Greetings,
I've searched and searched about scripts to use maileater and all I've really come up with is this forum. I'm new to CA Service Desk and I need to automate a way to open a ticket Request or Incident for failed backups on 100 customer servers. Does anyone here have a sample script that I could look at for using mailx to open a ticket from a Unix/Linux host? Please say yes. :happy
sawdustar wrote:
Greetings,
I've searched and searched about scripts to use maileater and all I've really come up with is this forum. I'm new to CA Service Desk and I need to automate a way to open a ticket Request or Incident for failed backups on 100 customer servers. Does anyone here have a sample script that I could look at for using mailx to open a ticket from a Unix/Linux host? Please say yes. :happy
Hello sawdustar,
You may need to break the query up/elaborate to get best response form other forum users.Also,
version number would help.
First up, note that using mailx to send an email to Service Desk Manager pdm_maileater_nxd shouldn't be a problem. Provided the email comes to the Service Desk Manager pdm_maileater_nxd in plain text, the production source of the email shouldn't be a factor.
More important is setting up the SDM Mailboxes and rules. See SDM 12.7 Administrator Guide (or similar) in the Chapter Email Administration at p120:
Mailboxes—Handles inbound email.
Consider the following information about inbound email:
– The Mail Eater (pdm_maileater_nxd) retrieves inbound email for ticket creation and updates, using Post Office Protocol (POP3) or Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP or IMAP4).
– CA SDM mailboxes define email accounts (inboxes).
– Mailbox rules define how each mailbox handles inbound mail.
Start simple. Receiving an email with just "cr" on the subject line and "%DESCRIPTION=My first test" should produce an Incident with that as the Description (barring mandatoroy fields).
The rest of the query I think you may need to expand on.
* Opening a Request/Incident - fine. As above, relatively simple, test this part first.
* For failed backups - what does this imply? A specific Request Area? That is handled by adding a % keyword to the mail for request area. eg: %CATEGORY=Email
* On 100 servers - you want 1 Incident for 100 servers? 100 Incidents? 100 inbound emails update the same Incident? Need to define the conditions and then set up the filtering rules to eliminate message floods.
Now, an alternate question is how to create Incidents from a command line or batch file and skip pdm_maileater_nxd, then there are several ways to do that. pdm_text_cmd is one. See
TEC425521.
Thanks, Kyle_R.
Hello Kyle,
Thanks for your reply. The version we appear to be running is 12.1. I work for a large company and I'm on the "user" side of CASD. We have an entire team that runs CASD, patches it, keeps it healthy and such. I am a Data Protection Engineer and I'm simply trying to find out how to pass 7 arguments from a script to another script that will pass this info off to CASD via email so a ticket can be opened when a critical backup fails.
Without getting into too much info from my side, I support SEVERAL financial customers and their environments. Automation for ticketing is a critical part of process improvements that is needed for reducing the strain on a small support team. Some people on other teams in the company have developed many Perl scripts to cut tickets in CASD but Change Control and many other aspects of installing Soap and other Perl related items on each customer's server would be prohibitive. I'm trying to find a way to automate this process with the least amount of impact to each customer's environment.
Trying to find info about maileater and automating ticketing for CASD from the Unix/Linux side has proven difficult at best. Someone....somewhere has to have written a simple script to cut a CASD ticket for a failed process. I just haven't found it yet. I can write a Unix script...but I need to know what I need to "mailx" to CASD for ticket creation.
sawdustar wrote:
Hello Kyle,
Thanks for your reply. The version we appear to be running is 12.1. I work for a large company and I'm on the "user" side of CASD. We have an entire team that runs CASD, patches it, keeps it healthy and such. I am a Data Protection Engineer and I'm simply trying to find out how to pass 7 arguments from a script to another script that will pass this info off to CASD via email so a ticket can be opened when a critical backup fails.
Without getting into too much info from my side, I support SEVERAL financial customers and their environments. Automation for ticketing is a critical part of process improvements that is needed for reducing the strain on a small support team. Some people on other teams in the company have developed many Perl scripts to cut tickets in CASD but Change Control and many other aspects of installing Soap and other Perl related items on each customer's server would be prohibitive. I'm trying to find a way to automate this process with the least amount of impact to each customer's environment.
Trying to find info about maileater and automating ticketing for CASD from the Unix/Linux side has proven difficult at best. Someone....somewhere has to have written a simple script to cut a CASD ticket for a failed process. I just haven't found it yet. I can write a Unix script...but I need to know what I need to "mailx" to CASD for ticket creation.
Hello sawdustar,
Service Desk Manager is platform neutral for incoming emails. Providing that it receives a plain text email and inbound email is configured on Service Desk Manager, then it doesn't matter if the source is mailx, MS Exchange, Lotus Notes, batch file etc.
If you want to "Create/Update an Incident/Request" in Service Desk Manager (12.1 or any - it's the same), you just need to send a plain text email to the Service Desk email account.
As per my update above, the simplest form will take:
Subject: <The word "cr" should appear somewhere on this line. Other text may be included>
Body: <If no fields specified, then everything will go into a new Incident into the Description field, and all nominated fields will populate those.>
It really is no more complicated than that.
See text_api.cfg and the above documenation for available field names.
See
"TEC380511 How does Service Desk Process eMails?" for one knowledge document example.
There are half a dozen (or more) different ways to create tickets in Service Desk Manager, but if are talking about infrequent updates to create a ticket, the above is good.
See the CA Green Book, "CA Unicenter Service Desk Integrations" "Chapter 19: Integrating with Third-Party Products" for bringing in updates from email, AND from other sources.
So getting Service Desk Manager to create tickets on an established system should be trivial. I encourage you to enage the SDM Administrators at your site.
Tell them:
* The seven fields in SDM that you want to be updated. Eg Description, Status, Priority, Configuration Item etc.
They'll be able to give you a list of fields that match for your mail eg %DESCRIPTION.
* What ticket type you want eg Request, Incident, Change Order, Problem.
They'll give you the subject line needed eg "cr".
* The name of the user to use for the update. TIP: It is best to have a specific Contact in Service Desk Manager for each incoming business process, so as to be able to easily identify it later. Eg "SAWDUSTAR_mail_creator"
* Expected frequency of updates.
If there potentially could be volume or message floods, then they'll need to either scope hardware or configure filter rules.
Most likely they will have a process for inbound email already.
Most SDM administrators are keen to know all integration points to prevent unpleasant surprises, so it is good form to engage them for this reason alone.
As above, there are multiple ways to get information to Service Desk Manager - many sites are using Web Services now. Email is still the most popular. There are more esoteric methods such as bop_cmd when only scripts will do.
In short, as far as the "ticket creation side" is concerned, your request is straight-forward if you work with the SDM administrators.
However, if you are asking about how to monitor for a failed process, that is a different kettle of fish. I am assuming from your description that you have your own script for that. However, if not, then there are numerous CA products that can monitor for that and which come with integrations to SDM already.
Thanks, Kyle_R.
I have a doubt how to find inbound email id of the service desk provided every thing is configured
From: Srikakulam, Sujan
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2014 11:10 PM
To: RqstMail
Subject: *cr[ \t\r\n]
%PRIORITY=4
%DESCRIPTION= test ticket to check the mail eater functionality.
%CUSTOMER=xc13
%STATUS=open
I tried creating a ticket by sending the above email to the configured mailbos id, but it is not generating ticket. Please help me.
Regards,
Sujan
Hi Sujan,
Try using the pdm_text_cmd command using the same inputs which would help us to understand if the issue is at the mailbox or at the SDM side.
Thanks,
Naveen
iT IS WORKING WITH THE PDM_TEXT_CMD BUT I WANT TO GENERATE TICKET WITH THE MAIL EATER
Hi Naveen, thanks for the reply. I just wanna know the exat process
From: CA Service Management Global User CommunityMessage Boards [mailto:CommunityAdmin@communities-mail.ca.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2014 11:25 PM
To: mb_message.2276110.108621155@myca-email.ca.com
Subject: [CA Service Desk General Discussion] RE: MailEater use - Is it easy to do?
iT IS WORKING WITH THE PDM_TEXT_CMD BUT I WANT TO GENERATE TICKET WITH THE MAIL EATER
Posted by:nagasujan
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This document was generated from the following discussion: MailEater use - Is it easy to do?