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Configuring your Centreon to send emails

For your Centreon to be able to send notification emails, you need to configure a local smtp server. If your operating system is RHEL, CentOS or Oracle Linux, Postfix is already installed.

This page gives you an example of a possible configuration. Refer to the official Postfix documentation for more information.

Notifications commands are executed by the poller that monitors the resource: you need to configure the mail relay on all pollers.

We recommend that you use a dedicated email account to send notifications.

Step 1: Configuring Postfix​

  1. In your server's terminal, enter the following command:

    yum -y install mailx cyrus-sasl-plain

  2. Restart Postfix: 

    systemctl restart postfix

  3. Configure Postfix to run at startup:

    systemctl enable postfix

  4. Edit the following file:

    vi /etc/postfix/main.cf

  5. Add the following information:

    myhostname = hostname
    relayhost = [smtp.isp.com]:port
    smtp_use_tls = yes
    smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
    smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
    smtp_tls_CAfile = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-bundle.crt
    smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
    smtp_sasl_tls_security_options = noanonymous
    • myhostname is the hostname of the Centreon server.
    • relayhost is the email server for the account that will send notifications.

    In the following example, Centreon will use a Gmail account to send notifications:

    myhostname = centreon-central
    relayhost = [smtp.gmail.com]:587
    smtp_use_tls = yes
    smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
    smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
    smtp_tls_CAfile = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-bundle.crt
    smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
    smtp_sasl_tls_security_options = noanonymous

Step 2: Configuring the credentials of the account that will send emails​

  1. Create a /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd file:

    touch /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd

  2. Add the following line (replace username:password by the credentials of the account that will send the notification emails):

    [smtp.isp.com]:port username:password

    Example:

    [smtp.gmail.com]:587 username@gmail.com:XXXXXXXX

  3. Save the file.

  4. In the terminal, enter the following command: 

    postmap /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd

  5. For security reasons, change the permissions on the file:

    chown root:postfix /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd*
    chmod 640 /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd*

  6. Reload Postfix so that chenges are taken into account:

    systemctl reload postfix

Testing and troubleshooting email configuration​

  • To send a test email, enter the following command:

    echo "Test" | mail -s "Test" user@isp.com

    Replace user@isp.com by a real email address: the recipient should receive the test email.

  • If the user hasn't received the message, check the following log file:

    tail -f /var/log/maillog

  • To check that your Postfix service is running, enter:

    systemctl status postfix

    The results should look like this:

    image

Gmail configuration​

If you want to send emails through a Gmail account, you will need to turn on the Allow less secure apps option on this account. See Less secure apps & your Google Account.