FreeNAS 8.0 email notification how-to

[binarypower]

Ok, so I searched everywhere and had a lot of stumbles... but I missed the basic network config on my FreeNAS which prevented the email notifications from being sent out. I thought this would be a handy guide for those having the same problems.

Firstly, if you do a default setup, you can get everything to work even without a default route or dns entries being set. This is what noob-me did.... ive seen others with this same error too, with no resolution.

I was getting errno 8 'no route' and 61 'connection refused'

Some basics you wanna check (and yes i know this is the basic noob level stuff.... i just plain overlooked them myself):

Network > Global Configuration > IPv4 Default Gateway. Should be your gateway... somehow everything can work without it. It did for me, except the email.

Network > Global Configuration > Nameserver 1-3 DNS address, you can put your default gateway or just enter your favorite dns provider (like Google 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4).

Back in System > Reporting > Email, for gmail make sure 'smtp.gmail.com' is used even if you have Google Hosted.

Check 'Use SMTP Authentication'

The username is username@domain.com for hosted or username@gmail.com for gmail (its important that you use @gmail.com)

Use SSL on port 465 for any gmail. I couldnt get TLS on port 587 to work for whatever reason.

Next, to actually get the email sent to the correct address (this was a real brain teaser)... go to Account > My Account > Change Admin User, update the email here then click "Change admin user". Why that is there, I'll never know. The UI could definitely be improved here.

PS - is there a page that shows the error numbers (errno x) for freenas?

 

[TravisT]

Good thread. I was trying to figure out where the "To" email was on the email setup. Your post helped me out.

Just FYI, you don't need a default gateway as long as everything is communicating on the same LAN/network/subnet. The box will use the MAC addresses to communicate within the same subnet. This is how most people use FreeNAS, so you would not HAVE to have that set. As soon as you try to connect to something outside of your subnet (i.e. gmail's mail server), it won't work without a default gateway. This applies to any devices that is networked via IP.

 

[pauldonovan]

I'm using by own build of svn r6767 and can't get SSL/465 working via smtp.gmail.com. The error appears to be something coming back from the depths of openssl code and implies the SSL handshaking isn't working. I've managed to get TLS/587 working via smtp.mac.com.

TLS didn't work with gmail unless I removed 'tls_starttls on' from /usr/local/etc/msmtprc by hand after the GUI wrote it out. The docs on msmtp say that STARTTLS can cause issues with some SMTP servers, so I wonder if the GUI should have a way of controlling STARTTLS. Currently it's always set to 'on' if authentication isn't plain.

However, other than clicking the 'Send test email' button I'm not receiving emails from FreeNAS and I'm not sure if that's correct. Does anyone know a list of the circumstances FreeNAS will send an admin email? I don't have a UPS, but I do have a couple of Short Test smart tests scheduled every night. I presume they only email if there's a problem?

Paul

 

[Dark_Wizard]

Next, to actually get the email sent to the correct address (this was a real brain teaser)... go to Account > My Account > Change Admin User, update the email here then click "Change admin user". Why that is there, I'll never know. The UI could definitely be improved here.

They changed this as of Beta3, you can now find it at > Account > Users > View All Users > Root "Change Email"

 

[ProtoSD]

I didn't see your post here, so I did another one with a script to check the disks. It has some of the same info you posted, but with some screen shots etc. Here's the link in case anyone wants to go a little deeper:
Setup-Email-notifications-for-disk-failures