Checkmk x Telegram: notifications, status, fun

When Checkmk sends notifications, you usually want to receive them immediately - and today, of course, that means on your smartphone or smartwatch. And what's going on there? Messenger. And not infrequently Telegram. With the great open source program Check_MK Telegram Plus you can not only receive notifications, but also call up status and graphs.

A few years ago we showed how to Receive Checkmk notifications manually in Telegram can. But today it is much more convenient, faster, more detailed and more fun. Check_MK Telegram Plus is permanently set up, Checkmk has a suitable notifications rule and Telegram has a chic menu to query the status of hosts and services, for example.

The procedure at a glance:

• Get API key from Telegram's BotFather
• Install Check_MK Telegram Plus
• Activate and test Telegram bot
• Create Checkmk rule
• Send test notification

create bot

First you need one api key, which you have your own in the Telegram world Bot gets, which you turn with the Bot Father created.

So search for the BotFather in Telegram and create it via its menu or / newbot create a new bot and click through the wizard.

You will immediately receive an API key and a link to your bot. Copy the key and switch directly to the new bot.

Install Checkmk Telegram Plus

Now install Check_MK Telegram Plus – download it first:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/deexno/checkmk-telegram-plus/main/install.sh

Then you run the script with three parameters:

sudo bash install.sh <site-name> <API-Key> <passwort>
also zum Beispiel:
sudo bash install.sh mysite 123ABC123ABC meinpasswort

You can freely choose your password here. This is used to authenticate the bot later.

start bot

Now switch back to your bot in Telegram and start it via the menu or /begin.

Now follows the authentication via the menu or /authenticate. After that the bot is ready.

You can now test directly and call up various statuses:

Set up notifications

First activate the notifications for the bot itself, via the menu item NOTIFICATION SETTINGS. You can choose between Silent and Loud here, with the latter there are only silent notifications.

Now create a rule in Checkmk in the area Notifications with the "Notification Method" telegramplus. Under Call with the following parameters then you give notifications_loud or notifications_silent on - analogous to the configuration in the bot.

You can then send a manual notification for testing: For example, switch to the host overview and select from the menu Commands the point custom notification, activated forced. forced and shipped.

If everything works, you should now get the corresponding notifications in Telegram.

More to Telegram and Check mk.