Webhook alert channel

To send alert notifications by using webhook, create a webhook alert channel.

Creating a webhook alert channel

To create a webhook alert channel, click Settings > Team Settings > Events & Alerts > Alert Channels > Add Alert Channel in the Instana UI.

webhook alert channel

The Webhook URL format is protocol://domainOrIPAddress:port/path

Alerting examples

The following Webhook events are received as an HTTP POST to the configured URLs (HTTP or HTTPS):

In the following examples, the Instana Webhook format is used. The Instana Webhook format is not compatible with third-party tools that expect an Incoming Webhook in their format. You might want to use a custom-made adapter or If This Then That to connect to third-party tools.

On open issues or incidents

{
  "issue": {
    "id": "53650436-8e35-49a3-a610-56b442ae7620",
    "type": "issue",
    "state": "OPEN",
    "start": 1460537793322,
    "severity": 5,
    "text": "Garbage Collection Activity High (11%)",
    "suggestion": "Tune your Garbage Collector, reduce allocation rate through code changes",
    "link": "https://XXXXXXX/#/?snapshotId=rjhkZXdNzegliVVEswMScGNn0YY",
    "zone": "prod",
    "fqdn": "host1.demo.com",
    "entity": "jvm",
    "entityLabel": "Test jvm",
    "tags": "production, documents, elasticsearch",
    "container": "test-container"
  }
}

On close issues or incidents

{
  "issue": {
    "id": "53650436-8e35-49a3-a610-56b442ae7620",
    "type": "issue",
    "state": "CLOSED",
    "start": 1460537793322,
    "end": 1460538393322,
    "severity": 5,
    "text": "Garbage Collection Activity High (11%)",
    "suggestion": "Tune your Garbage Collector, reduce allocation rate through code changes",
    "link": "https://XXXXXXX/#/?snapshotId=rjhkZXdNzegliVVEswMScGNn0YY",
    "zone": "prod",
    "fqdn": "host1.demo.com",
    "entity": "jvm",
    "entityLabel": "Test jvm",
    "tags": "production, documents, elasticsearch",
    "container": "test-container"
  }
}

On offline, on online, or on change events

{
  "issue": {
    "id": "53650436-8e35-49a3-a610-56b442ae7620",
    "type": "presence",
    "start": 1460537793322,
    "text": "online",
    "description": "Java virtual machine on Host host1.demo.com",
    "link": "https://XXXXXXX/#/?snapshotId=rjhkZXdNzegliVVEswMScGNn0YY",
    "zone": "prod",
    "fqdn": "host1.demo.com",
    "entity": "jvm",
    "entityLabel": "Test jvm",
    "tags": "production, documents, elasticsearch",
    "container": "test-container"
  }
}

HTTP request headers

Providing custom HTTP request headers

Some Webhook integrations need the specification of additional Headers that can be added in this section. An example is the addition of an API token for AWS API Gateway.

Webhook URL basic authentication

As an alternative to providing the respective Authorization HTTP request header manually, you can use HTTP basic authentication via the webhook URL. By prepending username and password to the hostname, such as https://username:password@webhookurl.com, the credentials are automatically Base64-encoded and provided as the following HTTP header value:

Authorization: Basic <base64 encoded credentials>

FAQ

How can I ensure that the Instana backend can establish a TCP/TLS connection?

The Instana backend are issuing requests from AWS/Google Cloud servers. Therefore, it is important that the JavaScript and source map files are generally accessible from the internet. Additionally, make sure that your backend has a working TLS configuration with a complete certificate chain. You can check for any TLS issues by using the free SSL Test from SSL Labs/Qualys or by running the following command:

openssl s_client -showcerts -connect {{YOUR_DOMAIN_HERE}}:443