The SMTP sensor monitors a mail server using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).
The sensor can optionally send a test email with every check.
SMTP Sensor
For a detailed list and descriptions of the channels that this sensor can show, see section Channel List.
Sensor in Other Languages
Dutch: SMTP
French: SMTP
German: SMTP
Japanese: SMTP
Portuguese: SMTP
Russian: SMTP
Simplified Chinese: SMTP
Spanish: SMTP
Remarks
This sensor does not support Secure Remote Password (SRP) ciphers.
This sensor has a low performance impact.
This sensor only supports the IPv4 protocol.
You cannot add this sensor to the hosted probe of a PRTG Hosted Monitor instance. If you want to use this sensor, add it to a remote probe device.
Add Sensor
The Add Sensor dialog appears when you manually add a new sensor to a device. It only shows the settings that are required to create the sensor. You can change nearly all settings on the sensor's Settings tab after creation.
Basic Sensor Settings
Click the Settings tab of a sensor to change its settings.
If the name contains angle brackets (<>), PRTG replaces them with braces ({}) for security reasons. For more information, see the Knowledge Base: What security features does PRTG include?
This setting is for your information only. You cannot change it.
Tags
Enter one or more tags. Confirm each tag with the Spacebar key, a comma, or the Enter key. You can use tags to group objects and use tag-filtered views later on. Tags are not case-sensitive. Tags are automatically inherited.
It is not possible to enter tags with a leading plus (+) or minus (-) sign, nor tags with parentheses (()) or angle brackets (<>).
For performance reasons, it can take some minutes until you can filter for new tags that you added.
The sensor has the following default tags that are automatically predefined in the sensor's settings when you add the sensor:
smtpsensor
mailsensor
Priority
Select a priority for the sensor. This setting determines the position of the sensor in lists. The highest priority is at the top of a list. Choose from the lowest priority () to the highest priority ().
Usually, a sensor connects to the IP Address/DNS Name of the parent device. See the device settings for details. For some sensors, you can explicitly define the monitoring target in the sensor settings.
SMTP Specific
SMTP Specific
Setting
Description
Timeout (Sec.)
Enter a timeout in seconds for the request. Enter an integer. The maximum timeout value is 900 seconds (15 minutes).
If the reply takes longer than this value, the sensor cancels the request and shows a corresponding error message.
Port
Enter the number of the port that the sensor uses to send an email via SMTP. The default port for unsecure connections is 25 and the default ports for secure connections are 465 or 587. The actual setting depends on the server that you connect to. Enter an integer.
We recommend that you use the default value.
If the connection is unsuccessful, try a different port number.
Authentication
Authentication
Setting
Description
SMTP Authentication Method
Define if you want to use authentication for the SMTP connection:
None: Do not use any authentication method.
User name and password: Authenticate against the SMTP server via user name and password.
User Name
This setting is only visible if you select User name and password above. Enter a user name for SMTP authentication. Enter a string.
Password
This setting is only visible if you select User name and password above. Enter a password for SMTP authentication. Enter a string.
HELO Ident
Enter a server name for the HELO part of the mail protocol.
For some mail servers, the HELO identifier must be the valid principal host domain name for the client host. For more information, see SMTP RFC 2821.
If you leave this field empty, the value defaults to the computer name.
Only ASCII characters are allowed.
Connection Security
Connection Security
Setting
Description
Transport-Level Security
Define how the sensor handles the security of the connection:
Use transport-level security if available using StartTLS (default): Try to connect to the server via a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)/Transport Layer Security (TLS) secured connection and StartTLS. If the server does not support this, the sensor tries to connect without connection security.
Use transport-level security if available: Try to connect to the server via an SSL/TLS-secured connection. If the server does not support this, the sensor tries to connect without connection security.
Enforce transport-level security using StartTLS: Try to connect to the server via an SSL/TLS-secured connection and StartTLS. If the server does not support this, the sensor shows the Downstatus.
Enforce transport-level security: Try to connect to the server via an SSL/TLS-secured connection. If the server does not support this, the sensor shows the Down status.
If the sensor connects to a server via StartTLS, the connection is first established without connection security. After the connection has been established, the sensor sends a certain command (StartTLS) over the unsecured connection to negotiate a secure connection via SSL/TLS.
If the sensor does not use StartTLS, the negotiation of a secure connection happens immediately (implicitly) so that no commands are sent in unencrypted plain text. If no secure connection is possible, no communication takes place.
Monitoring
Monitoring
Setting
Description
Email Handling
Define the monitoring approach when connecting to the SMTP server:
Do not send an email: Do not send an email, only connect to the SMTP server.
Send an email: Send an email through the SMTP server. If there is an error when sending the email, this triggers an error message and the sensor changes to the Down status.
From
This setting is only visible if you select Send email above. Specify the address of the sender of the email. Enter a valid email address.
To
This setting is only visible if you select Send email above. Specify the address that PRTG sends the email to. Enter a valid email address.
If you define more than one recipient, separate the individual email addresses with commas.
Topic
This setting is only visible if you select Send email above. Specify the subject that the email contains. Enter a string or leave the field empty.
Content
This setting is only visible if you select Send email above. Specify the body that the email contains. Enter a string or leave the field empty.
Result Handling
Define what PRTG does with the sensor result:
Discard result: Do not store the sensor result.
Store result: Store the last sensor result in the \Logs\sensors subfolder of the PRTG data directory on the probe system. The file names are Result of Sensor [ID].txt and Result of Sensor [ID].Data.txt. This setting is for debugging purposes. PRTG overwrites these files with each scanning interval.
In a cluster, PRTG stores the result in the PRTG data directory of the master node.
Sensor Display
Sensor Display
Setting
Description
Primary Channel
Select a channel from the list to define it as the primary channel. In the device tree, the last value of the primary channel is always displayed below the sensor's name. The available options depend on what channels are available for this sensor.
You can set a different primary channel later by clicking below a channel gauge on the sensor's Overview tab.
Graph Type
Define how different channels are shown for this sensor:
Show channels independently (default): Show a graph for each channel.
Stack channels on top of each other: Stack channels on top of each other to create a multi-channel graph. This generates a graph that visualizes the different components of your total traffic. You cannot use this option in combination with manual Vertical Axis Scaling (available in the channel settings).
Stack Unit
This setting is only visible if you enable Stack channels on top of each other as Graph Type. Select a unit from the list. All channels with this unit are stacked on top of each other. By default, you cannot exclude single channels from stacking if they use the selected unit. However, there is an advanced procedure to do so.
Inherited Settings
By default, all of these settings are inherited from objects that are higher in the hierarchy. We recommend that you change them centrally in the root group settings if necessary. To change a setting for this object only, click under the corresponding setting name to disable the inheritance and to display its options.
For more information, see section Root Group Settings, section Scanning Interval.
Schedules, Dependencies, and Maintenance Window
You cannot interrupt the inheritance for schedules, dependencies, and maintenance windows. The corresponding settings from the parent objects are always active. However, you can define additional schedules, dependencies, and maintenance windows. They are active at the same time as the parent objects' settings.
Schedules, Dependencies, and Maintenance Window
For more information, see section Root Group Settings, section Schedules, Dependencies, and Maintenance Window.
Access Rights
Access Rights
For more information, see section Root Group Settings, section Access Rights.
Channel List
Which channels the sensor actually shows might depend on the target device, the available components, and the sensor setup.
Channel
Description
Downtime
In the channel table on the Overview tab, this channel never shows any values. PRTG uses this channel in graphs and reports to show the amount of time in which the sensor was in the Down status