How to enable Mac OS X server email alerts I have a specific Mac mini server that does not send out email alerts, even though I have an email address configured.

I also want to note that I am not using the mail server within server.app.  I have other servers that are sending email alerts correctly and none of them have the mail server within server.app turned on.

Questions:

1) Do I have to enable Apple Push notifications and configure an Apple ID for this to work?

2) Do the email alerts go through Apple's servers after step 1 is configured above, or do they come directly from my server?

3) If they come directly from my server, can I specify a relay host to go through my ISPs SMTP gateway?

4) Is there any way to generate a test alert to test whether this is working or not?  What is happening is that the disk on this server is filling up and I am not getting any notifications.  It only happens once every couple of months, so I am never sure when it is going to happen.
I've come up with my own answers for this in case anyone comes across this question.

1) No, you do not have to enable Apple Push notifications.

2 &amp; 3) You can configure them to go through your ISP's SMTP gateway with the following steps (for 10.7.x and 10.8.x).


Go to Server.app
Go Mail
Check "Relay outgound mail through ISP"
Click edit to the right of that checkbox
Specify your ISP's SMTP gateway in the "Outgoing Mail Relay" field.
Specify SMTP relay authentication if required. Click OK.


4) Use the command line shell to issue this command:

echo hello | mail -s TESTSUBJECT youremail@yourdomain.com