Alarms

An Alarm is defined as a persistent fault in the network. Each alarm can be raised multiple times on different objects. No new alarms can be raised on the same object until the old alarm is cleared. The same alarm on the same object can be raised with different severity levels. During such scenarios, the new alarm will clear the old alarm.

Each alarm consists of two states:

• Active state: A raised alarm is always in the active state
• Cleared state: Raised alarms can be cleared by the module through which they were raised or you can manually clear them.

The Alarms tab is composed of the following sub-tabs:

• Active Alarms
• History Alarms
• Definition

Active Alarms

The Active Alarms sub-tab displays all the Critical, Major, Minor, and Information alarms. The Active Alarms table summarizes the following:

Field	Description
Alarm Name	Displays the name of the alarm.
Severity	Displays the severity level of an alarm. The various severity levels are as follows: Critical Alarms: Critical alarms are represented by a red color indicator, like Critical, and need immediate action. Typical critical alarms are raised either when a controller or an AP is down, or when a rogue AP is detected. The rogue alarm is raised when a wired rogue is detected. Major Alarms: Major alarms are represented by an orange color indicator, like Major, and need action whenever required. Typical major alarms are raised due to authentication failure. Minor Alarms: Minor alarms are represented by a yellow color indicator, like Minor, and do not require any action. Typical minor alarms are raised due to MIC errors. Information Alarms: Information alarms are represented by a blue color indicator, like Information, and are for information only. They do not require any action.
Source	The source where an alarm is raised: AP, Controller, or NM.
FDN (Full Distinguished Name)	FDN identifies the name of the device that triggered the alarm.
Controller	Provides the controller IP address or host name.
Raised At	Displays the date and time at which the alarm was raised, in MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS format. The displayed date and time will be in the system default time zone. To change the time zone, click > Change Timezone, and select the required option.
Description	Provides detailed information regarding the alarm, including identifying device details.
Acknowledged	Displays Yes if you have acknowledged a raised alarm. By default, it is set to No.
Actions	All AP related alarms display an AP location icon in the Actions column. Click on the icon to see the AP locator screen displaying the selected AP located on the floor.

You can select one or more active alarms and either Clear or Acknowledge them.

Clearing active alarms

To clear active alarms:

1. Select one or more active alarms.
2. Click on the Clear button. The Clear Alarm dialog is displayed with the following options:
   

   Field	Description
   User Name	Displays the username of the logged-in user.
   Date	Displays the current date and time, in MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS format.
   Comment	You must add comments while clearing an alarm. It is mandatory to add a comment.

3. Add a comment and click on the Clear button.

After you clear an active alarm, Wireless Manager (FortiWLM) MEA sends the clear alarm notification to System Director for those alarms which are cleared manually.

Acknowledging active alarms

To acknowledge active alarms:

1. Select one or more active alarms.
2. Click on the Acknowledge button. The Acknowledge Alarm dialog is displayed with the following options:
   

   Field	Description
   User Name	Displays the username of the logged-in user.
   Date	Displays the current date and time, in MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS format.
   Comment	You must add comments while clearing an alarm. It is mandatory to add a comment. A comment added while alarm acknowledgment may be modified.

3. Add a comment and click on the Acknowledge button.

After you acknowledge an active alarm, Wireless Manager (FortiWLM) MEA sends the acknowledge alarm notification to System Director for those alarms which are acknowledged manually.

To see the active alarms in a CSV format, select one or more active alarms and click on the CSV button. The Active Alarms: CSV dialog is displayed. You may also download the list of active alarms in CSV format by clicking on the Download button.

The Filter Active Alarms button allows you to filter alarms based on specified values for the available alarms attributes. You can filter using one or more attributes simultaneously; for example, you can filter alarms by specifying the Alarm Name, and then selecting the Source. You may save or reset the current filter settings by clicking the appropriate buttons. You may also filter alarms raised in a specific time range by selecting the appropriate time range or by clicking the predefined time periods.

History Alarms

The History Alarms sub-tab displays all the cleared alarms from the Active Alarms sub-tab. The History Alarms sub-tab is similar to the Active Alarms sub-tab in all aspects except for the tables on these sub-tabs, which are almost similar as well. The only differences being the addition of the Cleared At column and the deletion of the Actions column.

The Cleared At column displays the date and time at which the alarm was cleared, in MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS format.

The displayed date and time will be in the system default time zone. To change the time zone, click > Change Timezone, and select the required option.

All other options on the History Alarms sub-tab remain the same as the Active Alarms sub-tab.

Definition

The Definition sub-tab displays a table with various alarm definitions along with a summary of additional alarm attributes. The alarms definition table shows various alarms attributes like Alarm Name, Description, Severity, Source, Triggering Condition, and Triggering Threshold.

If you select an alarm from the table and click on the Edit button, or if you click on an alarm name from the table, the Configure Alarm dialog appears. The Configure Alarm dialog summarizes Alarm info, Alarm Options, and Trigger Condition. The Trigger Condition field is only available for alarms that belong to Wireless Manager (FortiWLM) MEA, and you can specify a value for the Threshold field for those alarms.