McAfee AVDCDE-BA-CA User Guide - Page 285

Using VirusScan Utilities When you've chosen a destination for your alert messages, click OK to close the dialog box. • Enable Centralized alerting. Click this button to have VirusScan components send alert messages to a Centralized Alerting directory somewhere on your network. Choosing this option prevents you from sending alert events to an Alert Manager server. To choose a destination directory, click Configure to open the Central Alerting Configuration dialog box (Figure 9-5). Figure 9-5. Central Alerting Configuration dialog box Next, enter the path to the Centralized Alerting directory you want to use, or click Browse to locate the directory on your network. When you've chosen a destination, click OK to close the dialog box. You can designate any directory on your network as a destination for Centralized Alerting messages, but the directory must contain a copy of the file CENTALRT.TXT in order for an Alert Manager server to relay the alert messages you send there. If you enable Centralized Alerting, VirusScan software sends alert messages as text files with the extension .ALR to the target directory. You can then point a designated Alert Manager server to the directory, if it contains the CENTALRT.TXT file, so that it checks periodically for .ALR files. If it finds one, it extracts the contents of the alert message from the file, distributes the message via one of its pre-configured notification methods, then deletes the .ALR file. It then steps up the frequency with which it checks the Centralized Alerting directory to capture any other alert messages that arrive. User's Guide 285