FME Server can receive e-mail via Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) or Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP). Using Automations, you can publish e-mails to Notification Service topics using either the Email Received (SMTP) or the Email Received (IMAP) trigger.
SMTP or IMAP?
IMAP is a pull-based mechanism. The Email (IMAP) Trigger polls an existing IMAP server (such as imap.gmail.com) for messages. As long as IMAP access is enabled on the e-mail account, no additional configuration is needed. However, because polling is conducted at intervals, FME Server may not receive e-mail messages as immediately as those sent over SMTP.
Note: Each IMAP Publisher created on FME Server must reference a unique e-mail account. You cannot create multiple IMAP Publishers that reference the same address.
SMTP is a push-based mechanism. FME Server acts as is its own lightweight SMTP server, and receives e-mails directly, rather than polling for them. As a result, e-mails may be sent to FME Server topics (and their subscribed workspaces) more immediately than e-mails delivered over IMAP.
If your FME Server is not hosted on FME Cloud, additional steps are required to configure it to receive e-mail over SMTP. If you are using FME Cloud, no additional configuration is necessary.
Note: The SMTP Publisher is not supported in a fault tolerant installation of FME Server.
Receving Email through SMTP
By default, SMTP operates over port 25 on Windows and port 7125 on Linux.
Note: Be sure to configure your network firewall settings to allow transmission of e-mails to FME Server on the applicable port.
Changing the Default SMTP Port (Optional)
- Determine the port on the FME Server Core host that will be used to receive e-mails.
- Open the SMTP publisher configuration file:
- Locate parameter SMTP_PORT, and update the setting to the desired port. By default, this parameter is set to port 25 on Windows installations, and 7125 on Linux.
- Restart the FME Server Core service.
Note: Be sure to configure your network firewall settings to allow transmission of e-mails to FME Server on this port.
<FMEServerDir>\Server\config\publishers\email.properties
Note: To specify a port under 1024 on Linux, configure either of the following:
Elevated privilege on the FME Server System Services (run as root). For more information, see Starting and Stopping FME Server Manually.
Port forwarding: Configure the FME Server Core to route and forward from a source port to a destination port. For example, route traffic on port 25 to port 7125.