E-Mail Alerting - iDRAC7 - Gmail

Your DNS servers need to be able to forward to gmail.com by name. There are 1000's of gmail.com servers, so using an IP address is not a viable option because at any given time, that IP address could change. The local DNS should have forwarders set up to point to the gmail domain. 

Regards,

Geoff,

Thanks for taking time to reply.  The reason I am trying to use gmail is because we do not have an internal smtp server, as we simply use gmail here for our domain email.

You mentioned to check DNS to make sure it could forward to gmail.  What exactly do you mean by this?

I have two DNS servers configured (one internal, one OpenDNS).  I even tried putting the IP of the gmail SMTP instead of the name just in case there were any DNS issues.

After doing some research, I read that others tried changing the DNS DRAC Name and the Static DNS Domain Name in Common settings.  I modified both of these to try and recreate the send from address.  For instance, I changed the DNS Domain Name to our domain.com to try and get the proper Send From address - however this did not work either.  There really aren't too much options in the interface from what I have seen, so I am guessing that it just may not be possible. 

Sorry, I misunderstood you.  I have tried configuring the IDRAC to use our internal DNS servers, which do have forwarders set up.  All machines in our network use these same DNS servers to get out to the internet - so there should be no problem with name resolution.  The NAS devices we have (which alerting works on) use these same DNS servers with no issues, as I simply configured them to use smtp.gmail.com

Though its not a supported option using gmail,  someone may have figured how to make it work.  I would check the DNS settings to make sure you have forwarding to gmail from the iDRAC.  Our recommendation,however,  is to use an internal smtp server for your iDRAC email purposes, and then you can launch it to any email address you choose.  The reason behind it is  that you can track, monitor and diagnose your issue if its internal. If you go directly to gmail,  you are unable to diagnose any issues. 

If you continue to have issues with setting it up, please contact Dell Technical Support and request OpenManage support so they can open a case and troubleshoot with you.

Regards,

I am having this same issue with a new setup. No internal SMTP server so I need to send to gmail or yahoo smtp servers. I believe in our case Verizon DSL blocks port 25 traffic and requires port 584.  Is there a way to get the SMTP to use something other than port 25?

I found this white paper from Dell which mentions that when the Enable Authentication box is checked, TLS is used:

http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/extras/m/white_papers/20290631.aspx

I would assume this would mean that port 587 (TCP) would be used.  This is the same port I use for alerting with my NAS devices.

Just not sure why the Dell alerting isn't working.

I found this white paper from Dell which mentions that when the Enable Authentication box is checked, TLS is used:

http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/extras/m/white_papers/20290631.aspx

I would assume this would mean that port 465 (TCP) would be used.  This is the same port I use for alerting with my NAS devices.

Just not sure why the Dell alerting isn't working.

Using iDrac 7 Enterprise with the latest FW (1.57.57), using G-mail for alerts WILL work fine. The critical issue is the authentication/encryption in the Alerts section. When using authentication (which of course EVERYONE does now), the method of encryption used is TLS. I read in the ‘enhancements-2-idrac7-alert-notification’ PDF that was released here that when using authentication, TLS encryption is used. I’m guessing the SMTP servers many are trying do not support TLS. G-mail supports it, but currently, not many other mail providers do. I failed to get anything other than a G-mail account to work with the iDrac alerts due to this. Dell maintains that the iDrac only supports INTERNAL SMTP servers. I find that silly given the trend to push mail servers into the cloud and offsite. But who am I?

It didn’t matter what was entered in the DNS DRAC Name field or Static DNS Domain Name field. It didn’t care – several techs online assumed that the info in these fields needed to be the same DNS info as entered in the E-mail Alert / SMTP fields (i.e. making the DRAC DNS name the prefixt of the e-mail address used for authentication and the domain name the same domain as the SMTP server.) It’s irrelevant as the ‘FROM’ mailbox is determined by the SMTP authentication account. You can have whatever you want in the DNS fields, but you need to have SOMETHING in there.

If you use smtp.gmail.com for your SMTP server, a valid username (without the @gmail.com - not necessary), a valid password and port 587, this works.

Also, make sure you have the Alerts ENABLED, and your TO/destination address filled in with the 'STATE' box checked. That tells the iDrac to use that mailbox for alerts. You can perform a successful test from that area.

Just noticed that alerts via G-mail as explained prior has stopped working. Interestingly, when I tried another G-mail account, it worked. I checked the original G-mail account settings and noticed G-mail has some sort of security check that flagged the account suspecting my iDrac 7 as being suspicious activity attempting to login to my account and blocked it. I attempted to adjust security settings to let less secure apps use the account and even tried to confirm the attempt was me. It still didn't work. Not sure how to work around yet. G-mail was the only account I could get to work with the iDrac 7 alerting without using an internal SMTP relay. Dell is ridiculous... I get enterprise level clients would have internal mail servers. I also get the purpose of the internal vs. external alerting for troubleshooting purposes. But darn it, if I want to do things this way, I should be able to after spending all that $$ on the darn card!! Additionally, e-mail is moving to the cloud as a general trend, and having an internal relay really isn't necessary. UPDATE DELL, please!

In case anyone else comes across this, it is much simpler to setup than previously stated in this thread. All you have to do is go to your Google account and create an app-password (one-time-use password for less secure apps) and use port 587, your gmail account username and the app-password. Note: Once you are shown the app password, you will not see it again after you leave the screen. It is available to view one time for security purposes. 

This setup worked for me:

Make sure you have the 'Less Secure Apps' setting set to allowed in gmail.

Make sure you have DNS servers set set in the iDrac Network Settings.

IMPORTANT: In the iDrac, under Connectivity->Network->Common Settings, SET THE STATIC DNS NAME TO YOUR DOMAIN NAME

In the iDrac SMTP settings, use smtp.gmail.com for the server, port 587, Authentication enabled, Username is your gmail email address, put in your gmail password, choose STARTTLS for encryption.