You must configure the email address of the sender account to usevCenter Server operations, such as sending email notifications as alarm actions. You can send email alerts and alarms using either anonymous or authentication mode.

Prerequisites

Required privilege: Global.Settings

SMTP authentication is available for:
  • vSphere 7.0 Update 1 and later versions only.
  • Office 365 mailbox users only.
  • SMTP mail sender should meet the basic requirements for SMTP Authentication as mentioned in Microsoft's document Requirement for SMTP AUTH client submission.

Procedure

  1. In the vSphere Client, navigate to the vCenter Server instance.
  2. Select the Configure tab.
  3. Under Settings, select General.
  4. Click Edit.
  5. Select Mail and enter the settings that vCenter Server uses to send email alerts.
  6. In Mail server text box, enter the SMTP server information.
    The SMTP server is the DNS name or IP address of the SMTP gateway to use for sending email messages.
    • For sending mails anonymously, you can enter any SMTP server information as the mail server name.
    • For SMTP authentication, you must enter the mail server name as smtp.office365.com, unless you have some customized configuration. Do not use IP address as mail server as IP address is not supported for SMTP authentication.
  7. In Mail sender text box, enter the sender account information.
    The sender account is the email address of the sender.
    For SMTP authentication, you must enter a valid SMTP account name in the Mail sender text box.
    Note: You must enter the full email address, including the domain name.

    For example, mail_server@example.com

  8. Click SAVE.
  9. This step is applicable only for SMTP authentication.
    You must configure the SMTP user settings as below:
    1. Select the Configure tab.
    2. Select Advanced Settings.
    3. Click EDIT SETTINGS and enter the following values for the configuration parameters:
      Name Value
      mail.smtp.username Valid SMTP account name.
      Note: This account name must be same as the account name provided in Mail sender text box for sending mails using SMTP authentication in Step 7.
      mail.smtp.password Valid SMTP account password.
      Note: Currently, the account password is not masked and is visible. You must use a dedicated SMTP mail user until the masking is available in upcoming releases.
      mail.smtp.port 587
    4. Click SAVE.

What to do next

You can perform the following steps to test the mail settings:
  1. Create an alarm that is triggered by a user action.

    For example, the user action can be powering off a virtual machine.

  2. Verify that you receive an email, when the alarm is triggered.