Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

  • Congratulations SkipVought on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Exchange 2K server not sending any messages HELP!!!

Status
Not open for further replies.

Yasmania

MIS
Feb 6, 2002
8
0
0
US
Messages sent to internal users just never appear, messages to external email addresses are sometimes bouncing back with the message: "Your mail system could not find a way to successfully communicate with the destination system. Please notify your administrator."

Unfortunately I'm the administrator and I have NO exchange training and I don't know what to do. All the services that say automatic are started and when I checked the event viewer the Application Log has only an MSExhcangeTransport warning which states: "EXPS is temporarily unable to provide protocol security with "EVS2.krause.com" "

Please help!

Signed Desperate aka Yas
 
Please tell us about your environment. What NOS what version of Exchange. Type of firewall?

From outsite your firewall can you telnet to your exchange server on port 25?

Is this windows 2000? Do you have DNS configured internally properly? This could be your problem.

Do the event logs say anything else?
Are there outbound and inbound internet emails in the queues in exchange?

Is your domain Krause.com? If so I did an NSLOOKUP on it and this is what it reported for MX records.



krause.com preference = 10, mail exchanger= mail.athenet.net
krause.com preference = 5, mail exchanger = mail.krause.com
mail.athenet.net internet address = 209.103.196.8

So mail.krause.com would be you. I telneted into port 25 and saw a banner that did not look like an exchange banner, but that could just be your firewall masking it.

Is this you?

Ashleym




 
Actually krause.com is not me. I don't even know why it says that.

The firewall is a BEFSR41 from Linksys

I asked a friend to telnet in but that didn't work. I believe the firewall is working since I'm able to browse the net.

Yes it's a Win2K server. As far as I can tell DNS is setup and running but I know nothing about that either so I can't say for sure. What should the DNS look like?

Also I have no idea how to see the mail queues. That would be a helpful skill if you wouldn't mind sharing.

These people originally hired me to fix their desktop machines and I inherited these servers and I have no idea what I'm doing. Thanks so much for all your help so far!
 
Ok if you are using a linksys then you need to create a passthrough rule for port 25 to the internal IP of your mail server, this will allow someone to telnet in and mail to flow from the internet. Since no one can telnet in, no email from the internet can get in either.

Go in to exchange syttem manager, administrative groups, servers, protocols, SMTP, then double click on the default smtp virtual server. This should show the queues. By the way, the default smtp virtual server should be running, if it is not, that might explain why no one internally is getting mail.

Can Outlook open on a workstation or do you get errors?
Have you created email accounts for everyone in Active Directory?

Can you ping the server by host name from a workstation internally?


Let me know if this helps.

Ashley
 
Port 25 is open but the firewall says that that is SMTP and 23 (which isn't open) is telnet.

The server is ping-able (if that's a word), Outlook opens fine without errors. However the HR administrator sent a company wide email that no one received.

There are no local mesages queued up, however, there are like 6 messages that say remote delivery.

Internal mail does appear to be working... it appears to be the distributioon list that I created which isn't working. I DON'T like Exchange 2000. Exchange 5.5 made a lot more sense.

So to summarize:
1. Internal mail works fine it's the distribution list that doesn't work (any ideas there would be greatly appreciated)

2. External mail does appear to be queueing up. In the properties of the queued messages it says: "Unable to bind to the destination server in DNS"

Thanks so much for your help so far. I really appreciate it :)
 
Yasmania-

OK take things one step at a time. First concentrate on getting email working from on exchange user to another. Next step, worry about the internet connectivity.

Under:

Programs>Microsoft Exchange

you will find a two tools you need to administrate exchange, "Active Directory Users and Computers" and "System Manager". These are the two tools you will need to understand to solve your problem. You need to do some reading and understand exchange basics, don't get discouraged, borrow a book or try the library.

Here is a link to the error message you posted:

Maybe you are running low on system resources.

Check the following things:

Is the server low on disk space?
Do you have enough ram? (use Performance Monitor)
What kind of cpu do you have?
 
You dont need telnet open on your linksys, just port 25, you can telnet into port 25 if it is open, you don't need to enable telnet itself. If no one can telnet to port 25 then there is a problem as it is not being forwarded properly. Have you thought of calling linksys for support? You have to get port 25 forwarded to the proper internal IP of your mail server for email to work from the internet.

The DNS error you are getting in Exchange may suggest simply that port 25 is not open, which we know, check the Microsoft Knowledgebase anyway.

Here is the support page for your linksys router.


Here is what the website says about setting up forwarding, which you have to do.


Forwarding

Port forwarding sets up public services on your network. When users from the Internet make certain requests of your network, the router will forward those requests to the appropriate computer. The router's DHCP function must be disabled to use Forwarding. Forwarding is generally used to set up a webserver, ftp server, or e-mail server on your network.

To add a server using Forwarding:

Enter the port number used by the server. On the same line, enter the IP Address of the server that you want the Internet users to be able to access.
Configure as many entries as you would like until all of the link entries are filled.
Click the Apply to save the settings

So you your case, you want to enter 25 as the port numberm then the internal IP of the exchange server, 192.168.1.10 for example.

Here is the tech support number for linksys (800) 326-7114

Good luck, and keep me 'posted' no pun intended.

Ashleym
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top