Notifications are alerts, tasks, and
events that EFA sends to subscribers by HTTPS webhook or syslog over RELP (Reliable Event
Logging Protocol).
Overview
All notifications are derived from the syslog events that are received from the devices that
EFA manages.
Alerts are notifications that EFA services send for unexpected conditions, such as
the following:
Loss of switch
connectivity
Failure to configure the fabric, tenant, or
endpoint group (EPG) on the device
Failure to perform operations
such as port up or port down, set speeds, and breakout mode
Firmware download
failure
Devices exiting maintenance
mode
Task notifications are based on user-driven or timer-based operations, such as the
following:
Registering or updating a
device
Device timer collection
completed
Adding devices to a fabric
Creating, updating, or deleting a fabric
Creating, updating, or
deleting a tenant
Creating, updating, or deleting an endpoint
group
Notification methods
EFA supports two methods of notification: HTTPS webhook and syslog (using RELP over TLS). The
format of the notifications is the same for both methods. You can configure one or
both methods.
Webhook
This REST API-based method is a POST
operation. The notification payload is in the body of the HTTPS call. Use
the efa notification subscribers add-https command to
register a subscriber for this method of notification.
Syslog over RELP
In this client-server method, the client
initiates the connection and the server listens. In this scenario, the
client is the Notification service and the server is the remote system where
syslog is configured to work with RELP. Any external server that is
configured with RELP can be registered as a subscriber to EFA
notifications.
Communication from SLX devices occurs over TLS. The certificates required
for SLX devices to work with secure syslog are generated when the devices
are registered.
Use the efa notification subscribers add-syslog-relp
command to register a subscriber for this method of notification.
Notification workflow
In general, the order of operations is as follows:
For each SLX devices that is registered in EFA, EFA registers itself as a
syslog receiver on each device.
The RASlog service receives syslog messages from the registered devices over
TLS.
Messages are processed and converted to JSON, a format that is easier to
search, sort, and perform operations on.
The Inventory service, Fabric service, and Tenant service send alerts and
tasks to the Notification service.
External clients (subscribers) receive notifications by HTTPS webhook,
syslog (using RELP over TLS), or both, depending on the subscription.
Notification example
In this example, the creation of a tenant sends a task notification to the syslog
server.
Here, the tenant is
created.
$ efa tenant create --name tnt1
Tenant created successfully.
--- Time Elapsed: 167.716003ms ---
