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Description - "what to do"
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### Description - "what to do"

Associated with each pattern there is a description in the form of a bunch of definitions. This set of definitions describes what actually will be done if a status change matching the pattern occurs. The rules will be processed in the order they appear in the configuration file and if multiple patterns match all the definitions will cumulate.

| Warning
Definitions appearing later in the file will overwrite definitions appearing earlier

Example 3.2. Example default values

     *.* mail=alarm@nowhere.org delay=5 *.cpu delay=100

If a status change for myhost.conn is reported then only the first pattern will match resulting in a description of:

     mail=alarm@nowhere.org delay=5

while if a status change for myhost.cpu is reported both patterns will match and the resulting description would look like:

     mail=alarm@nowhere.org delay=20

thus the mail definition will be taken from the first rule while the delay definition of the second matching rule will replace the concurring definition in the first rule.

| Tip
It is a good idea to place more general rules near the start of the configuration file and more specific rules near the end. E.g. a rule associated with the pattern *.* is working like default settings since it will match every single status change.
     *.* mail=alarm delay=5 down=yellow up=green prio=5
Placed at the very start of the configuration it will initialize the settings for mail, delay, down, up and prio. Later rules may re-set one of these settings by at the same time inheriting all the other settings.

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