Cannot send email from NCM2

[Anonymous user]

I created an account on apc-forum.com to say thank you to the community for all of the helpful information you guys provide. What I have learned on here saved my butt recently and I am very thankful.

Now I turn to you guys with a question about something that I just cannot get working.

I have a SmartUPS 3000XL with an additional battery unit and an installed NMC2 running AOS 5.1.3, sumx 5.1.3 and bootmon 1.0.1. I recently purchased this card so that we could shut down multiple servers automatically incase of a long-term off-hours power failure.

I am trying to setup notifications, but no matter what way I have it setup the test messages always fail, notifications fail, and I see the same error message in the error log Email: Bad Parameter each time an email is attempted to be sent. DNS and DHCP info is all setup and working properly, the network can see the card and the card can see the network. I have 3 options for SMTP server:

1 local (on the same lan) Virtual SMTP server setup in IIS that does not require authentication (it was setup just for this sort of thing - emails from software/hardware that cannot send with high authentication)
1 Online exchange server that uses TLS (I know this is not going to work)
1 hosted linux smtp server that has basic authentication but is offsite.

I have tried all 3 options (all 3 are different domains) but still receive the same error in the log regardless of how things are setup. Any ideas? Any help is appreciated.

Jeff

[BillP]

hi jeff,

let's get you upgraded to SFSUMX515. you can find that under the [software and firmware version|http://www.apc.com/tools/download/] of our website. click on Firmware upgrades - network management card. it is the latest version of NMC2 firmware for smart ups. also, let's take a look here -> http://nam-en.apc.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/7957

generally, if you are on the same domain as the mail server, you should make sure you have an MX record on your DNS server and then use the Local email setting. if authentication is not configured, do not touch the authentication setting and just leave "user" in the username field. it also may be helpful to check any mail server logs you have on the mail server end if possible.

[Anonymous user]

Thanks for the quick reply. I will try the updated firmware and see if that changes anything. Will updating the firmware cause the UPS to power cycle at any point? I ask that because the UPS is hooked up to our server rack and I would need to schedule this off-hours is this is the case. (I don't think it will, but just want to make sure)

I do have an MX record setup in DNS and the DNS testing on the card sees that it is there. As far as mail logs go, there is nothing logged whenever I try a test, which to me shows that the issue is at the card and a message is not even being generated or sent. That was the confusing part.

Jeff

[BillP]

no, only the NMC reboots during the firmware upgrade of the NMC, not the UPS. no worries about your attached load.

does the NMC event log show anything, like cannot mail, etc? also, you can post your config.ini to review. [instructions here|http://nam-en.apc.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9321] for that].

[BillP]

hmm. did you download apc_hw05_aos515_sumx515.exe? if so, you can try the manual instructions for NMC2 listed [http://nam-en.apc.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/768].

[Anonymous user]

When I got a chance to check out, I found out that I had downloaded apc_hw05_aos515_sy515_bootmon102.exe. I went back to the apc site to download apc_hw05_aos515_sumx515.exe and could not find it - the download links for both Part#s SFSUMX515 and SFSY515 point to the bootmon102.exe file. I can't find the correct executable anywhere on the site.

[Anonymous user]

Ok, I did download the correct file then. We do have a SmartUPS. Now that I know I have the correct file, let me have a go at the manual install and I will let you know.

Thanks again for your help.

[BillP]

alrighty. any chance the FTP data port is blocked between the VMs and outside network or something?

[Anonymous user]

I dont believe I have have FTP blocked to the VM. Either way I was able to user another windows machine and am now updated to the latest firmware.

That being said, I am still having the same issue. When I go to send a test email, it fails and I see this line in the log:

06/03/2011 09:37:07 System: Email: Bad parameter.

I also noticed this error, which was not triggered by any action I took:

06/03/2011 09:25:37 System: File transfer failed.

This second error happens alot, and seems to happen every hour.

Message was edited by: jeffs3rd

[BillP]

are you using DHCP? based on your first post i believe that you are since you indicated you got DNS and DHCP info set up.

the file transfer failed usually means that something is trying to transfer a file via DHCP. [some DHCP options are mentioned here|http://nam-en.apc.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/8853]. there is one for boot file name where you can transfer a configuration file to the NMC during a DHCP or even a bootP request. this is generally what this message is related to. is something configured to do this within your network that can be trying to send a file to the NMC?

to properly troubleshoot the email thing not working, i feel like i will need to see your unedited config file. if you dont want to post it here, i can email you in order for you to send it over.

do you have local access to this card by the way? i have a few ideas so i am just wondering if we do a few of them if you will be able to configure the card locally. also, i'd like to have a good understanding of where the card is in relation to where these mail server options are which i am still a little bit fuzzy.

if it makes you feel better, i complained about email error messages so in our next major release, they will be making them a lot more useful.

[Anonymous user]

Thanks for the reply. Yes we are using DHCP. I checked out the dhcp server options and found a bootfile for a system we no longer used that may have been attempting to push a file from the server to the card. I removed that entry to see if that would resolve that error message.

If you could email me then I will gladly pull a new config file and send it to you.

As far as to the location of the email server, the one I mainly want to use is a virtual SMTP server setup in IIS on a machine in the same subnet as the nmc2 card. I have the option of using the smtp server of a hosted server that we lease - this server has basic password authentication that is not encrypted. I also have the option of using a hosted MS Exchange smtp server that uses TLS encryption. I setup the virtual smtp server locally to bypass this option, though, as most software packages related to a piece of hardware (like our phone system, for instance) does not allow sending email encrypted. So the local virtual smtp server has no encryption.

The problem is that there is nothing logged in the smtp server when I try a test email. Not so much as a connection attempt, which is why I think that there is something in the configuration of the card that it's not even attempting to send the test email as it's failing with some setting.

I do appreciate that you complained about the error logs in regards to email notifications. If I had a bit more info in the log (like, for instance, what parameter is bad) I might have been able to figure this out myself (then again, I might not have). Your assistance is much appreciated.

[Anonymous user]

I just checked the log and the file transfer failure message did not come up at the hourly time it was, so it looks like removing that DHCP server option did the trick.

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

Interesting observation. I tried running the firmware update exe file in a Windows XP VM (using Parallels in OSX) when I received the error message. When I tried the manual installation in that same VM it too failed trying to move the data file via FTP. When I ran the exe on an actual Windows XP machine, it ran the process just fine. Just thought you might want that info. I should have more on my other issue shortly once the firmware upgrade completes.