E-mail not leaving the office !?

[J741]

User1 on network domain company.local sends e-mail to User2@company.com

A 3rd party e-mail service hosting company hosts the domain company.com

Exchange Server on SBS 2003 does not actually send the e-mail to the SMTP servers at company.com but holds it on the server at company.local

A user who is on vacation tries to access his e-mail via the POP3 server at company.com but does not recieve ANY e-mails which originated within the network domain company.local

This is not acceptable. Why would this happen, and how can it be changed?

- James.


My memory is not as good as it should be, and neither is my memory.

I have forgotten more than I can remember

 

[aron2k]

Is this a new problem? Or is the SBS2k3 a new setup?

From what I have seen and in my own office, SBS2k3 exchange is going to hold on to the local emails so they have to be retrieved from the SBS 2k3 server.

You will have to use OWA.

A-RON

 

[J741]

It's a new install of SBS2003.

We can not use OWA because out internet conneciton uses a dynamic IP and our ISP blocks TCP ports used by OWA.

- James.



My memory is not as good as it should be, and neither is my memory.

I have forgotten more than I can remember

 

[bulkmail]

Have you tried dynamic services? no-ip.com?

 

[aron2k]

You might have a problem here.

Your setup up sounds just like mine and I had to setup OWA so my people can get emails outside of the office.

SBS will manage all internal emails local and never leave the server.

You can use a dynamic host to get around the dynamic IP. (ie no-ip.com or dyndns.org)

What ISP are you using?

A-RON

 

[pgaliardo]

Dynamic ISP would get him around the dynamic IP problem, but the ISP is still blocking ports needed by OWA. Will the ISP open those ports for you?

 

[J741]

OWA is not currently an option. It will be later, but it's not an option right now.

I found Microsoft Support Article ID 300681 and 319759 but when trying the things listed there, I didn't see any difference. Mail still was not routed through the desired host.

What I did find out was that if the user has both an Exchange e-mail account and a POP3 e-mail account configured in Microsoft Outlook, the problem exists only if the Echange e-mail acocunt is the default. Changing the default to the POP3 e-mail account resolved this problem.

- James.


My memory is not as good as it should be, and neither is my memory.

I have forgotten more than I can remember

 

[Javamahn]

You can change the OWA ports. It is an IIS website like any other. Just change to port that OWA uses . We use 81 and could just as easily use 181 or any other port. Free Dynamic DNS services will solve your dynamic Ip address problem.

 

[WhoKilledKenny]

Just FYI: I do use NO-IP for my home office which uses dynamic IP from my ISP. I also use NO-IP for my External DNS, domain name, MX Record, and FTP name resolution. It works great... They also provide SMTP gateway services, which I currently do not use. Regarding OWA it should just be port 80 and 443, so I am not sure why your ISP would block those ports if this is a business account?

Food for thought...

 

[J741]

The reasons for the ISP port blocking (even with a business account) are supposedly to help reduce the spread of virii and other malware (according to my ISP). The ISP in question does not block ports if we pay for a static IP, but the person in charge of the finances does not want to pay for this.

Also, for internal political reasons, the people in charge of the decision making process do not want the server to be accessible from the internet. They want internet acces, but not access from the internet. But they still want to recieve new e-mails while away from the office. This political requirement is currently met with the use of a 3rd party e-mail hosting and website hosting service.

The recent upgrade to SBS 2003 provides us with new oportunities like OWA and RWW, but now I need to convince management that these features and capabilities are worth the risk of exposing a limited set of TCP ports and functions to the internet. Management likes things the way they are now, and any signifigant changes are met with trepidation.

- James.


My memory is not as good as it should be, and neither is my memory.

I have forgotten more than I can remember

 

[58sniper]

If the domain name configured in your recipient policy matches the domain name provided by your hosting company, email won't go out. Exchange believes it's the authoritative server for handling that domain. That's by design.

You could configure a smarthost, but you'd have to remove all the email address from the user accounts on your server.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt