TLS Support for SMTP Monitoring Nov 10, 2011

Knowledge Front’s round trip SMTP monitoring, Mailive!, has been updated to support TLS (Transport Layer Security) when sending its test e-mails. Each SMTP monitor can be configured individually with one of three settings.

On

Delivery will always use TLS and record a failure if the STARTTLS command does not succeed or if the SMTP transmission fails to complete in any way.

Auto

When the SMTP session begins Mailive! sends the EHLO command to the SMTP server being tested and the response includes the capabilities of the SMTP Server. If STARTTLS is in the response then the test will attempt to use TLS and record a failure if the session breaks or the delivery does not succeed. If there is no STARTTLS then delivery happens the old fashioned way, with no encryption

Off

When sending a test e-mail Mailive! will never attempt to initiate TLS, even if advertised in the EHLO response of the receiving server.

For newly added monitors the default will be Auto. Monitors already present in the system will have “Use TLS” set to Off to remain compatible with how it has been up to this point.

We have tested against many different types of servers, but if you run into any problems please let us know. There are many varieties of servers with different levels of TLS support and it can be a challenge to find them all.

Contact us any time with questions: http://www.knowledgefront.com/support/