Testing the configuration to ensure that e-mails are sent
After everything has been setup you can verify that the e-mail alerts are sent and can be received by running mdadm in test mode. This can be accomplished by doing the following:
1. Open a terminal window and type su to login as root
2. type mdadm –monitor –scan –test
Add the –mail parameter if the /etc/mdadm.conf does not contain a MAILADDR line
An e-mail should be received for each arrary device listed in the /etc/mdadm.conf file.
If e-mails are not received the /var/log/mail* files can be used to help debug why the failure occurred. The most common cause is that the e-mail address is being blocked by the receving gateway.
Another item to check is to ensure the postfix is installed on the system as mdadm uses postfix to send out the e-mails.