Setting up email as an event

This topic describes how you can set up and convert an unread email from the email server to an event.  

The BMC ProactiveNet Server connects to the email server periodically using the configured credentials to retrieve unread emails. These unread emails are then converted into events. The subject of the email received is updated in the Message slot of the event and the content of the email is updated in the Notes slot of the event.

Only an email in plain text format or HTML format can be set as an event. For email in HTML format, only the content is extracted and the tags are removed. If an email has both plain text and HTML formats, then the text of the content that appears first in the email is converted as an event.

The severity of the event is determined from the content of the email,  if it has any of  the following keywords:

• State: <severity> 
• Severity: <severity>

If both the keywords are missing, then the default configured severity value, INFO is used. The following severity values are also supported:

• OK
• MINOR
• MAJOR
• CRITICAL
• WARNING

Only unread emails that are in the configured folder of the email server are read. By default, only emails in the Inbox folder are configured in the pronet.conf property file. The following properties can be configured in the pronet.conf property file:

pronet.email2event.mailserver.fqdn=<email server>
Example: pronet.email2event.mailserver.fqdn=webmail.bmc.com

pronet.email2event.mailserver.port=143

pronet.email2event.protocol=imap

pronet.email2event.mailserver.username=<user name>
Example: pronet.email2event.mailserver.username=admin

pronet.email2event.mailserver.password=<encrypyted password>
Example: pronet.email2event.mailserver.password=f39/f39/f39/fwAAAAhR24CYnPkOfQAAAAimhWFrWlxR2gAAABRshU+jLugl4q2TVChVh2ZqKUojUg==

pronet.email2event.folder=inbox
 
pronet.email2event.delete.read.messages=true

pronet.email2event.mailbox.scan.frequency.mins=5

pronet.email2event.enabled=false

pronet.email2event.default.severity=INFO

You can enable this feature by setting the following property value in the pronet.conf property file to "true". By default, this value is set to "false":

pronet.email2event.enabled=true

You can create a folder in the email server and configure rules to direct the email to this folder. To convert unread email in the folder to events, you must configure the folder name in the pronet.conf property file:

pronet.email2event.folder=<unread email folder>

By default, the ProactiveNet Server scans the mail box in every 5 minutes. Emails that are already read, or are in draft or deleted modes are not considered.

Emails, which are already read by the server are marked as "seen" and are deleted from the email server. You can prevent the email from being deleted by disabling the configuration in the pronet.conf property file:

pronet.email2event.delete.read.messages=false

All other Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) content such as attachments, images, and so on are ignored.

Configuring an email as an event

You can configure an email as an event through the command line interface by running the  pw email2event command:

pw email2event

usage:
  pw email2event [-y]|[-c]|[-s]|[-e]

The following table lists the parameters available in the pw email2event command :

-y

-c

-e

Example

1. Run the following command to encrypt the password:
   pw email2event -y
   The encrypted password is automatically copied to the clipboard. Remove any new line character from the generated password before setting it in the pronet.email2event.mailserver.password property.

2. Open the pronet.conf file and configure the following properties. Examples provided below:

   pronet.email2event.mailserver.fqdn=webmail.bmc.com

   pronet.email2event.mailserver.username=admin

   pronet.email2event.mailserver.password=f39/f39/f39/fwAAAAhR24CYnPkOfQAAAAimhWFrWlxR2gAAABRshU+jLugl4q2TVChVh2ZqKUojUg==

   pronet.email2event.delete.read.messages=false

   pronet.email2event.mailbox.scan.frequency.mins=5

   pronet.email2event.enabled=true

3. Restart the server:
   pw sys start

Limitations

• Only IMAP and POP3 protocols are supported.
• IMAP and POP3 protocols over SSL or TLS is not supported (IMAP4: port 993 and POP3: port 995)
• There is no proxy support in connecting to the email server.
• Only user name and password based authentication is supported. Any authentication with encryption, such as NTLM, is not supported.
• The configured user account must have read and write permission for the configured folder.
• Email servers with HTTP access are not supported.
• The cell process must be running to create events.
• Events that are created are assigned a priority of 5.