Configuring the Email Actions of OpenManage IT Assistant in an Enterprise Environment

Enterprise Systems Group (ESG)

Dell OpenManage™

Systems Management

Dell White Paper

By Roger Foreman

June 2002

Contents

Introduction

Configuring the Action

SMTP Service

Send a Test Email

Debugging a Timed Out Delivery

Mail Relay

Permissions

Conclusion

Figures

Figure 1: Configure Email Action Popup Panel......

Figure 2: Default SMTP Virtual Server Detail

Figure 3: Opening a Command Shell on the Server Running the SMTP Service

Figure 4: SMTP service in the Management Console

Figure 5: Properties Popup for a Remote Domain


June 2002Page 1Dell Enterprise Systems Group

Section 1

Introduction

Email has become so ubiquitous and reliable that when selected as an action within Dell OpenManage™ IT Assistant, the expectation is that it will work “out of the box.” Unfortunately, the same prevalence also means that most Enterprises today also put some restrictions in place to avoid its improper use. This paper provides some simple steps to diagnose potential restrictions and make the appropriate adjustments to the configuration to ensure successful email delivery.

Section 2

Configuring the Action

Determining which events to filter[1] and how to implement them in IT Assistant[2] have been covered in other white papers available on so this paper starts with the configuration of the action. Figure 1 shows the popup panel with the necessary fields filled in. Since the specifics are passed as parameters $n, $m, etc., this one action – here named “TellRoger” – can be used by many filters. The To: field contains the destination email address. If it is necessary to send this message to several destinations, this can be the address of an email list server, or if there were only a few destinations, a separate email can be created for each of the destinations with all being associated to the same filter event. It is not possible to specify multiple destinations on this line. In filling in the From: field, at least within the Dell environment, that it needs to be , as the mail relay checks for the dell.com. It is valid to include variables in the Subject line, in this case $n is the name of the failing node. This is especially helpful if the email is to a cell phone or text pager.

Figure 1: Configure Email Action Popup Panel

Section 3

SMTP Service

On Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Server and Advanced Server, the SMTP service is installed by default. It is also available for Windows NT® Server 4, but it needs to be explicitly installed from the Options Pack. To check that it is up and running on Windows 2000, open Computer Management and expand “Default SMTP Virtual Server” under the Internet Information Services service. This is shown in Figure 2. For an overview see Managing your company’s email with the Windows 2000 SMTP Service[3] or Using SMTP for Outgoing Messages[4]. Also, don’t forget the documentation on the SMTP service on the server at file:\\%systemroot%\help\mail.chm.

Figure 2: Default SMTP Virtual Server Detail

Section 4

Send a Test Email

Ultimately it’s good practice to test the entire configuration. When you think you are finished, be sure to do an end-to-end test by introducing a real hardware event and validating its detection, delivery, and timing. Generating a real hardware event can be as simple as just pulling out a power supply or an AC power cord if the system has more than one.

As a first step for debugging, it is also possible to generate an email directly from a command line. The default location of the sendmail command used by OpenManage IT Assistant is located in the directory C:\ Program Files\Dell\OpenManage\IT Assistant\bin. If the command shell was opened under Windows 2000, the default association for .vbs files will be wscript, while ITA will execute it in the command mode of Windows Script Host with cscript.exe. If entered with incorrect (or no) parameters, sendmail.vbs will generate a popup listing the syntax of the command. In this example, a “Test message” is being attempted to an ATT cell phone.

>sendmail -t -f -s "Test message" -b "hi”

From the Microsoft article How the SMTP Service Works[5] we know that sendmail puts the message in the c:\inetpub\mailroot\pickup folder. In this case, the initial send did not work so the message was moved to the c:\inetpub\mailroot \queue folder between retries. Eventually, when the retries were exhausted, the message was placed in the c:\inetpub\mailroot\badmail folder.

Section 5

Debugging a Timed Out Delivery

It’s relatively straightforward to diagnose the mail delivery process by performing the steps manually. The first step is to use DNS to lookup the name of the destination mail server. Upon opening a command shell on the server running the SMTP service the results shown in Figure 3 were obtained. Note setting the type to MX for mail records and the extra dot at the end of mobile.att.net.

Figure 3: Opening a Command Shell on the Server Running the SMTP Service

This verifies that DNS is properly configured on this machine, as it knows which server to contact – ausdcamer02.amer.dell.com – and that DNS server is able to resolve the request across the Internet. The next step is to verify that it is possible to contact that server and get an appropriate SMTP response. Since SMTP uses port 25 and communicates via easily seen commands[6] this can be tested in the same command shell with:

telnet mta01.cdpd.airdata.com 25

Our result was a timeout indicating that the hostname returned was not valid, or that the network would not allow a connection. Since it was possible to ping mta01.cdpd.airdata.com successfully, the problem must be that IT had blocked port 25 access to the internet. This is not an uncommon situation to prevent unsupervised mail transfer into and out of an enterprise.

Section 6

Mail Relay

When port 25 is blocked, then a mail relay or exchanger is necessary to act as a go-between. Using nslookup again on dell.com, our own domain, the name of the relay is found to be smtp.us.dell.com. Opening the SMTP service in the Management Console again, as shown in Figure 4, a remote domain is added for all mail to cdpd.airdata.com.

Figure 4: SMTP service in the Management Console

The property popup is then opened with a right click on the domain name and the destination of smtp.us.dell.com is added as a smart host as shown in Figure 5. The result after refreshing the SMTP Virtual Server is that all mail to airdata.com is forwarded to the mail relay server. This could also be used to override the routing specified by or missing from DNS so that all mail to a given domain, including an internal domain, be routed to a specific mail relay for processing.

Figure 5: Properties Popup for a Remote Domain

Permissions

Monitoring the folders after another test message shows three files in the BadMail folder. Looking at each, the one with the .BAD extension contains a message from the mail relay smtp.us.dell.com stating “Relaying denied. IP name possibly forged” which required a request to the mail department to get our monitoring host added as a valid source of email. It was interesting to note that the mail relay would accept and route messages from a dell.com address within the company to another dell.com address without any special requests for configuration.

Section 8

Conclusion

In summary, the tools are present to validate the steps to successful mail delivery:

  • The SMTP service is installed and started
  • DNS is operating correctly to locate the destination mail server
  • The network allows connecting via port 25 to the destination server
  • Or, a remote domain is configured to point to a mail relay server which can and will forward the mail to the destination server


THIS WHITE PAPER IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND MAY CONTAIN TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS AND TECHNICAL INACCURACIES. THE CONTENT IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND.

Dell and PowerEdge are trademarks of Dell Computer Corporation. Microsoft, Windows, and Windows NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products. Dell disclaims proprietary interest in the marks and names of others.

©Copyright 2002 Dell Computer Corporation. All rights reserved. Reproduction in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of Dell Computer Corporation is strictly forbidden. For more information, contact Dell.

Information in this document is subject to change without notice.


June 2002Page 1Dell Enterprise Systems Group

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