Exchange External Connectivity

[GeorgeTuk]

OK so I have been in IT 8 years and have a guilty secret, I have never done an office move or set up Exchange to retrieve SMTP mail externally.

So my question is how I set up Exchange to just receive mail from an external source?

My guess is, ring the MX Record owner, get them to point the MX Record to the new IP address, then have the firewall push SMTP traffic to the internal IP of the Exchange server? Is that correct?

Thanks very much for any help in advance.

George

 

[58sniper]

This has been discussed here many times. A simple search will yield all you need to know.

1. Create an A record ("mail.domain.com") for the public IP that mail will go to. If you have an existing A record for mail.domain.com, skip this part.
2. Forward port 25 through the firewall to the Exchange server.
3. Contact your ISP and have them update the PTR record (reverse DNS) for your public IP address. It should match what your MX record will be ("mail.domain.com").
4. Verify all above steps before continuing.
5. Verify that your public IP address is not on any RBL. If it is, STOP. Address this issue completely before continuing.
6. From an outside source, telnet to your A record ("mail.domain.com") over port 25 and make sure the server is accessible.
7. Have the MX record updated to the new A record.
8. Have a beer. Or three.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[mofusjtf]

9. configure your firewall to only allow outbound SMTP traffic from your Exchange server
10. Make sure you have a anti-virus / Spam Solution in place. There are a number of threads here on that topic too. I use Trend Micro's Worry Free Suite on most of my Exchange installs. It's a great product at a good price.