PingAccess

Managing notification publishers

Configure a notification publisher to send email notifications based on system events in the PingAccess admin console, such as expiring certificates.

SMTP notification publisher

The SMTP notification publisher tracks trusted certificate and key pair expiration dates. This notification publisher sends configured recipients three notifications: an initial warning (optional), a final warning, and an expired warning.

Adding notification publishers

Steps

  1. Go to Settings > Notifications > Notification Publishers and click + Add Notification Publisher.

  2. In the Name field, enter a name for the notification publisher.

    Special characters and spaces are allowed.

  3. In the Type list, select SMTP Notification Publisher.

  4. In the From Address field, enter the email address that you want to appear in the From header line of the PingAccess email notifications.

    You must use a valid email address format, but the email address doesn’t need to be set up on your system.

  5. In the Sender Name field, enter the sender name that you want to display in the email notifications.

  6. In the Email Server field, enter the IP address or hostname of your email server.

  7. In the SMTP Port field, enter the SMTP port on your email server.

    The default value is 25.

  8. In the Encryption Method list, select one of the following options:

    Choices
    None (default)

    Select None to establish an unencrypted connection to the email server at the SMTP port.

    SSL/TLS

    Select SSL/TLS to establish a secure connection to the email server at the SMTPS port.

    STARTTLS

    Select STARTTLS to establish an unencrypted connection to the email server at the SMTP port and initiate a secure channel afterward.

  9. If you set SSL/TLS as the Encryption Method, then in the SMTPS Port field, enter the secure SMTP port on your email server.

    The default value is 465.

  10. If you set SSL/TLS or STARTTLS as the Encryption Method, select the Verify Hostname checkbox to verify whether the hostname of the email server matches the subject (common name) or one of the subject alternative names (SANs) from the certificate.

    This checkbox is selected by default.

  11. If the email server supports UTF-8 encoding in message headers, and you need to include UTF-8 characters in the sender or recipient email addresses, select the UTF-8 Message Header Support checkbox.

    Only enable this if your email server supports this feature. PingAccess doesn’t support emojis included in the domain portion of an email address.

  12. In the Username field, enter the username for the authorized email account.

  13. In the Password field, enter the password for the authorized email account.

  14. In the Test Address field, enter an email address PingAccess should use to verify the connection to the configured email server.

  15. (Optional) To configure advanced settings, click Show Advanced Settings.

    Advanced setting fields

    1. In the Connection Timeout field, enter the amount of time, in seconds, that PingAccess waits before timing out a failed connection to the SMTP server.

      The default value is 30.

    2. To turn on detailed error messages for the PingAccess server log, select the Enable SMTP Debugging Messages checkbox.

      While this checkbox is selected, PingAccess logs email messages, which might contain sensitive information, to the server log. Select this checkbox only when you need to troubleshoot SMTP issues, and deselect it after troubleshooting is complete.

  16. Click Save.

Next steps

  1. Configure notification settings.

  2. (Optional) Customize email notification templates for certificate events.

  3. Test the notification publisher:

    1. On the Notification Publishers page, expand the publisher you created.

    2. Click the Actions tab, then click Test.

    3. Check the inbox of the email address you configured as the Test Address.

Editing and deleting notification publishers

Use the PingAccess admin console to edit the properties of existing notification publishers or delete a notification publisher that’s no longer in use.

Steps

  1. Click Settings, then go to Notifications > Notification Publishers.

  2. Click to expand the notification publisher you want to edit or delete.

  3. To edit the notification publisher:

    1. Click the Pencil icon.

    2. Make the desired edits.

    3. To confirm your changes, click Save.

  4. To delete the notification publisher:

    1. Click the Delete icon.

    2. To confirm your changes, click Delete.