happy_again
Member
Listed below are some of the steps that I used to get my Elk-M1XEP E-mail to function properly. There was a lot of trial and error which I have not listed here. As a starting point, I will have to assume that you can communicate to the M1 via RP2 through the XEP; you have a functioning LAN; you have already setup a Dynamic DNS service and have entered this all into the M1.
I started with a new brand M1 system and XEP straight out of the box. I tried to capture most of the steps I followed. Hopefully, this can help someone get their E-mail working a lot quicker than it took me, and maybe with a little less hair pulling too!! I spent a lot of time going through this forum together with the M1 Owner forum looking for information leading to an answer. I was lucky that George informed me about the Lavabit mail server. Elk tech support was very helpful too.
First of all, my ISP is TDS Telecom, a DSL internet connection going through an Actiontec DSL modem connected to a Belkin router. Both of these were setup using the default setups. The only changes were the manual entry of the DNS servers and the port forwarding. I created a free account with dyndns.com to handle any IP address changes due to my ISP DHCP in place. I placed that information in the Dynamic DNS tab of the M1 XEP setup. My ISP blocks port 25 as do others. I port forwarded 26, 80, 2362 and 2601 in both the modem and router. I did not port forward 21 which is used for the XEP firmware updates. I figured I’d do these updates locally through my LAN. I also left both firewalls enabled(in modem and router) without any issues.
My router assigned the XEP an address and I used that address in the ‘Use a Static IP Address’ area of the TCP/IP Settings tab of the XEP within the Elk RP2 software. I used the Subnet Mask and Default Gateway as listed on the router configuration. I found the DNS servers used by my ISP from a search on Google and placed these in the space for the Static Primary and Secondary DNS servers. In my case, I brought both the M1 & XEP up to the latest bootware & firmware configurations:
M1 Bootware Ver. 3.3.6
M1 Firmware Ver. 5.2.2
XEP Bootware Ver. 1.2.0
XEP Firmware Ver. 1.3.24
I had read in these forums that many people have had success using the GMX E-mail server with the M1. The GMX setup within the XEP didn’t work for me, even though I could repeatedly TELNET E-mails to many addresses through the GMX E-mail server. This even had Elk tech support scratching their heads. You might save yourself some time and frustration(and hair pulling), and get a free E-mail account setup with Lavabit.com, but I am not promoting lavabit either, use what you want, as long as the E-mail server is non-encrypted. Unfortunately, there are not many of these services left.
On the E-mail tab of the XEP you can list the URL or IP address of your mail server. I would recommend listing the IP address of your mail server instead of the URL here, to alleviate any DNS server address issues.
Lavabit mail server is accessed through:
smtp.lavabit.com at IP address: 72.249.41.52 through ports 25, 587, 2525 or 3535
or smtp over SSL via port 465
If you want to try GMX, feel free to give it a shot.
The GMX mail server is accessed through:
mail.gmx.com at IP address: 74.208.5.67 through port 25, 465 or 587
Here is a link for a ‘open port tool’ to test if your LAN has certain ports open:
http://www.dyndns.com/support/tools/openport.html
If you are trying to use a different mail server, you can use the ‘nslookup’ command within a CMD dos box to find out the IP address of your specific mail server by using a computer connected to your LAN.
Use the steps below to find out the IP Address of the mail server URL name you plan on using. Apostrophes indicate characters entered by you, do not type in any apostrophes.
Open a DOS Box using cmd
Click on START, then RUN and type in ‘cmd’ on the command line
Use nslookup command to find the IP address for any URL name.
C:\Documents and Settings\user name>’nslookup’
Default Server: your computers server name is listed here
Address: your computers current address is listed here
> ‘smtp.lavabit.com’ enter in your mail servers URL name then press the ENTER key
Server: your computers server name is listed here
Address: your computers current address is listed here
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: smtp.lavabit.com
Address: 72.249.41.52
>’exit’ Enter in the EXIT command to return to your C- prompt then press the ENTER key
C:\Documents and Settings\user name>’exit’ Enter in the EXIT command to close the DOS Box then press the ENTER key
Once you know the IP address of your mail server, you can use the TELNET command to check if the port is open when connected with a computer to your Local Area Network(LAN) or you can use the Open Port Tool listed in the link above..
Open a DOS Box using cmd
Click on START, then RUN and type in ‘cmd’ on the command line
Use telnet command with a specific IP address and port # to find out if your LAN is open out to the internet through your modem and router configurations.
C:\Documents and Settings\user name>’telnet 72.249.41.52 587’
Connecting to 74.249.41.52…
If you get a response of:
…Could not open connection to the host, on port 587: Connect Failed
the IP address/port combination you tried to connect to was not open to telnet. You may need to use a different port for your mail server.
If you get a response of:
220 lavabit.com ESMTP lavad
You have successfully connected via telnet through the open port into the mail server.
>’exit’ type in exit then press the enter key to end the telnet session and repeat this to exit the DOS box.
Elk tech support recommended to me NOT to use the TEST button within the E-mail tab of the XEP Setup window, but to setup a rule in RP2 to have the M1 send an E-mail every 5 minutes, send it to the XEP and reboot the XEP, then disconnect all remote connections to the M1 and see if it works.
Start RP2, open the XEP Setup window and on the E-mail tab enter in the IP address of your mail server; “FROM” email address of your mail server; Username: [email protected]; Password: your password
Also enter in at least one Email address with a unique message into the spaces on the XEP Email tab, then Close the XEP Setup window.
Create a new rule to send an E-mail message very 5 minutes
Open the Automation folder and select the word “Rules”
Select New
Select Whenever
Select Time Occurrence, then Every X hours and/or Minutes
Select 5 minutes then click on OK
Select Then
Select Send Email Message
Select the Email message # created above then click OK
Click on Send to Control
Re-open XEP setup window
Click on Send and go through a re-boot of the XEP
Then wait 30-60 seconds.
Hopefully you will be sending an E-mail from your M1 every 5 minutes.
I ended up changing the time duration to once a day, and used this E-mail sending routine as a daily watch-dog timer for the M1 to tell me the system is up and functioning properly, since my application is located a couple hours away.
Follow the below steps if you want to try to TELNET an E-mail from your LAN.
Elk Products tech support had stated if you are able to TELNET an E-mail out,
then you should be able to send an E-mail out from the M1..
Open a DOS Box using cmd
Click on START, then RUN and type in ‘cmd’ on the command line
Use telnet command with a specific IP address and port # to find out if your LAN is open out to the internet through your modem and router configurations.
C:\Documents and Settings\user name>’telnet 72.208.5.67 587’
Connecting to 74.208.5.67…
220 mail GMX.com Mailservices ESMTP {mp-us002}
‘helo yourISPname’ or any name can be entered here you are telling the mail server who you are
250 mail.gmx.com GMX Mailservices {mp-us002}
‘auth login’
334 VXNlcm5hbWU6 This is actually the word “Username:” in base 64, you need to respond with your authenticated login(E-mail address: ‘[email protected]’) for this mail server, but it needs to be entered in base 64
‘bXllbWFpbGFkZHJlc0BnbXguY29t’
You can go to this website to find a base 64 decoder
http://www.webpan.com/Customers/Email/base64_conversion.htm
type in your e-mail address and press the Encode button and it changes it into a base 64 word. This will need to be entered in its entirety and it IS case sensitive. If you select the Decode button you will again see your E-mail address.
334 UGFzc3dvcmQ6 This is actually the word “Password:” in base 64, you need to respond with your authenticated password for this mail server, but it needs to be entered in base 64.
‘bXlwYXNzd29yZA==’
235 2.7.0 Go Ahead {mp-us002}
‘mail to: yourE-mail [email protected]’
250 2.1.0 ok {mp-us002}
‘rcpt to: full E-mail address of your receiving E-mail’
250 2.1.5 ok {mp-us002}
‘data’
354 mail.gmx.com Go ahead {mp-us002}
‘Subject: Type your E-mail subject line here’
‘.’ Type in a period to tell the mail server your message is done
250 2.6.0 Message accepted {mp-us002}
‘exit’ to end telnet session
A glitch in the M1 to watch out for….
I had my XEP and M1 system communicating to my RP2 with a XEP TCP/IP setup where I selected:
---Assigned an IP address via DHCP…. and
---Specify DNS Addresses to use.
With this setup, I manually entered in the DNS server addresses, send them to the XEP and rebooted the XEP…BUT when I polled the XEP with a Receive command, my DNS addresses were send back all zeros to the RP2… this was repeated many times.. It wasn’t until I selected, “Use a static IP address:” for the IP Address, Subnet Mask and Default Gateway; sent it to the XEP and rebooted it, would the DNS addresses I entered be returned back as entered when I polled the XEP with a Receive command.
Good Luck to you all…!!!
I started with a new brand M1 system and XEP straight out of the box. I tried to capture most of the steps I followed. Hopefully, this can help someone get their E-mail working a lot quicker than it took me, and maybe with a little less hair pulling too!! I spent a lot of time going through this forum together with the M1 Owner forum looking for information leading to an answer. I was lucky that George informed me about the Lavabit mail server. Elk tech support was very helpful too.
First of all, my ISP is TDS Telecom, a DSL internet connection going through an Actiontec DSL modem connected to a Belkin router. Both of these were setup using the default setups. The only changes were the manual entry of the DNS servers and the port forwarding. I created a free account with dyndns.com to handle any IP address changes due to my ISP DHCP in place. I placed that information in the Dynamic DNS tab of the M1 XEP setup. My ISP blocks port 25 as do others. I port forwarded 26, 80, 2362 and 2601 in both the modem and router. I did not port forward 21 which is used for the XEP firmware updates. I figured I’d do these updates locally through my LAN. I also left both firewalls enabled(in modem and router) without any issues.
My router assigned the XEP an address and I used that address in the ‘Use a Static IP Address’ area of the TCP/IP Settings tab of the XEP within the Elk RP2 software. I used the Subnet Mask and Default Gateway as listed on the router configuration. I found the DNS servers used by my ISP from a search on Google and placed these in the space for the Static Primary and Secondary DNS servers. In my case, I brought both the M1 & XEP up to the latest bootware & firmware configurations:
M1 Bootware Ver. 3.3.6
M1 Firmware Ver. 5.2.2
XEP Bootware Ver. 1.2.0
XEP Firmware Ver. 1.3.24
I had read in these forums that many people have had success using the GMX E-mail server with the M1. The GMX setup within the XEP didn’t work for me, even though I could repeatedly TELNET E-mails to many addresses through the GMX E-mail server. This even had Elk tech support scratching their heads. You might save yourself some time and frustration(and hair pulling), and get a free E-mail account setup with Lavabit.com, but I am not promoting lavabit either, use what you want, as long as the E-mail server is non-encrypted. Unfortunately, there are not many of these services left.
On the E-mail tab of the XEP you can list the URL or IP address of your mail server. I would recommend listing the IP address of your mail server instead of the URL here, to alleviate any DNS server address issues.
Lavabit mail server is accessed through:
smtp.lavabit.com at IP address: 72.249.41.52 through ports 25, 587, 2525 or 3535
or smtp over SSL via port 465
If you want to try GMX, feel free to give it a shot.
The GMX mail server is accessed through:
mail.gmx.com at IP address: 74.208.5.67 through port 25, 465 or 587
Here is a link for a ‘open port tool’ to test if your LAN has certain ports open:
http://www.dyndns.com/support/tools/openport.html
If you are trying to use a different mail server, you can use the ‘nslookup’ command within a CMD dos box to find out the IP address of your specific mail server by using a computer connected to your LAN.
Use the steps below to find out the IP Address of the mail server URL name you plan on using. Apostrophes indicate characters entered by you, do not type in any apostrophes.
Open a DOS Box using cmd
Click on START, then RUN and type in ‘cmd’ on the command line
Use nslookup command to find the IP address for any URL name.
C:\Documents and Settings\user name>’nslookup’
Default Server: your computers server name is listed here
Address: your computers current address is listed here
> ‘smtp.lavabit.com’ enter in your mail servers URL name then press the ENTER key
Server: your computers server name is listed here
Address: your computers current address is listed here
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: smtp.lavabit.com
Address: 72.249.41.52
>’exit’ Enter in the EXIT command to return to your C- prompt then press the ENTER key
C:\Documents and Settings\user name>’exit’ Enter in the EXIT command to close the DOS Box then press the ENTER key
Once you know the IP address of your mail server, you can use the TELNET command to check if the port is open when connected with a computer to your Local Area Network(LAN) or you can use the Open Port Tool listed in the link above..
Open a DOS Box using cmd
Click on START, then RUN and type in ‘cmd’ on the command line
Use telnet command with a specific IP address and port # to find out if your LAN is open out to the internet through your modem and router configurations.
C:\Documents and Settings\user name>’telnet 72.249.41.52 587’
Connecting to 74.249.41.52…
If you get a response of:
…Could not open connection to the host, on port 587: Connect Failed
the IP address/port combination you tried to connect to was not open to telnet. You may need to use a different port for your mail server.
If you get a response of:
220 lavabit.com ESMTP lavad
You have successfully connected via telnet through the open port into the mail server.
>’exit’ type in exit then press the enter key to end the telnet session and repeat this to exit the DOS box.
Elk tech support recommended to me NOT to use the TEST button within the E-mail tab of the XEP Setup window, but to setup a rule in RP2 to have the M1 send an E-mail every 5 minutes, send it to the XEP and reboot the XEP, then disconnect all remote connections to the M1 and see if it works.
Start RP2, open the XEP Setup window and on the E-mail tab enter in the IP address of your mail server; “FROM” email address of your mail server; Username: [email protected]; Password: your password
Also enter in at least one Email address with a unique message into the spaces on the XEP Email tab, then Close the XEP Setup window.
Create a new rule to send an E-mail message very 5 minutes
Open the Automation folder and select the word “Rules”
Select New
Select Whenever
Select Time Occurrence, then Every X hours and/or Minutes
Select 5 minutes then click on OK
Select Then
Select Send Email Message
Select the Email message # created above then click OK
Click on Send to Control
Re-open XEP setup window
Click on Send and go through a re-boot of the XEP
Then wait 30-60 seconds.
Hopefully you will be sending an E-mail from your M1 every 5 minutes.
I ended up changing the time duration to once a day, and used this E-mail sending routine as a daily watch-dog timer for the M1 to tell me the system is up and functioning properly, since my application is located a couple hours away.
Follow the below steps if you want to try to TELNET an E-mail from your LAN.
Elk Products tech support had stated if you are able to TELNET an E-mail out,
then you should be able to send an E-mail out from the M1..
Open a DOS Box using cmd
Click on START, then RUN and type in ‘cmd’ on the command line
Use telnet command with a specific IP address and port # to find out if your LAN is open out to the internet through your modem and router configurations.
C:\Documents and Settings\user name>’telnet 72.208.5.67 587’
Connecting to 74.208.5.67…
220 mail GMX.com Mailservices ESMTP {mp-us002}
‘helo yourISPname’ or any name can be entered here you are telling the mail server who you are
250 mail.gmx.com GMX Mailservices {mp-us002}
‘auth login’
334 VXNlcm5hbWU6 This is actually the word “Username:” in base 64, you need to respond with your authenticated login(E-mail address: ‘[email protected]’) for this mail server, but it needs to be entered in base 64
‘bXllbWFpbGFkZHJlc0BnbXguY29t’
You can go to this website to find a base 64 decoder
http://www.webpan.com/Customers/Email/base64_conversion.htm
type in your e-mail address and press the Encode button and it changes it into a base 64 word. This will need to be entered in its entirety and it IS case sensitive. If you select the Decode button you will again see your E-mail address.
334 UGFzc3dvcmQ6 This is actually the word “Password:” in base 64, you need to respond with your authenticated password for this mail server, but it needs to be entered in base 64.
‘bXlwYXNzd29yZA==’
235 2.7.0 Go Ahead {mp-us002}
‘mail to: yourE-mail [email protected]’
250 2.1.0 ok {mp-us002}
‘rcpt to: full E-mail address of your receiving E-mail’
250 2.1.5 ok {mp-us002}
‘data’
354 mail.gmx.com Go ahead {mp-us002}
‘Subject: Type your E-mail subject line here’
‘.’ Type in a period to tell the mail server your message is done
250 2.6.0 Message accepted {mp-us002}
‘exit’ to end telnet session
A glitch in the M1 to watch out for….
I had my XEP and M1 system communicating to my RP2 with a XEP TCP/IP setup where I selected:
---Assigned an IP address via DHCP…. and
---Specify DNS Addresses to use.
With this setup, I manually entered in the DNS server addresses, send them to the XEP and rebooted the XEP…BUT when I polled the XEP with a Receive command, my DNS addresses were send back all zeros to the RP2… this was repeated many times.. It wasn’t until I selected, “Use a static IP address:” for the IP Address, Subnet Mask and Default Gateway; sent it to the XEP and rebooted it, would the DNS addresses I entered be returned back as entered when I polled the XEP with a Receive command.
Good Luck to you all…!!!
