Is there some way to configure HP Power Manager to not assume that there's an email server running locally?
We recently acquired an HP T1500 G3 UPS, which we're trying to control using HP Power Manager 4.2. The main reason we wanted to get this particular UPS is because it says it's capable of sending notifications (of the "Yo, the power's out, you may want to look into it" type) via email, as opposed to SNMP. Turns out, that's not entirely true.
The server is running Windows Server 2003. It is not running an email server of any sort – we do that via two different providers. Outlook email is provided by Verizon (not Exchange Server, just the outgoing and incoming email that ends up in Outlook), and our SMTP email service is provided by a small local company (i.e. a guy running an SMTP server on one of computers, for which we have a server name and password).[1]
When we use CDO to send auto-generated notification emails, we have to provide the SMTP server name, port, username, and password. The HP Power Manager interface only allows us to enter the server name and the username. Thus, not surprisingly, the emails never go anywhere.
Help?
[1] I'm afraid all this email and server stuff is pretty far above my head. If these details aren't sufficient, I'm not sure what to do.
Best Answer
It isn't uncommon for applications to only support a server name and nothing else. These apps just don't support authenticating before they send. Nothing about that requires you to run your own mail server locally - it just means you need to list a mail server that will accept the mail without first authenticating. There are 2 ways to achieve that:
If the name of the mail server you give it is the mail server that hosts your mailboxes (Verizon, in your case) and the UPS alerts are only going to your mailboxes, you can list that server without even asking Verizon first. Their system will always receive mail for your email addresses so that will work.
If you supply a different mail server that isn't configured to host mail for your email addresses, that server will usually reject the mail unless you authenticate first. BUT, you can often convince the company to allow a specific IP address to relay through them. It sounds like this would be the likely option for the local company you use. They may or may not offer that service. Note that you would be able to give them a specific external IP address that all of the mail would be coming from which could get tricky if that box the UPS software runs on isn't already connected to the internet.
Really, #1 is by far the easiest solution. Good luck!