Elk M1 email.. I give up

[SIMKO]

I have been trying to configure the email function of the Elk M1 for the last 2 hours now and have not had any luck.

I have the panel and software configured properly to communicate with it both inside the LAN and on the WAN with DDNS

I have made accounts with gmx.com and lavabit.com and have entered in their respective info into the RP software M1XEP setup about 100 times and send it to the M1EXP a 100 times.

I've run out of ideas, if anyone has any idea of what I might be doing wrong plese let me know.

When I tried GMX

mail.gmx.com
port 25
[email protected]
user- [email protected]


Lavabit Attempt #1

lavabit.com
port 25
[email protected]
user- [email protected]

Lavabit Attempt #2

lavabit.com
port 25
[email protected]
user- email

I also tried the following as I found it in an old cocoontech post

Lavabit Attempt #3

smtp.lavabit.com
port 25
[email protected]
user- [email protected]

 

[sanders2222]

I had tried to set up email in my M1G but after a couple of failed set-ups, I gave up. Plus, the ISY can exceed all email requirements and it's a lot easier to set up. You don't need to use the ELK email feature.

 

[kdub]

Your ISP may be blocking outgoing connections on port 25. A lot of ISPs do this in an attempt to reduce spam originating from their networks.

 

[chrisexv6]

I had tried to set up email in my M1G but after a couple of failed set-ups, I gave up. Plus, the ISY can exceed all email requirements and it's a lot easier to set up. You don't need to use the ELK email feature.

Will you buy me an ISY so I dont have to use the Elk M1 email setup?

 

[SIMKO]

Actually I do need the email feature to work. That was the whole point of getting a security system... So it could email/text me when there is an issue.

I guess I'll just randomly try some more things today and hope for the best.

 

[wuench]

Unfortunately SMTP has a mishmash of different security options built on top of it and the M1 (and a lot of clients) can't handle them all. If you need to use a secure SSL SMTP service you can pipe your traffic through stunnel on one of your machines. That's what I do. If I remember right it should work with gmail.

There should be a lot of threads around here on people troubleshooting their email with the M1, I am pretty sure you'll find some working examples in there.

 

[relay]

Did you disconnect from the panel to test?
I remember something about needed to be completely disconnected from the M1XEP AND from the M1 for the M1XEP to process anything else.
I needed to setup a rule that would send out an email every few minutes to test this.
Any connection to the panel or M1XEP will interfere.

 

[RobNJ]

You probably did this already, but since not stated wanted to point out.
1) You did reboot the XEP after updating the info?
2) You are pressing "test" and not "send" expecting an email correct? I know being a newbie when I was setting mine up I pressed send a couple times thinking it was "sending" the mail. Then I saw the "test" email button.

 

[happy_again]

FYI... I had trouble setting up my E-mail with my ISP and using port 25 with the Lavabit e-mail. Port 25 would not work!! Mine only works with port 587. I also port forwarded this port in my modem and router, but do not know if this is actually needed.

On the M1XEP Setup menu on the Email tab, I placed the IP address for lavabit, in the Server URL/IP Address entry, I currently use 72.249.41.52 I used the IP address because I was having issues with my DNS server. I also never got the E-mail to function using the "TEST" button on that tab, for whatever reason this has never worked, but my E-mail works great

I setup a rule to send an E-mail every 5 minutes. I sent the rule to the M1 control while connected via RP. I then went back to the Email tab of the M1XEP Setup. I verified the IP address, port, the username and password(which is case sensitive) for my lavabit account, entered in my lavabit Username as the "FROM" Email address, made sure the E-mail # that was selected in the 5 minute rule is setup with a valid E-mail address(I sent a text to my cell phone. If you are using AT&T as your cell phone provide enter your number ##########@txt.att.net) and put some sort of message in the message line for that E-mail.

I then sent this XEP setup to the M1 and had it reboot the XEP, which disconnects from the RP software in the process, grabbed a cup of coffee or beer (depending on the time of the day) and waited the 5 min. Believe me when I say, I lost a lot of sleep trying to get this to finally work, but (knock on wood) it still is working fine..

Hope this helps,

Frank

 

[ultrajones]

Make sure you use an IP address in the Server URL/IP Address field. It won't work using the fully qualified DNS name.

 

[SIMKO]

Thanks for the help everyone, I finally got it to work. I had two problems... My ISP must block port 25 also because I had to switch to port 587, but I also had to change the username to not include @lavabit.com. I had tried it without the @lavabit, but with the dozens of attempts I forgot to change it back.

It's working right now with lavabit.com as the mail server, but I may change it to the IP address just because everyone else seems to have better luck that way.

The 'test' button works great for me, but I think I might write a rule to email myself once a week. Hopefully this will count as my log-in so they don't cancel my acct after 120 days.

This process was much more frustrating than it needed to be.

Thanks again everyone for the help.

 

[happy_again]

Glad to see you're connected.

For what it is worth, I setup a rule to send an E-mail to one of my accounts every 24 hours, which I use as a 'heartbeat' telling me that the M1 is talking to the XEP and the XEP is still online. This activity through lavabit is enough to keep my lavabit E-mail account open without using it for any other function..

 

[video321]

I monitor via text as well so every morning @ 8AM I get a "Daily Test Email"

 

[apostolakisl]

I set mine to email every time the system is armed/disarmed.

It's a little hard to blame Elk for your ISP blocking port 25. But I agree, it can be frustrating. A little more documentation tuning people into these things is a must. But really I think they need to get SSL support. That would really fix things up.

 

[SIMKO]

I'm not blaming Elk, it was my own fault. It was just more frustrating than connecting to a mail server should have been.

It bothered me that I can connect my iPhone to a mail server in about 30 seconds but it took me 3 hours to figure out the same thing on the Elk.