NOTICE: Maileater having issues connecting to Office 365

[Alexander Perretti]

This is a notice to inform the Communities that we are aware of a problem in relation to Maileater's connectivity to Microsoft Office 365. It appears that a change has occurred in relation to the SSL certificates used for Office 365 that went into place during this past weekend that now prevents Service Desk Manager's Maileater process from being able to connect which will prevent Maileater from being able to function.

 

We are currently working with Microsoft to determine a solution to this issue, and are also in process testing possible workarounds. I'm sorry to state that information is still limited at this time, but as we have more information it will be posted to this thread.

[System]

Thanks for alerting the community Alex!

NOTICE: Maileater having issues connecting to Office 365 

[John Vasquez]

Good afternoon, any update on this issue?

Regards,

JOHN

[Alexander Perretti]

John,

 

We are in process of documenting a procedure to use a 3rd party tool, "stunnel" to provide a workaround to allow Maileater to communicate to Office 365. Once completed the documents will be posted to this thread. I'm sorry for the delay, but we want to make sure that we're able to validate the information as much as we can prior to posting it.

[herku02]

We were able to work with one client experiencing this issue to confirm a workaround which is documented below. We will also continue to provide updates as we receive feedback from Microsoft to work towards a more permanent solution.

 

WORKAROUND:

 

1. Download stunnel, a third-party tool, from the below URL (Our internal test was using stunnel-5.38-installer.exe)

 

stunnel: Downloads 

 

2. Download the stunnel.conf file attached to this post

3. Copy the executable to the Service Desk server that the  pdm_maileater_nxd.exe process is running on and run the installer

4. The installer will prompt you for information to create a certificate, please provide the relevant information and use the Fully Qualified Domain Name

5. When the installer completes leave the option unchecked to start stunnel and close the installer window

6. Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\stunnel\config or the same folder on the directory where stunnel was installed

7. Rename the existing stunnel.conf file as a backup and copy the file downloaded from this post to the directory

8. Run the stunnel GUI Start program to open the stunnel interface (located in the start menu)

9. From the interface select Configuration>Reload Configuration

10. Now log into the Service Desk web interface and access one of your mailboxes (Administration>Email>Mailboxes)

11. Take a screenshot of the Mailbox Detail so the options configured are backed up

12. Configure the mailbox settings to match the below screenshot, entering your username and password for the Office 365 account used by maileater (NOTE: The settings that must match are Email Type, Hostname, Port Override, Security Level, Use TLS and CA Certificate Path which is blank, all other options may be left as desired):

 

13. Save the changes made repeat steps 10-12 for all mailboxes needed using the appropriate User Name and Password for the mailbox 

 

If the mailbox does not begin to process mail, try killing the pdm_maileater_nxd process in task manager on the Service Desk server. The process will start right back up or may be started by running pdm_d_refresh from an administrator command prompt.

 

Regards,

Kurt

Attachment(s)

stunnel.conf.zip   1 KB 1 version

[J W]

Thanks, Kurt.

 

Unfortunately, this is not working for us.  SDM 14.1.03.  The stunnel logs shows successful connections but stdlog is showing bad username or password (this is unchanged in the mailbox and confirmed valid via OWA).

 

I'm not sure if the stunnel.pem is correct.  I entered "." for all values except the FQDN of the SDM server running pdm_maileater.nxd.  Are there any other guidelines from other users with the workaround in place?

 

J.W.

[herku02]

When I confirmed this workaround locally I too saw an error in the stdlogs, after setting up stunnel, stating that the username or password was incorrect. I assumed I made a mistake entering it and retyped the password in the Mailbox Detail and then I believe I killed pdm_maileater_nxd again. I noticed you said the credentials were unchanged on the Mailbox Detail, which would make sense as there wasn't a need to update/modify those fields, but if you haven't tried already I would suggest re-entering the password and if that doesn't kick things off try killing the pdm_maileater_nxd process again. Maybe it is just a coincidence that I saw this error and I did in fact mistype the password initially, but it's worth trying. I'll try to validate the workaround locally again in a different environment, but I can confirm it is working in one local environment and one client's environment at this time.

 

Regards,

Kurt

[Paul Coccimiglio]

I have received confirmation from another client that the STunnel workaround is working in their environment.

[J W]

Kurt,

Thanks for the tip but it had no effect.  I went so far as to do a complete services restart after updating the password field.

 

I already have a support case open (00631329).  I will post logs and configuration files there for follow up.

 

J.W.

[John Vasquez]

Working for POP3. thanks but, Please your help with SMTP outgoing configuration too. What changes should be applied to .conf file in order to allow send notifications via SMTP.

 

Regards,

JOHN

[Kosei Oshita]

Hi Alex

 

Is this helpful?

 

Title : Connecting Maileater to Office 365 Mail

https://www.ca.com/us/services-support/ca-support/ca-support-online/knowledge-base-articles.tec1911912.html 

 

Best regards, Kosei

[Alexander Perretti]

Kosei,

 

These are the same steps that many were using that now no longer work. There's something else that changed that is being investigated.

[Legacy User]

We were able to get our maileater working again after following the steps outlined above. Thanks for the workaround!

[Jon_Israel]

Stay tuned ALL - more news to come shortly.  Some progress has been made!!  We are doing some testing in-house now.    Thanks to Anthony_L, herku02  and perbr08 - Three GREAT guys on my team here!!!  KUDOS to Anthony, Kurt and Brandon!!

[Legacy User]

We were able to create a permanent solution for this issue. Although STunnel has proved to be a valid work around, our solution is much easier/cleaner and won't require you to install/configure/run any other tools. We ask anyone facing this issue to open a support case and request the fix for it. Existing cases will be provided with the fix, as we have informed engineers globally of our permanent solution and they will be able to assist you going forward. Thanks for your patience during this entire process!