Configuring Exchange

Ok, I have avoided Exhange for years now. However, it was recently thrust upon me. There was no escaping this time. I spent some time configuring it during the installation of Small Business Server. I didn't think much of it as I was going through...

The long and the short of it is this, SBS sets exchange to default every time the user logs in. This is problematic when you have all of your clients all dialed in with their pop3 accounts. So, effectively, you are locked into using Exchange as your outgoing SMTP server. Ok fine. If you configure it properly no sweat.

However, if you don't it can be slightly less than fun sorting it out. In my case we had the website and mail server located on an external host. Let them have the security headaces you know... At any rate, as I was configuring Exchange, I set the virtual server fully qualified domain name to my external .com rather then to my internal .local.

As a result there was no problem receiving email and we could send email to any domain other then our own .com.

Well, users might notice this one.

After much hand wringing I was able to piece together the solution.

The WinRoute Utility (which you can download here, for those of you too lazy to do a Google Search) revealed that my bridgehead virtual server fully qualified domain name (FQDN) was set to the same name as my external .com.

This caused all outgoing email to think that the internal server DNS was authoritive for the domain. The email then bounced and returned a non-delivery message... Not good. However, now that I knew what the issue was I could proceed to change the FQDN to the .local that is should have been set to initially. Clear as mud?

After much adu I located the area in which I could make the change... Here it is...

1. Open the Exchange System Manager.

2. Go to recepients > Recipient Policies

3. Right Click Default Policy > Properties > Email Addresses (Policy)

4. double Click SMTP type

5. Change the address to your local domain.

That's it...

Just one more thing though, might save you some headache. Go to active users and computers and make sure the email addresses are the actual email addresses that you wish your users to receive their mail. Otherwise all replies will go to your internal domain...

good luck and as always, advice here is to be used at your own risk and is offered without warranty...