opEvents priority levels vs. NMIS and Syslog levels

opEvents uses its own set of numeric priorities for events, ranging from 0 to 10. This priority value is saved in the priority event property.

As events generally originate from external sources with their own priority concepts, a bit of translation is required. The following table describes the mappings between event priorities in opEvents and related services: how syslog and email messages sent by opEvents are marked, and how events sourced from NMIS are classified.

 

opEvents PrioritySyslogNMIS LevelEmail Priority
0debug (7)n/alow
1info (6)n/alog
2notice (5)Normallow
3warning (4)

Warning

normal
4n/a n/anormal
5err (3)

Minor

normal
6crit (2)Majorhigh
7alert (1)Criticalhigh
8emerg (0)Fatalhigh
9emerg (0)n/ahigh
10emerg (0)n/ahigh

opEvents' standard parser rules will only generate event priority numbers in the range of 0 to 10 (inclusive), but it's generally ok to use numbers above 10. From version 2.0.8 onwards opEvents replaces negative priority numbers by priority 0.

From version 2.2 onwards, opEvents also (re)sets the level event property on event creation (computed from the priority and substituting the nearest available level name for untranslatable priorities, e.g. 4). Please note that this is purely for display purposes; opEvents bases any decisions exclusively on the priority value.