forwarding e-mails to aol 1

[homer15]

hello everyone,

i'm trying to setup a forwarder to send incoming e-mail to a users aol account... for such a seemingly easy task, it sure is a pain to accomplish...

here's what i've done:
i setup a new account to act as the forwarder. i put the users e-mail address in this accounts.
i setup the users account to automatically forward to the forwarder account. still it doesn't work. all that happens is e-mails get stored in the forwarder's account and never leave the server. can anyone help?

 

[darren97]

Create a new contact in AD and give it an e-mail address of the aol account. Go to the user account that you want to forward mail to the aol account and select properties>exchange general>delivery options.Choose forward to and select the contact you have just created. Works for me.

 

[homer15]

that's exactly what i have in place now, but the e-mails are being delivered to the forwarders exchange box... and if i don't have an exchange box for the forwarder, it won't show up in my global address list.

 

[ALAN1980]

I have the same problem and have tried the same solution with no luck. I have discovered that the "forward" command works differently when using it under the rule wizard versus the normal way. I have also tried using the "redirect" command in the rule wizard with no luck. I think it is a Exchange 2000 option that we may be missing. I never had this problem with Exchange 5.5. I hope someone can help us.

 

[ALAN1980]

I found the answer:

http://www.tek-tips.com/gviewthread.cfm/lev2/3/lev3/15/pid/858/qid/752823

It was just a matter of turning on 'Allow Automatic Forward'. Go to the properties of your default Internet Message Format in Exchange System Manager, and turn on this option in the tab 'Advanced'.

Once I did this I was able to forward to external e-mails using a rule wizard.

 

[homer15]

i have that enabled already. it's still not working.

 

[darren97]

Homer15

You say you don't have a forwarder address in the GAL, that would suggest that you have created a contact, but haven't mail enabled it, is that correct? The contact should be mail enabled

 

[ALAN1980]

homer15,

If your user can leave his workstation on with Outlook running, I would suggest you create a rule wizard allowing e-mail coming into his box to be forwarded to his external e-mail. You can then give him the option of deciding which kind of e-mails he wants to forwarded. For example, from his boss, important clients and his staff instead of everything that hits his box. I did this with a few of my users before I upgrade to Exchange 2000 and they loved it. Also, the user has the ability to turn off the rule wizard when he wants to stop forwarding instead calling you to do it.

- Alan

 

[homer15]

the forwarder account is e-mail enabled, and i can see it in the gal... i think that's the problem, though. all of the messeges forwarded to the forwarder account just sit in its mailbox...

the user wants all e-mails forwarded to her... she's actually the founder of our company, and had a really hard time learning to use aol mail (read: she's in her late 70's), and she doesn't even want to start using outlook.

 

[darren97]

Have you tried starting from scratch. Delete the contact and its mailbox and re-create. Or try testing with another account. I have just done it and can't get it to fail.
It seems that you have taken all the correct steps, so maybe re-creating could be the next step.

 

[homer15]

yea, actually, i did that twice... hmmm... there has to be something simple i'm missing.

 

[ALAN1980]

Homer15,

Have you confirmed that you have 'Allow Automatic Forward' enabled? Unless you have it enabled I think you can not forward e-mail via the method you are trying.

 

[darren97]

If you think that there is something simple that you are missing, please post your exact steps when setting contact up/forwarding etc

 

[homer15]

sorry for the delay:

first, in the exchange system manager, i expand global settings and click on internet message format, and then click on the default (domain: *). i right click on default and go to properties. under the advanced tab, i ensure that "allow automatic forward" is checked.

i then close the exchange system manager and open up the active directory of users and computers. navigate down to users, and create a new user named userfwd. i setup the password just like normal, and i create and exchange mailbox. right click on the new user and go to properties. i click on the e-mail addresses tab and click new. i chose smtp as the type, and type in the e-mail address (user@aol.com). i click ok and close the new user.

i then right click on the original user (the one i want mail forwarded from) and go to properties. i click on exchange general tab, and click on delivery options. i select forward to, and choose my new username. click ok and apply all changes... now, shouldn't this work?

 

[darren97]

Nope, you are doing everything absolutely perfectly well! The only other thing that this could possibly be is by virtue of the fact that you're forwarding to aol. aol love bouncng anything that can't be resolved using reverse lookup. Have you got a ptr record pointing back to your mail server. Have you tried forwarding to anything other than aol?
I'm really clutching at straws now, but its worth having a look at.

 

[homer15]

actually, as i was setting it up, i was testing it with my personal e-mail address... well, i tried both of them actually. nothing worked.

i thought aol might've been a problem too, but it won't even forward to my own domain.

how can i see if there's a ptr record pointing back at me?

 

[darren97]

I use

http://www.dnsreport.com

Put your domain name in and it will give you loads of information including reverse mx records for your domain.

 

[darren97]

I use

http://www.dnsreport.com

Put your domain name in and it will give you loads of information including reverse mx records for your domain.

 

[homer15]

i know it's been 8 months, but i really need to get this working. can anyone help me out?

 

[ALAN1980]

What version of Exchange are using and what version of Outlook is the user using?