WebSphere Application Server & Liberty

WebSphere Automation "How To" Series #6 : How to configure email server and email addresses for notifications

Previous blogs in this WebSphere Automation "How To" series :
WebSphere Automation "How To" Series #1 : How to get WebSphere Automation UI 
WebSphere Automation "How To" Series #2 : How to specify user roles and permissions 
WebSphere Automation "How To" Series #3 : How to configure WebSphere Automation with an Enterprise LDAP 
WebSphere Automation "How To" Series #4 : How to register WebSphere Application Server traditional servers using configuretWasUsageMetering.py script 
WebSphere Automation "How To" Series #5 : How to register WebSphere Liberty servers 


This post will focus on how to configure email server and email addresses for notifications.

To manage notification settings, you must have specified the 'WebSphere Automation Administrator' role. For more information on how to specify user roles and permission, you can refer back to WebSphere Automation "How To" Series #2 : How to specify user roles and permissions. 

You can view the Notification settings in the WebSphere Automation UI by navigating to Operate -> Application runtimes -> Notification settings. On the Notification setting page, you can identify a mail server and specify a list of email addresses to get notifications about server security issues or potential server health issues. Prior to setting up any mail server, the WebSphere Automation UI shows the following.


From this Notification Settings page, you can click the 'Set mail server' button which takes you to the following page to set up a connection to an existing mail server to enable email notifications.


You will need to enter your information for the following fields with example values shown below :
Email server settings
---------------------
- SMTP server : XXX.ibm.com
- SMTP port : 465
- Sender email address : USER@XXX.ibm.com

SMTP server credentials
-----------------------
- Username : USER
- Password : PASSWORD
- Certificate :
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ
KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
-----END CERTIFICATE-----


After clicking 'Save', the Notification settings page now displays the email server information. Here is the WebSphere Automation UI screenshot showing the Notification settings.


The next and final step is to add an email address to receive notifications. Click on the 'Email addresses' tab, which initially shows the following :


After clicking the 'Add' button, you can input the first email address and click 'Save' button. If you wish to add more than one email address for notifications, just click the 'Add' button multiple times. The following is the WebSphere Automation UI screenshot showing 'Email addresses' tab after clicking the 'Add' button twice.


Now that you have configured the email server and the desired email addresses, you will get email notifications about server security issues or potential server health problems. As an example, if a new CVE is detected or a new server with an unresolved CVE is registered, then an email will be received at the email address specified above. For this example, we don't currently have any servers registered. Here is the WebSphere Automation UI screenshot showing the Application runtimes -> Security page.


After registering a v21.0.0.12 Liberty server with jaxws-2.2 feature enabled, the WebSphere Automation UI screenshot shows the registration.


Since this newly registered Liberty server has an unresolved CVE, the user will get an email notification. The subject of the email is "Vulnerability update from WebSphere Automation" with the contents as shown in the following screenshot.


You can find more IBM Docs related to WebSphere Automation at https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/ws-automation and configuration notifications at https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/ws-automation?topic=automation-configuring-notifications.
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