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Email Listener Communications via Live.com using SSL & STARTTLS

Technical Blog Post


Abstract

Email Listener Communications via Live.com using SSL & STARTTLS

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Prerequisites

This entry assumes that you are already familiar with some of the prior Email Listener Service Management Connect content, especially the GMail series.

For your convenience, below is a list of the series thus far.

Once you know your way around the listener, you're ready to begin.

 

On Live.com ...

Set up your email accounts: 

  • An admin account for SMTP (and the 'From' field in communication templates)
  • A listener account
  • A service request account (use this to set up your Maximo user)

 

Are you a robot?

Unlike GMail, live.com takes aggressive measures to block what it detects as 'nefarious' activity.

Send emails or check the listener account too frequently in a short span of time and you'll likely receive warnings such as:

  550 5.3.4 Requested action not taken; We noticed some unusual activity in your Hotmail account.   To help protect you, we've temporarily blocked your account.

One or all of your accounts will be blocked and you will with have to Prove You're a Human.  Let the Turing test begin.  You will be prompted with a CAPTCHA challenge & response or possibly be required to reactivate an account with a 'Microsoft account verification code' sent via text message or robo-called to you (seems ironic, eh?).

You've been warned!  Enable logging, diagnose and fix these inconveniences as they occur.

 

Update Commtemplate:Sendfrom in the basebase

In the back end, update the SENDFROM field in the COMMTEMPLATE table to reflect the admin address.  With the live.com, as is the case with Exchange -- which is presumably the email server used for this service -- if the From field is populated with an address not registered with the email provider, the email may be rejected.

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Grab the SSL Certificate from the Live POP3 Server

The same caveat and procedure applies here as with Gmail.  WebSphere makes this a relatively painless exercise for simple certificates.  Do a Retrieve from Port from pop3.live.com on port 995.

 

Configure SMTP properties

Set the following 5 properties.  Note that the property mail.smtp.port was added and set to 587.  Also, STARTTLS (mail.smtp.starttls.enable) is set to true, but SSL (mail.smtp.ssl.enable) should be set to false.

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Configure the listener

No surprises here. The mail server is pop3.live.com.  Note that STARTTLS on live.com is send-side (SMTP) only.  STARTTLS over POP3/IMAP is uncommon.

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Send an email

Once the listener is spinning, send your email.

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Acknowledgement received

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-The End-

 

 

 

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ibm11133457