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Author's profile photo Boris Rubarth

Introducing the SUM MailNotifier – you have been waiting for this!

MailNotifier in a nutshell:

By using MailNotifier, you can now get notified via email when Software Update Manager (SUM) ABAP displays a dialog, so you do not have to frequently check the user interface (UI) during long running phases.

Scenario

You are running an update, an upgrade, a conversion to SAP S/4HANA, or a DMO process with SUM ABAP. During long running phases, you have to frequently check the UI to see if the tool requires any action, like configuration or handling issues. Instead of manually checking the UI, you can now configure the MailNotifier of SUM to get notified as soon as a dialog is waiting for your input. The MailNotifier is an executable jar archive and delivered with SUM 1.0 SP 18 (and higher).

Prerequisites

Tool: The MailNotifier is part of SUM 1.0 SP 18 (or higher)

Host: You need a PC or host that is able to connect to both the SUM ABAP process via HTTP(s) and your SMTP mail server. The PC or host has to have Java 6 installed so that the MailNotifier can run on it. Note that you may have to ask your mail provider to enable SMTP connections. If the Primary Application Server (PAS) host fulfills these conditions, it can be chosen as host for the MailNotifier, but it does not have to be that host.

How to use MailNotifier:

  1. Choose PC or host and provide it with MailNotifier files
    After extracting the SUM archive, you find the MailNotifier in the folder SUM\ABAP\mailNotifier. It consists of an executable jar file MailNotifierApp.jar and a property file MailNotifierApp.props. You copy both files to your PC or host of choice that fulfills the requirements listed above.
  2. Configure MailNotifier
    You fill all configuration parameters in the property file MailNotifierApp.props. This file contains a description for all parameters such as for mail server and SUM host. For security reasons, we recommend to not enter passwords into the property file. Instead of using the property file, you can provide the parameters on the command line (property=value) when starting the jar file, but again: You should not provide the password parameters on the command line.
  3. Start MailNotifier
    You start the tool via command line, either by referencing the properties file:
       java –jar MailNotifierApp.jar properties=<path-to-props-file>
    or by providing the parameters in the command line:
       java –jar MailNotifierApp.jar sum.sid=ABC sum.user=abcadm …
    The tool asks for the password parameters, and you enter the passwords into the console.Example:
    …\SUM\abap\mailNotifier>java -jar MailNotifierApp.jar properties=MyMailNotifierApp.props[24.12.2016 09:16:22]   INFO SumMailNotifier (Version 1.4.5) – starting …
    [24.12.2016 09:16:22]   INFO Reading properties from classpath “com/sap/lm/sl/upg/notifier/MailNotifierApp.props”
    [24.12.2016 09:16:22]   INFO Reading properties from file “MyMailNotifierApp.props”
    [24.12.2016 09:16:22]   INFO Requesting missing mandatory properties:
    Property mail.pwd:
    Property sum.pwd:The MailNotifier checks the completeness of parameters, and checks if it is able to reach the SUM process. Then the tool sends an initial email, so that you can check if the configuration is working.
    Finally, the tool starts checking the SUM process frequently. If SUM is waiting for user input, it will send an email as notification.

The parameter check.interval defines the interval in which the MailNotifier checks the status of the SUM ABAP process, and the parameter check.tries defines how often the dialog status has to be provided by SUM before the MailNotifier sends the email. This involves that if you are immediately handling the SUM dialog (and thus the MailNotifier will receive the SUM dialog status e.g. only once), the tool sends no email.

Note:

  • At present, the MailNotifier has only been tested for SUM ABAP scenarios

[Added on April 23 2020:]

Collaboration platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams became very popular. Both tools offer email interfaces that can be used to integrate the SUM mailNotifier into existing channels and teams.

Integration into Slack

Add the email app to your Slack channel which should be used for the integration. Sign in and add the app to the workspace: https://slack.com/apps/A0F81496D-email

  • Click in “Add to Slack
  • Then, enter the channel you want to use for the notification. In this example, the channel “#zerodowntime” is used. Click on “Add Email Integration”. In the next screen, the email address is displayed which can be entered in the properties file as described above.

Output:

Integration into Microsoft Teams

In Microsoft Teams, the email address can be retrieved by click on the three dots on the channel level. Then, select “Get email address”. Similar to Slack, use the provided email address to adjusted the properties file as described above.

Output:

 

Boris Rubarth

Product Manager Software Logistics, SAP SE

Assigned Tags

      19 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Good functionality and it really helps the basis people life during upgrade phase.Hope we will soon get the functionalities in JAVA and dual stack scenario as well.

      Author's profile photo Alexander Weiss
      Alexander Weiss

      I have a problem with the MailNotifier. I get following Error.

      [27.10.2016 08:49:38]   ERROR SumMailNotifier (Version 1.4.7) finished with errors:  javax.mail.AuthenticationFailedException

      Is somewhere a log with more Information ?

      Author's profile photo K. Basis beheer
      K. Basis beheer

      For Java the "alert" function in SUM can be used.
      (as we were used in previous versions of SUM)

      Author's profile photo Lieven De Bock
      Lieven De Bock

      SumMailNotifier version 1.4.7 (Sum 1.9 PL 0) does not work as expected.

      Neithere does SumMailNotifier version 1.4.7 (Sum 1.9 PL 0) does not work as expected.

      Looking on the wrong URL ?

      [07.03.2017 09:34:15]   ERROR SumMailNotifier (Version 1.4.10) finished with err
      ors: java.io.IOException: Server returned HTTP response code: 401 for URL: http://gbsaperp4:1128/slp/sumabap/SR1/monitor

      shouldnt that be

      http(s)://host:112[8-9]/lmsl/sumabap/SR1/monitor

       

       

      Author's profile photo Boris Rubarth
      Boris Rubarth
      Blog Post Author

      Where did you get this URL from?

      The SUM guide
      http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700000783082011E
      lists the proper URL:
      http:<hostname>:1128/lmsl/sumobserver/<SID>/monitor/index.html

       

      Author's profile photo Lieven De Bock
      Lieven De Bock

      On startup the screen tests this URL... And fails with 401 not authorised.

       

      Author's profile photo Yogesh Patel
      Yogesh Patel

      I hope link below might be helpful to all

      Software Update Manager 1.0 SP19 MailNotifier for ABAP

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Boris,

       

      Thank you for useful blog and providing mail notification application details. It has made our life easy.

      I have tested it and it works perfectly fine for us. I am getting regular email alerts whenever DMO is stuck or needs user input. It also helps me to track DMO migration timelines as well. 🙂

       

      Best Regards,

      Ambarish

       

      Author's profile photo Peter Babbington
      Peter Babbington

      Hi everyone,

      I too was suspicious of the SUM Monitor URL

      I kept getting error:

      [26.07.2017 15:07:31] ERROR SumMailNotifier (Version 1.4.11) finished with errors: java.io.FileNotFoundException: http://localhost:1128/slp/sumabap/SID/monitor

      The cause of my error was an incorrectly configured sum.type in the MailNotifierApp.props file.

      After configuring 'sum.type = dualabap' in the MailNotifierApp.props file, MailNotifierApp.jar worked successfully and I promptly received a test email.

       


       

      From: SID_SUM_APPLICATION
      Sent:
      To:
      Subject: SumMailNotifier was started (SID on host)

      Dear SUM user,

      this initial notification mail was sent and received successfully!

      This email was generated automatically, based on settings for SumMailNotifier. Do not reply.

      Regards

      Peter

      Author's profile photo Balaji Rajendran
      Balaji Rajendran

      the user id says <sid>adm. My SIDADM is a domain account. Should i specify <domain\<sid>adm or without that

       

      I tried calling that url with this id and not working.

      Getting the message

      02.08.2017 16:09:31] ERROR SumMailNotifier (Version 1.4.11) finished with errors: java.io.FileNotFoundException: http://<Servername>.domain.net:1128/slp/sumabap/<SID>/monitor

      Author's profile photo Brahama Kroma
      Brahama Kroma

      Thanks for this information , Now that we are moving to production we can use this to help us going forward. Thanks again for sharing.

       

      Brahama Kroma

      Author's profile photo Florian Lamml
      Florian Lamml

      Is there a possibility to start a command instead of an eMail? I work a lot with Pushover. Just curl a web page and I get a notification. You don’t need a SMTP server or anything else.

      Example for Pushover:

      curl -s \
        --form-string "token=abc123" \
        --form-string "user=user123" \
        --form-string "message=hello world" \
        https://api.pushover.net/1/messages.json

      Author's profile photo Michael Schliebner
      Michael Schliebner

      with curl there is some more:

       

      As an example,

      we do an HTTP GET to a URL and follow redirects,

      we then make a second HTTP POST to a different URL and

      we round it up with a HEAD request to a third URL. All in a single command line:

      curl --location http://example.com/1 --next
      --data sendthis http://example.com/2 --next
      --head http://example.com/3
      and what about ABAP Push Channels?
      ABAP Session #A Sending an APC Message to a Device Connected to another Application Server
      Author's profile photo Claudia Geissler
      Claudia Geissler

      Hi Mr. Rubarth,

      when I run this locally on my SAP server I get this error:
      [01.04.2022 17:12:20] ERROR SumMailNotifier (Version 2.1.1) finished with errors
      com.sap.lm.sl.upg.notifier.MailNotifierException: javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: PKIX path building failed: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target

      I think this is because it uses https instead of http. What can I do?

      My call is: "G:\JAVA\bin\java.exe" -jar G:\scripts\sum-mailnotifier\MailNotifierApp.jar properties=G:\scripts\sum-mailnotifier\MailNotifierApp.props

      Author's profile photo Boris Rubarth
      Boris Rubarth
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Claudia Geissler,

      this is related to the HTTPS settings of the SAP Host Agent. The SUM guide meanwhile has a new note in the section on the MailNotifier on that aspect, maybe that helps:
      https://help.sap.com/viewer/846cacfefc824caab4974b63dab51e7c/sum20.13/en-US/6c53b43d0ba34ed68673f89d00f175fe.html

      Regards,
      Boris Rubarth

      Author's profile photo Luciano Gribaudo
      Luciano Gribaudo

      Hi Everyone!

      I'm getting the following error:

      [Fatal Error] :1:1: Premature end of file.
      [25.06.2022 07:19:31] ERROR SumMailNotifier (Version 2.1.1) finished with errors
      com.sap.lm.sl.upg.notifier.MailNotifierException: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; lineNumber: 1; columnNumber: 1; Premature end of file.
      at com.sap.lm.sl.upg.notifier.SlpMonitorRequestFactory.build(SlpMonitorRequestFactory.java:58)
      at com.sap.lm.sl.SumMailNotifier.<init>(SumMailNotifier.java:198)
      at com.sap.lm.sl.SumMailNotifier.main(SumMailNotifier.java:542)
      Caused by: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; lineNumber: 1; columnNumber: 1; Premature end of file.
      at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.DOMParser.parse(DOMParser.java:262)
      at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.DocumentBuilderImpl.parse(DocumentBuilderImpl.java:339)
      at com.sap.lm.sl.upg.notifier.SlpMonitorRequestFactory.build(SlpMonitorRequestFactory.java:48)
      ... 2 more

       

      Any Help?

      Author's profile photo Siming Fu
      Siming Fu

      Hi Luciano,

      I'm having exactly the same error on my SumMailNotifier (Version 2.1.1), are you able to get pass that error? The <sid>adm pwd is really complicated with many special chars. The SUM started is on Power Linux LE platform.

       

       

      Author's profile photo Alejandro Navajas
      Alejandro Navajas

      I'm getting the same error:

      /media/SUM20/SUM/jvm/jre/bin # ./java -jar /backup/SUM/abap/mailNotifier/MailNotifierApp.jar properties=/backup/SUM/abap/mailNotifier/MailNotifierApp.props
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO SumMailNotifier (Version 2.1.1) - starting ...
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO Reading properties from classpath "com/sap/lm/sl/upg/notifier/MailNotifierApp.props"
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] WARNING Properties resource file "com/sap/lm/sl/upg/notifier/MailNotifierApp.props" not found
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO Reading properties from file "/backup/SUM/abap/mailNotifier/MailNotifierApp.props"
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO Requesting missing mandatory properties:
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO Properties "SumMailNotifier Properties"
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO check.bucket.tries = "1"
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO check.dialog.tries = "3"
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO check.interval = "60"
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO check.max.failed = "128"
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO mail.debug = "false"
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO mail.from = "<hidden>"
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO mail.host = "<hidden>"
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO mail.port = "587"
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO mail.pwd = "<hidden>"
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO mail.to = ""<hidden>""
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO mail.user = ""<hidden>""
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO properties = "/backup/SUM/abap/mailNotifier/MailNotifierApp.props"
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO sum.host = "localhost"
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO sum.port = "1128"
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO sum.pwd = "<hidden>"
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO sum.sid = "SP1"
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO sum.ssl = "false"
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO sum.type = "sumabap"
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO sum.user = "sp1adm "
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO SUM Monitor Request URL = http://localhost:1128/slp/sumabap/SP1/monitor
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO Starting check request ...
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] INFO Check request successful :
      [Fatal Error] :1:1: Premature end of file.
      [30.07.2022 15:22:44] ERROR SumMailNotifier (Version 2.1.1) finished with errors
      com.sap.lm.sl.upg.notifier.MailNotifierException: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; lineNumber: 1; columnNumber: 1; Premature end of file.
      at com.sap.lm.sl.upg.notifier.SlpMonitorRequestFactory.build(SlpMonitorRequestFactory.java:58)
      at com.sap.lm.sl.SumMailNotifier.<init>(SumMailNotifier.java:198)
      at com.sap.lm.sl.SumMailNotifier.main(SumMailNotifier.java:542)
      Caused by: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; lineNumber: 1; columnNumber: 1; Premature end of file.
      at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.DOMParser.parse(DOMParser.java:262)
      at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.DocumentBuilderImpl.parse(DocumentBuilderImpl.java:339)
      at com.sap.lm.sl.upg.notifier.SlpMonitorRequestFactory.build(SlpMonitorRequestFactory.java:48)

       

      Any suggestion?

      Regards

      Author's profile photo Nanda Kumar
      Nanda Kumar

      If anyone is still looking for answer, you should get the server cert installed in the Java env you are running the tool from, mostly using Keytool - https://me.sap.com/notes/0003233507