Manage Contact Groups

This guide shows how to create Checkmk Contact Groups from host attributes and set up the corresponding assignment rules — all managed by the Syncer.

Overview

Three things are needed:

1. Hosts with the attributes that should become group names
2. Group creation rules (see Groups Management)
3. Assignment rules (see Manage Checkmk Setup Rules)

Step 1: The Attributes

Import the attributes you want to use as group names. In this example, the hosts have os and location attributes.

Step 2: Create the Group Rule

Go to: Modules → Checkmk → Manage Host-/Contact-/Service-Groups

Create a rule for the location attribute:

• Group Name: Contact Groups
• Foreach Type: Foreach Attribute
• Foreach: location

Optionally, use Rewrite to control the group ID and title:

• Rewrite: cg_{{name|lower}}
• Rewrite Title: {{name|capitalize}}

After exporting, the groups appear in Checkmk:

Tip

If your values follow a pattern like contact_1, contact_2, use contact_* as the Foreach value to match all values starting with that string.

Step 3: Find the Ruleset Parameters

To create the assignment rule, you need the Checkmk ruleset ID and value format.

Navigate to the rule in Checkmk to find the ruleset name:

Then use the Checkmk API to get the value format. Open the API documentation and look up an existing rule of that type:

Step 4: Create the Assignment Rule

Go to: Modules → Checkmk → Create Checkmk Setup Rules

Create a rule that assigns hosts to the contact group. Use {{ location }} to reference the host attribute as the condition label value:

Repeat for the os attribute.

Step 5: Export and Verify

Run the export and check the result in Checkmk:

Activate the changes in Checkmk — done.