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IPSentry - Alert - Pager - Alpha (SMTP/Email) Configuration

The Alpha (SMTP/Email) pager configuration provides you with the ability to send textual (and meaningful) messages to pagers and cell phones during the alert cycle using standard SMTP email functionality.

Although the email alert function has existed for several years in IPSentry, more and more customers have begun using this function to notify pagers and have requested that escalation functionality be applied since it is, in fact, a pager!  

Considering this, we incorporated an email pager option into the pager list in order to provide escalation to email based pagers as well as dialup pagers.

Before configuring Alpha (EMAIL) pager alerts, you will need to get the following information from your paging service.

1. Email Address Format.
   Make sure that the email address that you use is in the correct format to be accepted by your paging service.  Some have used address book entries that were actually converted by their email clients... obviously, IPSentry does not know about your address book entries and will not be able to convert "Bob's Pager" to a valid email address.
   
    

2. Verify Delivery Restrictions
   Make sure that your paging service will accept messages from either your SMTP relay host (mail server) or from the machine on which IPSentry is running.  Also verify that the "FROM" address is valid as some systems my restrict delivery from a known set of addresses.
   
   

3. Confirm Message Structure
   While highly unlikely, some message servers may strip the subject line or require special headers within a message.  In any case, make sure that you know what your paging service accepts and what they will deny.

After selecting Alpha (SMTP/Email), the only configuration tab you will have access to is the "Email" tab.  Look familiar????  It should.

The settings on this tab are 100% identical to the Email alert configuration.  Everything from multiple email addresses, backup SMTP servers, keywords, header tags, and BCC will apply.

SMTP Server
Enter the IP Address of the SMTP Relay server that should be used to route the email message to the final recipient.  The SMTP Server must accept SMTP email.

If you require MAPI delivery (Exchange Server), you will need to enter the MAPI declaration followed by the profile name used to send email.  
e.g. MAPI:MS Exchange Settings

If the SMTP Server has any Anti-Spam features enabled that disable email based on this configuration, the alert will never be delivered and an error will be logged.

• Backup SMTP Server Configuration
  IPSentry provides the means necessary for IPSentry to attempt delivery of email through multiple SMTP Relay servers.  Simply enter the IP Address of each mail exchanger that IPSentry should try in the order delivery should be attempted, separated by semi-colon.
  
  (eg: 10.1.1.1; 10.32.32.2; 10.27.33.3 ...)
  
  In the event the first server is unavailable, IPSentry will attempt to deliver the message through the next relay host.  IPSentry will attempt each host until the email is successfully accepted for delivery or until the list has been exhausted.
  
  This option is not used for MAPI delivery.

Port
This field signifies the TCP port on which IPSentry should connect in order to deliver the message.  By default, this field is set to 25 (SMTP), however, some internal SMTP servers may be setup on non-standard ports which will require that this field be changed to match the listening port of the mail exchanger. 
This option is not used for MAPI delivery.

User (Version 4.4 and up only)
When sending mail through an Authenticated SMTP server, you can fill in the User and Pwd fields appropriately. If you are not using a secure SMTP server, an error 5xx unrecognized command may be returned from the server if you enter anything into one of these fields. 
This option is not used for MAPI delivery.

Password (PWD) (Version 4.4 and up only)
When sending mail through an Authenticated SMTP server, you can fill in the User and Pwd fields appropriately. If you are not using a secure SMTP server, an error 5xx unrecognized command may be returned from the server if you enter anything into one of these fields.

From
Enter the email address to be used as the FROM address in the email message.   This field must be in standard name@domain.com address format unless you relay server is prepared to accepted 'default domain' from addresses.

Most problems involving configuration of the Email alert are due primarily to an invalid email address format specified in the FROM/TO fields.

This option is not used for MAPI delivery - the from address is pulled from the profile specified.

To
Enter the email address of the recipient (or recipients) of the email message.   This field must be in standard name@domain.com address format unless you relay server is prepared to accepted 'default domain' from addresses.

• Multiple Recipients
  You may specify multiple recipients by simply separating the email addresses with a comma ",".
  eg: me@here.com, you@there.com, somebody@somewhere.com
   
  
• BCC Directive
  In some cases (especially when monitoring your customer sites), you may want several internal messages to be delivered along with a message to the customer.  In this case, you may not want the customer to see the address of the internal support staff, so a BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) can be utilized.
  
  To accomplish this, simply precede the "TO" address line with "BCC:".  This will cause IPSentry to send a unique email address to each recipient in the list without including the actual recipient list in the "TO" line of the received message.
  eg: BCC:me@here.com, you@there.com, somebody@somewhere.com
  

Note: Most problems involving configuration of the Email alert are due primarily to an invalid email address format specified in the FROM/TO fields.

Subject
The contents of this field will be placed in the subject field of the email message.  All IPSentry KeyWords used in this field will be translated before the message is sent allowing you to specific crucial information in the subject of the message as well as the message text itself.

Remember, when Alert Success is checked for this alert, the %IPS_M_STAT% keyword will be replaced by either UP or DOWN depending on the state of the device.  Use of this keyword in the subject is highly desired for obvious reasons.

Message
Enter the message you wish to send when this alert is triggered.  All IPSentry KeyWords used in this field will be translated.

• Special Headers
  In many cases, you may want to insert special header information into the email message which may trigger special actions upon receipt of these alerts (either by the mail client software or within the mail processing cycle itself).
  
  In order to specify special headers, you would make use of the "<HEADER:..." directive at the top of the message text.
  
  Syntax: <HEADER:HeaderName: VALUE>
  Use of this directive would cause an email header "HeaderName" with the value of "VALUE" to be inserted into the headers of the email message before the message is sent to the server.
  
  For instance, if you wanted to set Importance to HIGH and Priority to 1 to ensure that special attention was given to these email messages, you might use the following directives:
  <HEADER:X-Priority: 1>
  <HEADER:Importance: high>
  
  IPSentry expects NOTHING ELSE on a HEADER line.
  Also note: You can use the IPSentry KeyWords in the header fields as replacement values.   Be careful not to use a value with a new line character...  Save that info for your test message.
  
  Special headers are not used for MAPI delivery.

Noticeably, the addition of Max Length and Force Uppercase provide additional options that are unique to pager email delivery.

Error Retry Count
If the paging notification fails, you can specify how many times IPSentry should retry the pager alert before giving up and continuing on with other alerts and monitoring tasks.  This value represents the number of RETRIES that will be attempted such that a value of zero (0) will signify that no retry to deliver the pager notification should be attempted.

Max Length
Some pager services limit the size of a message that can be sent to a mobile device.  Due to the fact that a message that exceeds this length may be rejected by the paging system, IPSentry first truncates the message to ensure that at least the first (n) characters are sent on the alert.  It is better to receive part of a failure alert than no alert at all.  Again, check with your paging service to verify the maximum message length that they will transmit.

Note: This is also useful for services that charge a fee for long messages allowing you to limit costs by keeping messages under this limit.

Force Uppercase
Checking this option will cause the entire message to be converted to upper case.  Some international paging systems have been found to convert lowercase values to special characters or simply ignore them completely.  This setting provides you with the workaround as well as a means to send messages to device that only support upper case letters.

Related Topics

• IPSentry - Alert - Pager Notifications

• IPSentry - Alert - Email Notification via SMTP

• IPSentry - Information - Keywords

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