<!--
title: "Custom"
custom_edit_url: https://github.com/netdata/netdata/edit/master/health/notifications/custom/README.md
-->

# Custom

Netdata allows you to send custom notifications to any endpoint you choose.

To configure custom notifications, you will need to customize `health_alarm_notify.conf`. Open the file for editing
using [`edit-config`](/docs/configure/nodes.md#use-edit-config-to-edit-configuration-files) from the [Netdata config
directory](/docs/configure/nodes.md#the-netdata-config-directory), which is typically at `/etc/netdata`.

You can look at the other senders in `/usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/alarm-notify.sh` for examples of how to modify the `custom_sender()` function in `health_alarm_notify.conf`.

As with other notifications, you will also need to define the recipient list in `DEFAULT_RECIPIENT_CUSTOM` and/or the `role_recipients_custom` array.

The following is a sample `custom_sender` function in `health_alarm_notify.conf`, to send an SMS via an imaginary HTTPS endpoint to the SMS gateway:

```
 custom_sender() {
    # example human readable SMS
    local msg="${host} ${status_message}: ${alarm} ${raised_for}"

    # limit it to 160 characters and encode it for use in a URL
    urlencode "${msg:0:160}" >/dev/null; msg="${REPLY}"

    # a space separated list of the recipients to send alarms to
    to="${1}"

    for phone in ${to}; do
      httpcode=$(docurl -X POST \
				    --data-urlencode "From=XXX" \
				    --data-urlencode "To=${phone}" \
				    --data-urlencode "Body=${msg}" \
				    -u "${accountsid}:${accounttoken}" \
        https://domain.website.com/)

       if [ "${httpcode}" = "200" ]; then
         info "sent custom notification ${msg} to ${phone}"
         sent=$((sent + 1))
       else
         error "failed to send custom notification ${msg} to ${phone} with HTTP error code ${httpcode}."
       fi
    done
}
```

Variables available to the custom_sender:

-   `${to_custom}`          the list of recipients for the alarm
-   `${host}`               the host generated this event
-   `${url_host}`           same as `${host}` but URL encoded
-   `${unique_id}`          the unique id of this event
-   `${alarm_id}`           the unique id of the alarm that generated this event
-   `${event_id}`           the incremental id of the event, for this alarm id
-   `${when}`               the timestamp this event occurred
-   `${name}`               the name of the alarm, as given in Netdata health.d entries
-   `${url_name}`           same as `${name}` but URL encoded
-   `${chart}`              the name of the chart (type.id)
-   `${url_chart}`          same as `${chart}` but URL encoded
-   `${family}`             the family of the chart
-   `${url_family}`         same as `${family}` but URL encoded
-   `${status}`             the current status : REMOVED, UNINITIALIZED, UNDEFINED, CLEAR, WARNING, CRITICAL
-   `${old_status}`         the previous status: REMOVED, UNINITIALIZED, UNDEFINED, CLEAR, WARNING, CRITICAL
-   `${value}`              the current value of the alarm
-   `${old_value}`          the previous value of the alarm
-   `${src}`                the line number and file the alarm has been configured
-   `${duration}`           the duration in seconds of the previous alarm state
-   `${duration_txt}`       same as `${duration}` for humans
-   `${non_clear_duration}` the total duration in seconds this is/was non-clear
-   `${non_clear_duration_txt}` same as `${non_clear_duration}` for humans
-   `${units}`              the units of the value
-   `${info}`               a short description of the alarm
-   `${value_string}`       friendly value (with units)
-   `${old_value_string}`   friendly old value (with units)
-   `${image}`              the URL of an image to represent the status of the alarm
-   `${color}`              a color in #AABBCC format for the alarm
-   `${goto_url}`           the URL the user can click to see the Netdata dashboard
-   `${calc_expression}`    the expression evaluated to provide the value for the alarm
-   `${calc_param_values}`  the value of the variables in the evaluated expression
-   `${total_warnings}`     the total number of alarms in WARNING state on the host
-   `${total_critical}`     the total number of alarms in CRITICAL state on the host

The following are more human friendly:

-   `${alarm}`              like "name = value units"
-   `${status_message}`     like "needs attention", "recovered", "is critical"
-   `${severity}`           like "Escalated to CRITICAL", "Recovered from WARNING"
-   `${raised_for}`         like "(alarm was raised for 10 minutes)"


