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Article Number: 000158055

NetWorker: How to troubleshoot failing email notifications

Summary: This article discusses how to troubleshoot issues related to NetWorker email notifications.

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Article Content

Instructions

Symptoms
Policy, Device, and/or client owner's notifications are not sent.
The command in the action field of the notification field is correct.

Cause
This could be due to lack of communication between backup server and mail server or due to permission issues at the operating system level.

Steps
NetWorker uses operating system mail commands: mailx (Linux) and smtpmail (Windows) to send standard output vial email. There is little NetWorker functionality involved in sending email messages other than indicating what conditions should be met in order to send an email, e.g: Backup completes/fails, device full, so forth
  1. Identify that you are using the correct mail server for your domain by running the following command from your NetWorker server (replacing domain.com with your domain name):
Linux:  
dig +short domain.com MX
Windows: 
nslookup
set q=mx
domain.com
NOTE: If you cannot query your mail server with this method, confirm the mail server address with your domain/mail admin.
  1. Ensure the NetWorker server can resolve the mail server and connect to the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) port (25) (replacing mailserver.domain.com with the mail server reported in step 1):
nsrports -t mailserver.domain.com -p 25
Run the operating system mail command from your NetWorker server to see if email messages can be sent outside of NetWorker (replacing recipient@domain.com with your email address):
Linux: 
echo "test email" | mail -s "test email" recipient@domain.com
Windows: 
echo "test email" | smtpmail -h mailhost_address -s "test email" recipient@domain.com 
NOTE: These commands send an email with the directory listing from where the command was run. These are non-NetWorker commands; see the mail This hyperlink is taking you to a website outside of Dell Technologies. and smtpmail This hyperlink is taking you to a website outside of Dell Technologies. man pages for more information.

Logs:

On Linux NetWorker servers, review the following logs and directories for additional insight on mail issues:
  • /var/log/maillog
General mail log file if a message was sent and accepted for delivery.
  • /var/spool/mqueue
Messages stuck in the mqueue are not being sent or accepted from the server. If email messages are being sent and delivered, the mqueue should be empty.

If the NetWorker server is Windows, the Exchange admin must review logs from the exchange side.

Conclusion:

Whether or not errors are identifiable from the NetWorker server the domain/mail admin must check the logs on the mail server for specific errors regarding the notifications. Once the mail commands are successful from the NetWorker server's command line, enter your operating system mail command and options in the wanted notification field. 
NetWorker: How To Configure Policy Email Notifications

Additional Information

 

Article Properties

Affected Product

NetWorker

Product

NetWorker

Last Published Date

15 Feb 2024

Version

5

Article Type

How To

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