  3. Is there any we can send test notification from tick script.?
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  1. If u r following the official tutorial, they use telegraf to collect the cpu usuage and log them into influx database. When ever an alert happens it will log it into influxdb. U can query influxdb about number of alerts. If u r not using any of the TICK stack, may be one way of testing it is just by creating a simple POST alert in kapacitor.
    Example:
    I created a simple node js server on my local machine that listen to a port and print the post requests on the terminal. And in TICK script u can add some thing like this.
|alert()
    .crit(lambda: "value" > crit)
    .message(message)
    .id(idVar)
    .idTag(idTag)
    .levelTag(levelTag)
    .messageField(messageField)
    .durationField(durationField)
    .post('http://192.168.0.1:3123')
    .header('content-type', 'application/json')

In this case, I am sending a post to 192.168.0.1(or localhost/127.0.0.1) on port 3123 and don’t forget to allow the port to listen for http request. I highly recommend chronograf user interface if u r a beginner, it will make life easy.

  1. Yes you can create queries. Check these example codes

  2. I don’t understand what’s test notification is !! but in general u can send notifications. There is plenty of documentation out there.