Lifecycle Manager - email settings

[Raudi]

Hi,

i'm i little bit confused about this behavior.

In the Lifecycle Manager i have entered my email address to get notifications when new patches are available and in the vCenter configration i have entered my internal smtp server.

But now i noticed on my external messaging gateway that the vcenter connects that gateway to send me that notification mail.

From where is he getting that ip/name from?

Do the Lifecycle Manager ask the mx record to deliver emails? Why isn't he using the configured mail host?

Kind regards

Stefan

[Lalegre]

Hey Raudi​,

Did you configure the Mail Settings on vCenter Server first as mentioned in this link right?: Configure Mail Sender Settings

To test if this is happening for all the action you can also configure a test alarm to check if that happens also. If the behaviour is the same you will need to check your SMTP configuration.

Also when you test the alarm login into the vCenter Server Appliance using SSH and run the next command: watch netstat -puntal | grep 25. Running that command you will found the IP that vCenter is connecting to over SMTP Port. (Take into account that i wrote 25 because is the default one but change it for the one you are actually using)

[Raudi]

O.k. i tested with a alarm and the same (i removed IP and domain infos):

Received: from srv04 by srv04 with Microsoft SMTP Server id 15.2.659.4 via Mailbox Transport; Sat, 22 Aug 2020 16:51:45 +0200

Received: from srv04.raudonis.local by srv04.raudonis.local with Microsoft SMTP Server id 15.2.659.4; Sat, 22 Aug 2020 16:51:44 +0200

Received: from smtp by srv04 with Microsoft SMTP Server via Frontend Transport; Sat, 22 Aug 2020 16:51:44 +0200

Received: from smtp by IMSVA (Postfix) with ESMTP id C979111C073 for <stefan>; Sat, 22 Aug 2020 16:51:44 +0200 (CEST)

Received: from smtp by IMSVA (Postfix) with ESMTP id B959C11C070 for <stefan>; Sat, 22 Aug 2020 16:51:44 +0200 (CEST)

Received: from srv10 by smtp (Postfix) with ESMTPS for <stefan>; Sat, 22 Aug 2020 16:51:44 +0200 (CEST)

Received: from srv10 by srv10 (8.15.2/8.15.2) with ESMTPS id 07MEpi7D026637 for <stefan>; Sat, 22 Aug 2020 16:51:44 +0200

Received: (from root@localhost) by srv10 (8.15.2/8.15.2/Submit) id 07MEpiwi026635; Sat, 22 Aug 2020 16:51:44 +0200

srv10 is my VCSA, smtp is the external mail gateway and srv04 is the internal exchange server.

In the global vCenter config i used mail and mail is a alias for srv04. When i ping on the VCSA for mail i got a answer from srv04.

The command you wrote shows nothing.

So i made a little bit more research, searched for "smtp" in the logs an found something in the /var/log/vmware/dnsmasq.log file:

Aug 22 16:51:33 dnsmasq[1272]: query[MX] mydomain.de from 127.0.0.1

Aug 22 16:51:33 dnsmasq[1272]: forwarded mydomain.de to 192.168.99.11

Aug 22 16:51:33 dnsmasq[1272]: query[A] smtp.mydomain.de from 127.0.0.1

Aug 22 16:51:33 dnsmasq[1272]: forwarded smtp.mydomain.de to 192.168.99.11

Aug 22 16:51:33 dnsmasq[1272]: reply smtp.mydomain.de is 1xx.1xx.2xx.81

The VCSA is doing a MX query! the .99.11 is my internal configured DNS server...

So why is the VCSA ignoring the configured SMTP server? Is this a bug in the VCSA 7.0?

When i query that setting in PowerCLI i get:

PS U:\> Get-AdvancedSetting -Entity srv10.mydomain.local -Name mail.smtp.server

Name                 Value                Type                 Description

----                 -----                ----                 -----------

mail.smtp.server     mail.mydomain.local  VIServer             SMTP server

[Raudi]

Ok, this is normal: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2124423

[Raudi]

Oh, that was a KB for a SLES based VCSA, but here is a discussion about this problem: Re: VCSA 6 Email alerts not working

Can't believe that this is in 7.0 still a Problem...