Can we monitor Internet access and External EMail flow

NPM V10 & SAM V5

Is there an easy way to simply monitor Internet access and external email flow both incoming and outgoing? I'd like to create a bespoke view so that i can publish it on my internal Sharepoint site so that users can immediately see the status of key components. I need it to be simplistic enough for users to understand E G Internet Up/Down! External Mail incoming Up/Down etc.

For the Internet I wouldn't want to simply monitor the external interface on our Firewall because there are many more components involved such as ADSL Line, ISP, DNS etc. If I could monitor a relatively reliable website such as www.BBC.co.uk (I realise IF the BBC goes pear shaped then I get a false result).

For External email can I send and receive to and from an external site and monitor the result.

Any advice would be greatly apreciated.

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aLTeReGo

What you're looking to accomplish is fairly straightforward to setup and is pretty typical of many other users of SAM. For incoming mail I would recommend setting up a standard MAPI User Experience monitor (provided you're running exchange) and configure the outbound SMTP server to use Gmail or another externally hosted SMTP server. Note: Gmail SMTP settings are "smtp.gmail.com" on port 468 using TLS or SSL encryption. The email will be sent from SAM to Gmail and delivered to your Exchange server where it's then verified by SAM that it was received.

You can do this same thing in reverse for outgoing mail. Setup a simple IMAP4 User Experience Monitor using your own Mail server as the outgoing SMTP server to send to Gmail or other free external email service. SAM will then check Gmail to ensure the message was received. Note: Gmail IMAP settings are "imap.gmail.com" Port 993, with SSL encryption enabled.

If you want to monitor an external website to verify the internet is up that's pretty easy to do as well. First create an external node for this host, such as www.google.com, then apply an HTTP User Experience Monitor to this node. You can do something similar for monitoring an upstream DNS server using the DNS User Experience Monitor.

supersub

Hi aLTeReGo thanks for the reply sorry but I'm struggling to configure. I need a bit more meat on the bones if you could assist.

Setting up MAPI User Experience Monitor.

Which Node am I supposed to be monitoring? My Solar Winds Server or my exchange server? Eg Is the MAPI UEM sending from Solar Winds Server Outlook Client on behalf of the Gmail account and then checking with Exchange that the email has arrived in the chosen Domain Users Mailbox? How do i set up the MAPI client? I've got a gmail account and have Outlook installed on the Solar Winds server which is pointing to the Gmail Account

Credentials for Monitoring; Is this the current Windows credentials for Monitoring or does it affect how the mail is authenticated with Gmail?

Send Mail From - I assume this is the Gmail Account

Send Mail to - A chosen Mailbox on my Company Exchnage Server Domain?

Mapi Profile - I assume this is a cosmetic field and can be called anything?

SMTP Server - The address of Goggle Mail SMTP Server or the Address of My Exchange Server?

SMTP Port - You mentioned Port 468 or Port 25

Use Credentials for SMTP - What Credentials? Where?

SMTP Encryption - TLS

If I set SMTPm Port 25 when I Test i get the following error:

Unhandled exception occured during posting test e-mail. Original Exception

message is: The server has rejected authentication data sent by the client. The

server responded: 535-5.7.1 Username and Password not accepted. Learn more

at..

The server has rejected authentication data sent by the client. The

server responded: 535-5.7.1 Username and Password not accepted. Learn more at.

However SMTP Port 468 gets the following error;

Unhandled exception occured during posting test e-mail. Original Exception

message is: Socket connection has timed out. InnerException message follows: A

connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond

after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host

has failed to respond 173.194.78.108:468.

Socket connection has timed out.

InnerException message follows: A connection attempt failed because the

connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established

connection failed because connected host has failed to respond

173.194.78.108:468

I can't believe the process is so convoluted. I have to say the Official Solar Winds Help article is next to useless! There is little or no meaningful explanation about each configuration setting.

Help!

Cheers

paulbr

I'm also a little confused on the proper settings for the MAPI User Experience Monitor so any clarifications would be most helpful. For instance, you mention configuring Gmail as the outbound SMTP server so you would need to enter your Gmail credentials to use for authentication. However, when checking the option "Use Credentials for SMTP" it uses the same credentials supplied in "Credential for Monitoring" which according to the help guide needs to have login rights to the SAM server as well as an Exchange mailbox. I get different errors depending on which set of credentials are used but the monitor never works. Is it possible to configure the MAPI monitor to use a different set of external and internal credentials?

aLTeReGo

I'm also a little confused on the proper settings for the MAPI User Experience Monitor so any clarifications would be most helpful.

Have you looked over the our MAPI Technical Reference Guide?

For instance, you mention configuring Gmail as the outbound SMTP server so you would need to enter your Gmail credentials to use for authentication. However, when checking the option "Use Credentials for SMTP" it uses the same credentials supplied in "Credential for Monitoring" which according to the help guide needs to have login rights to the SAM server as well as an Exchange mailbox. I get different errors depending on which set of credentials are used but the monitor never works. Is it possible to configure the MAPI monitor to use a different set of external and internal credentials?

Currently it's not possible to use different incoming/outgoing credentials for the MAPI User Experience Monitor. For situations such as this I generally create a dedicated Gmail and Exchange accounts for the sole purpose of monitoring, which use the same username/password. For example Username=mymonitor678909 Password=myemai1pa55w0rd

supersub

Hi thanks for the MAPI Technical Reference Guide, that Document is certainly more informative than the Help article! However I'm still a little confused about how many user credentials I have to set up.

Are we saying that I create all of the following with the SAME credentials?

1. Local User on Server Hosting SAM and MAPI Client (and does this need to have Local Admin rights?)

2. User Account in Solar Winds for the Monitor (not sure this is needed)?

3. External Gmail Account

4. Exchange Mailbox Account

If I'm correct in my understanding In simple terms we are; Logging onto the Server hosting the MAPI client, asking it to send an email FROM Gmail to an Exchange Mailbox and then asking the MAPI User Experience Monitor to look at the Exchange Mailbox.

Sorry it really isn't sinking in