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# 5 Receiving problem notification

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#### Overview

In this section you will learn how to set up alerting in the form of notifications in Zabbix.

With items collecting data and triggers designed to "fire" upon problem situations, it would also be useful to have some alerting mechanism in place to notify about important events even when Zabbix frontend is not being actively checked.

This is what notifications do.
Email being the most popular delivery method for problem notifications, we will learn how to set up an email notification.

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#### Email settings

Initially there are several predefined notification [delivery methods](/manual/config/notifications/media) in Zabbix.
[Email](/manual/config/notifications/media/email) is one of those.

To configure email settings, go to *Alerts > Media types* and click *Email* in the list of pre-defined media types.

![](../../../../../assets/en/manual/quickstart/media_types.png)

An email settings configuration form is opened.

![](../../../../../assets/en/manual/quickstart/media_type_email.png){width="600"}

All mandatory input fields are marked with a red asterisk.

In the *Media type* tab, set the values of *SMTP server*, *SMTP helo*, and *Email* to the appropriate for your environment.

::: noteclassic
The value in the *Email* field will be used as the 'From' address for the notifications sent from Zabbix.
:::

Next, it is required to define the content of the problem message.
The content is defined by means of a message template, configured in the *Message templates* tab.

Click *Add* to create a message template, and select *Problem* as the message type.

![](../../../../../assets/en/manual/quickstart/media_type_email2.png)

Click *Add* when ready and save the form.

Now you have configured *Email* as a working media type.
The media type must also be linked to users by defining specific delivery addresses (like we did when [configuring a new user](login#adding-user)), otherwise it will not be used.

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#### New action

Delivering notifications is one of the things [actions](/manual/config/notifications/action) do in Zabbix.
Therefore, to set up a notification, go to *Alerts > Actions > Trigger actions* and click
*Create action*.

![](../../../../../assets/en/manual/quickstart/new_action.png)

All mandatory input fields are marked with a red asterisk.

In this form, enter a name for the action.

In the most simple case, if we do not add any more specific [conditions](/manual/config/notifications/action/conditions), the action will be taken upon any trigger change from 'Ok' to 'Problem'.

We still should define what the action should do - and that is done in the *Operations* tab.
Click *Add* in the *Operations* block, which opens a new operation form.

![](../../../../../assets/en/manual/quickstart/new_operation.png)

All mandatory input fields are marked with a red asterisk.

Here, click *Select* in the *Send to Users* block and select the user ('user') we have defined. 
Select "Email" as the value of *Send to media type*.
When done with this, click *Add*, and the operation should be added:

![](../../../../../assets/en/manual/quickstart/operation_list.png){width="600"}

That is all for a simple action configuration, so click *Add* in the action form.

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#### Receiving notification

Now, with delivering notifications configured, it would be fun to actually receive one.
To help with that, we might on purpose increase the load on our host - so that our [trigger](trigger#adding-trigger) "fires" and we receive a problem notification.

Open the console on your host and run:

    cat /dev/urandom | md5sum

You may run one or several of [these processes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Md5sum).

Now go to *Monitoring > Latest data* and see how the values of 'CPU Load' have increased.Remember, for our trigger to "fire", the 'CPU Load' value has to go over '2' for 3 minutes running.
Once it does:

-   in *Monitoring > Problems* you should see the trigger with a flashing **`Problem`** state;
-   you should receive a problem notification in your email.

::: noteimportant
If notifications do not work:

-   verify once again that both the email settings and the action have been configured properly
-   make sure the user you created has at least read permissions on the host which generated the event, as noted in the *[Adding user](login#adding-user)* step. The user, being part of the 'Zabbix administrators' user group must have at least read access to 'Linux servers' host group that our host belongs to.
-   Additionally, you can check out the action log by going to *Reports > Action log*.
:::

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