Categories and severities
Categories allow you to:
- organize hosts or services so as to define user rights on them using ACLs
- filter the view in the Resources status page
- classify the hosts and services within sub-groups in MBI reports.
- define types of objects in the Centreon MAP module.
A special type of category is called severity. Severities can be used to achieve all of the above, but also to:
-
sort the view on the Resources Status page by severity level. Severities are shown in the S column in the Resources Status page.
-
filter data in the Host monitoring, Service monitoring and Open Tickets widgets in custom views.
Severities are assigned in the host categories and service categories configuration pages.
Hosts category​
Go to the Configuration > Hosts > Categories menu and click Add.

- The Host Category Name and Alias fields contain the name and the alias of the category of host, respectively.
- The Linked hosts list allows us to add hosts to the category.
- If a host template is added to the Linked host template list, all the hosts that inherit from this Model belong to this category.
- The Severity type box can be checked to assign a severity to the host. Severities must be a number ranging from 1 to 127. The highest severity level is 1.
- The Level and Icon fields define a criticality level and an associated icon, respectively.
- The Status and Comment fields allow us to enable or disable the category of host and to comment on it.
Services category​
Go to the Configuration > Services > Categories menu and click Add.

- The Name and Description fields define the name and the description of the category of service.
- If a service template is added to the Service Template Descriptions list, all the services that inherit from this template belong to this category.
- The Severity type box can be checked to assign a severity to the service. Severities must be a number ranging from 1 to 127. The highest severity level is 1.
- The Level and Icon fields define a criticality level and an associated icon, respectively.
- The Status field allows us to enable or disable the category of services.
Severities​
Creating a severity​
To create a severity:
- Go to Configuration > Hosts > Categories or Configuration > Services > Categories, and then click Add.
- Fill in the Name and Alias fields, and then check Severity type.
- Define a level for the severity ranging from 1 to 127 (a number that will be used to sort hosts or services in the Resources Status page) and an icon that will appear in the S column in the Resources Status page.
- Click Save. The severity appears in the list of severities.
Applying the severity to a host or service​
- Edit the host or service (go to Configuration > Hosts > Hosts or Configuration > Services > Services by host, and then click the host or service).
- On the Extended Info tab, in the Monitoring Engine section, select the severity you want from the Severity level list. Only existing severities can be assigned this way.
- Click Save.
- Deploy the configuration. On the Resources Status page, the icon for the severity appears in the S column. A tooltip shows the level and name of the severity. If you click the column header, the view is sorted by severity level.