SMTP Servers for Alerts

[Gongalong]

Hi folks,

 

(Applicable in various forums, but most applicable to Hardware I guess!)

 

What do you guys use for an SMTP server for hardware alerts from servers, UPS's and the like?

 

I have historically used the SMTP provided by Virgin Media Business, and I've also setup IIS on one of our VMs, but the former doesn't always work, and the latter of course is no use if the servers go offline.

 

I'm guessing there's no reliable free SMTP server, so are there any simple/foolproof paid servers?

 

Thanks

[Davit2005]

I use postfix at home for devices that I cannot configure to talk to external SMTP i.e. VMWare. Seems reliable enough, this then relays to external authenticated SMTP servers, then only issue I had was when using gmail as it blocked the postfix server and postfix could not accept the password with spaces.

[jthompson]

Similar here.

We use postfix running on a Ubuntu Server VM. Nice and lightweight. Obviously that relies on the VM running and having connectivity. We use G Suite Gmail, so postfix is just configured to relay mail to an SMTP relay service in G Suite. Where possible, onsite systems are configured to use Gmail via IMAP, but for things that can't for whatever reason, we point them to postfix.

To prevent abuse, postfix is configured to only relay mail from certain IP addresses/ranges.

[EddyAllen]

If you use Office365 I would suggest the following;

The easiest way I've found is to set up an SMTP relay using an O365 Connector. You will need a static IP and access to, or at least knowledge of, your DNS records for your public domain.

You want step 3 in the following article https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/mail-flow-best-practices/how-to-set-up-a-multifunction-device-or-application-to-send-email-using-office-3

 

After you have set that up you just set your SMTP server to your MX record. (Looks similar to the following "your-school.mail.protection.outlook.com")

Just leave the password blank and set the from address to whatever you want