Understanding email notifications for alerts
Updated: March 30, 2011
Applies To: Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials
Windows SBS 2011 Essentials monitors its own health status and the status of the computers in your network, and notifies you of issues or problems that related to computer backups, server storage, low disk space, and more. These issues are displayed as alerts in the Alert Viewer which can be launched from the server’s Dashboard or the client computer’s Launchpad. By default, the server evaluates health of the network every thirty minutes, and the alerts listed in the Alert Viewer are refreshed. Some of the network health evaluations are made programmatically.
In Windows SBS 2011 Essentials, you can configure your server to notify you about the occurrence of alerts via email. The email notifications for these alerts contain information about the network issues, along with its resolution steps identical to the information that is displayed in the Alert Viewer. When you configure your server to send alert notifications in mail, an email notification is sent for alerts that are found during the network health evaluation. However, not all alerts that are reported in the Alert Viewer are notified via email.
Every thirty minutes, the ‘Alert Email Evaluation’ task runs on the server that evaluates the network for alerts. An email notification is sent out if any alert that is set for email notification occurs. A second email will not be sent if the alert is still active within the next alerts evaluation cycle to avoid flooding your mailbox. However, if a new alert is detected within a future alert evaluation cycle, then an email notification will be sent that will include both the new and previous alerts.
This topic includes the following sections:
Alerts that result in email notifications
Configuring SMTP on your server to send alerts via email
Troubleshooting alert email notifications
Alerts that result in email notifications
The following alerts in the Alert Viewer result in email notifications when you set up your server to send email notifications for alerts:
The Internet domain name has expired.
The Internet domain name cannot be updated.
Errors exist in a client computer backup.
The server was restarted.
One or more services are not running.
The Windows Server Drive Extender service is not running.
Your evaluation period is over.
Activate now.
License Error: Forest Trust Check.
License Error: Domain Controller Check.
License Error: FSMO Role Check.
License Error: Enforcement FSMO Policies.
License Error: Enforcement Load Policies.
License Error: AD Error.
One or more hard drives in Server Backup are not connected.
Server Backup was not successful because there is not enough free space to contain the backed up data. You must replace the existing server backup hard drive or reduce the number of items to back up.
Server Backup was not successful because of insufficient memory.
A scheduled backup did not finish successfully.
A certificate is not available for Remote Web Access.
The certificate for Remote Web Access has expired.
The router is not configured correctly.
The server is not connected to the Internet. To access websites, you must ensure that the server is connected to the Internet.
Remote Desktop Services is not configured correctly. You must configure Remote Desktop Services to remotely connect to computers in the network.
The firewall is not configured correctly.
One or more hard drives in a storage pool are not working or are not connected.
One or more storage pools are offline.
Free space is low on the system hard drive of the server.
A problem occurred with the file system for one or more folders.
The default storage pool is locked in offline mode.
Configuring SMTP on your server to send alert notifications via email
This section discusses how to configure your server to send out email notifications for alerts.
To set up email notifications for alerts on the server
From the Dashboard, click the alerts to open the Alert Viewer.
In the Alert Viewer, click the Set up alert email notifications link.
In the Set up email notifications for alert window, click Enable.
In the SMTP Settings window, do the following:
For From email address, enter the email address that you want use for sending the email alerts from. This email address will be displayed as the sender’s address in the alert notification.
For SMTP server name, type the name of the SMTP server for the From email address that you have specified in step 4a. (Refer to table 1 below for a list of some of the SMTP server names).
For SMTP port, type port number used by the SMTP server to send and receive mail. (Refer to table 1 below to view the port numbers used by the some of the SMTP servers).
Select This server requires a secure connection (SSL), if the SMTP server uses SSL (see table 1).
Select This server requires authentication, if the SMTP server requires user name and password information (see table 1.). If selected, then type the user name and password of the email address that you entered in the From email address field in step 4a), and then click OK.
You can obtain the information about SMTP server name, port number, and SSL usage from your Internet Service provider.
Table 1 Examples of SMTP server names, authentication and SSL encryption requirements, and their port numbers.
| SMTP Server | SSL Required | Authentication Required | Port Number | Account Name/Login Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|
smtp.gmail.com |
Yes |
Yes |
587 |
Provide full email address with domain name and password for authentication. |
smtp.live.com |
Yes |
Yes |
587 |
Provide full email address with domain name and password for authentication. |
smtp.comcast.net |
Yes |
No |
587 |
Provide full email address with domain name and password for authentication. |
smtp.mail.yahoo.com |
No |
Yes |
25 |
Provide only the email address without domain name for user name. |
In Set up notification for alerts, for Email recipients, type the email addresses of the persons that you would like to receive alert notifications via email. Ensure that you separate each email address with a semi-colon (;).
To verify that you have configured your SMTP server settings correctly for sending email notifications for alerts, click Apply and send email.
Note
When you click Apply and send email, typically, you will receive a sample email notification with no health alerts listed in the body text of the email. However, if any health alert that is configured for sending email notifications is identified during this test mail process, then these alerts will be included in the test email.
Troubleshooting email notifications for alerts
This section lists various issues that you may encounter when using email notifications for alerts.
Cannot send the test email for the alert
Problem You get “Cannot send the test email for alert” error
Cause This error may occur due to any of the following reasons:
You have entered an incorrect SMTP server name.
You have entered an incorrect port number.
You have selected SSL incorrectly.
You have entered incorrect user name and password information.
Solution You can obtain the information about SMTP server name, port number, and SSL usage from your Internet Service provider. The table below lists some of the commonly used SMTP server names and their port numbers.
Table 1Examples of SMTP server names, authentication and SSL encryption requirements, and their port numbers.
| SMTP Server | SSL Required | Authentication Required | Port Number | Account Name/Login Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|
smtp.gmail.com |
Yes |
Yes |
587 |
Provide full email address with domain name and password for authentication. |
smtp.live.com |
Yes |
Yes |
587 |
Provide full email address with domain name and password for authentication. |
smtp.comcast.net |
Yes |
No |
587 |
Provide full email address with domain name and password for authentication. |
smtp.mail.yahoo.com |
No |
Yes |
25 |
Provide only the email address without domain name for user name. |
Note
You can also review the log files for email notifications for alert at c:\programdata\windows server\logs\Sharedservicehost-alertserviceconfig.
Test email notification does not list any alerts even though the Alert Viewer has alerts listed
Problem The test email notifications for alerts does not display any alerts even though there are alerts listed in the Alert Viewer.
Solution Not all alerts that are reported in the Alert Viewer are notified via email. Only the alerts that are configured to be escalated as an email notification within their health definition files are sent as emails to the specified email recipients.
When you click Apply and send email, typically, you will receive a sample email notification with no health alerts listed in the body text of the email. However, if any health alert that is configured for sending email notifications is identified during this test mail process, then these alerts will be included in the test email. For a list of alerts that result in email notifications, see the “Alerts that result in email notifications” earlier in this article.
Active alerts are still displayed for an uninstalled application
Problem Active alerts for an application are still being displayed even though the application and its health definition file have been uninstalled.
Solution You must manually delete the active alerts of the uninstalled application. To delete an alert, do the following:
To delete an alert from the server using the Dashboard
From the server, open the Dashboard.
On the navigation pane, click the any of the displayed alerts icon (critical, warning, and informational). This launches the Alert Viewer
In the Alert Viewer, select and right-click the alert that you want to delete, and then click Delete this alert.