--- mon.8	Thu Mar 21 10:20:44 2002
+++ mon.8.sev	Thu Mar 21 10:16:30 2002
@@ -496,6 +496,12 @@
 .I statedir
 global configuration variable.
 
+.TP
+.B MON_SEVERITY
+The severity level of the alert from the alert
+line in the config file. If no severity level has
+been defined, it defaults to 1.
+
 .P
 The first line from standard input must be used as a brief summary
 of the problem, normally supplied as the subject line of an email, or
@@ -1174,9 +1180,11 @@
 upon failure of the service. An alert is specified with
 the
 .B alert
-keyword, followed by an optional
+keyword, followed by optional
 .B exit
-parameter, and arguments which are interpreted the same as
+and
+.B severity
+parameters, and arguments which are interpreted the same as
 the
 .B monitor
 definition, but without the ";;" exception. The
@@ -1198,7 +1206,35 @@
 as its arguments if the monitor
 program's exit value is between 10 and 20. This feature
 allows you to trigger different alerts at different
-severity levels (like when free disk space goes from 8% to 3%).
+error levels (like when free disk space goes from 8% to 3%).
+The 
+.B severity
+parameter takes the form of
+.I "severity=n"
+and can be used to define an arbitrary severity level for the
+alert. This can be used in conjunction with the 
+.B exit
+parameter to map an exit value or range of exit values to a severity
+level for use by mon clients. For example, the alert lines
+.I "alert exit=95-100 severity=1 qpage.alert mispager"
+,
+.I "alert exit=90-95 severity=2 mail.alert mismail"
+,
+.I "alert exit=2 severity=9 mail.alert monadmin"
+could be used to let mon clients prioritize a given alert. 
+Severity levels can also be used to indicate different classes of
+problems, for example defining severity levels 1,2 and 3 for production
+alerts of decreasing severity, 3,4 and 5 for development, and 9 for
+monitor or protocol errors.  Note that the
+.B exit
+and
+.B severity
+parameters are both optional and work independently of each other; if
+you assign a severity level to an alert without using the 
+.B exit
+parameter, then the alert will have that severity level for any exit
+value; if no severity level is defined for an alert, the default
+severity level for that alert is 1. 
 
 See the
 .B "ALERT PROGRAMS"
@@ -1216,7 +1252,7 @@
 .BI upalert " alert [arg...]"
 An
 .B upalert
-is the compliment of an
+is the complement of an
 .BR alert .
 An upalert is called when a services makes the state transition from
 failure to success, if a corresponding "down" alert