| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| Maxwell Smart |
MS ExchangeA question to all you it techy people.I've got a windows sbs2003 running which currently collects all my email through pop3. I'd like to migrate to smtp but as i turn my server off at night i'm worried (perhaps wrongly) that i will loose emails sent overnight. In addition I think this will probably mess up the email headers in regards to delivery times? Thus my thinking now is to try and set up exchange on my webserver which is on 24/7. This is running Server2003. Does this make sense? And if so - how do I integrate it with my local server running sbs? I should point out that our sbs server is behind a firewall with NAT and our webserver is running independently and hosted remotely. They are not currently in the same domain or joined in any fashion. Thanks |
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| vegplot |
You need to set up a store and forward with your ISP or someone you know who can handle this. A store and forward is an SMTP mail server which receives your mail and forwards it onto your mail server. If you mail server is down it stores mail either until your server comes back up again or for a predetermined period of time before sending it back to the sender.
Your Exchange server must have a dedicated IP external address. This can be NAT'ed at the firewall, just ensure it's a one to one relationship. You then do the fiollowing: Add a MX record to your store and forward SMTP mail server, this should have the highest priority (low number). Depending on your store and forward SMTP mail server you can either add appropriate host records on that machine telling it where to deliver mail (IMail uses this method) or you set up a secondary MX record with a lower priority (higher number). Alternatively, you can do it the other way around. Have the priority MX record pointing to your mail server and the secondary MX record pointing to to the SMTP store and forward. There are subtle differences between the two configs. We do both depending on customer requirements. |
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| Barefoot Andrew |
Maxwell, may I ask why you want to do this? It sounds like you're introducing complications into a system that currently works just fine.
If my understanding of your situation is correct your exchange server collects your email from your ISP via POP3. Your wish is to simply use SMTP as the collection mechanism from the ISP - yes? Some ISPs will support this, but many won't, as POP or IMAP are really the collection tools of choice. SMTP delivery to your machine is really only useful to you if you're then relaying the SMTP delivery onto other machines within your internal network. Mail server administration is a reasonably skilled business in its own right, and some ISPs won't support SMPT relaying because of the possibility of server hijack for spamming purposes. Either way, if your ISP supports SMTP mail delivery, they should hold pending mail on their server until the connection can be made, just like with POP3. In other words, you shouldn't loose mail when your Exchange machine is switched off overnight. A. |
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| tahir |
Agree |
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| Maxwell Smart |
Thanks for the responses.
Yes the SBS is then relaying the emails onto various email boxes. The main reason I want to introduce SMTP is that I want to get around the 15 min polling delay which SBS2003 forces when using POP3. I realise that there are registry hacks to avoid this - but would rather keep things neat. If I switch to SMTP which is delivered with a delay (could be 48 hours over a weekend) - will I loose relay information from within the header? |
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| tahir |
Don't think so. |
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| vegplot |
This is true for outgoing email which has SMTP forwarding set to an ISP's SMTP mail server. It doesn't apply to incoming email and Exchange server has a built SMTP mail server so it doesn't need to forward to an external SMTP for mail delivery. |
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| Barefoot Andrew |
Each successive relay should add an additional header, so by the time an email reaches a target machine its header info should have a complete route history as it were.
A. |
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| Maxwell Smart |
ok thanks - i will try and do the changeover this weekend.
but one more question - if I swap over to SMTP and my sbs server is off - can I still access the remote mailbox store as I would pop3 mail through a web client? |
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| vegplot |
Nope. If you want to do this stick with POP3 or don't turn off your server. |
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| tahir |
The last time I looked at this not easily, I think it depends what interface your ISP provides, you can use Outllok Web Access too can't you? |
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| vegplot |
POP3 is the final link in the SMTP chain. You can forward and copy from on POP3 mail to another certainly, but there's no point in using SMTP to your local box.
If you're turning off your server on a regular basis then SMTP delivery is not the way to go. Stick with POP3. The other option is to retain your POP3 mail boxes at a remote server (ISP) and create two mail service accounts in Outlook, one for the local Exchange Server so internal emails are instant and a POP3 connector to pull down from your remote POP3 mail boxes. It's more work as each machine needs to be configured but you get around the 15 minute polling limitation in Exchange. This is what we currently do (but about to change to a direct SMTP feed as soon as we've got rid of non-business emails on our domain). |
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| tahir |
If you only have a few mailboxes it might be worth finding about ISP hosted Exchange | ||
| Maxwell Smart |
hmmm ok maybe I will make do.
which is why i was wondering about installing exchange on the webserver which is on 24/7. though i can see more problems with trying to make the two servers on separate domains talk to each other.... |
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| tahir |
Wouldn't IMAP be useful in this case? | ||
| tahir |
They don't need to talk to each other do they? Are you running AD? |
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| tahir |
IMAP:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Message_Access_Protocol |
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| Maxwell Smart |
I assume they need to talk to each other as my understanding is it is still better for the SBS to distribute the mail from the exchange server.
Yes I am running Active Directory. Will take a closer look at IMAP but my understanding is it pretty much is like pop3 in regards to function. |
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| tahir |
To be honest I don't know how AD interacts with Exchange, we've been using a Linux mail server since we moved to AD, our setup means that Outlook logs in direct to the mail server bypassing AD. |
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| tahir |
The advantage is that you could (I think) set up your web server as an IMAP server that could be accessed by your Outlook clients at work and any other client from elsewhere. No syncing necessary, the mail resides on the server. |