Internal and External Accounts

[mtownbound]

Windows SBS 2003 Exchange

This is what I've inherited:

Acme Company has the acme.com domain hosted internally. Every domain user that is created doesn't neccessarily have an acme.com email account created.

Acme Company also has the rockets.com domain hosted by an external web hoster. Every user created in the acme.com domain DOES have their directory accounts point to the rockets.com domain for email, which is functioning properly.

Both email accounts can successfully send/receive email to external accounts. And rocket.com can successfully email acme.com.

The issue is that when acme.com emails rocket.com, the email is never delivered, even though the delivery receipt says it does.

It's as if the internal Exchange server is resolving to acme.com instead of rockets.com. Am I way off?

Thanks!!!

 

[markdmac]

First, why don't you simply add the rocket.com domain to SBS and change the MX records to have all mail delivered directly to your server? It would not cost you anything and you could make better use of Exchange. Exchange can host more than one domain and you could set Rocket.com as the Primary.

I suspect that there is a DNS issue with the problem you are describing. Verify that you don't have an MX record in your SBS DNS for Rocket.com. If you do, make sure it points to the right IP or delete it entirely.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

Work SMARTER not HARDER. The Spider's Parlor's Admin Script Pack is a collection of Administrative scripts designed to make IT Administration easier! Save time, get more work done, get the Admin Script Pack.

 

[mtownbound]

Thanks for the reply, Mark!!

Yes, I can add the rocket.com domain to sbs, but was trying to resolve this issue first to ensure that we have 2 working instances first.

I did the nslookup and set type=mx, but it only came back with acme.com, which is correct.

Any other suggestions?


Thanks again!!!

 

[markdmac]

Yes, verify that DNS is all correctly configured.

Make sure that the TCP/IP settings for the NIC do NOT list external DNS. They should only list the SBS server.

In DNS, you should have the ISP DNS servers listed under Forwarders (unless you are using root hints in which case they should be blank).

verify that DHCP is configured to push out only your internal DNS to client and not external DNS.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

Work SMARTER not HARDER. The Spider's Parlor's Admin Script Pack is a collection of Administrative scripts designed to make IT Administration easier! Save time, get more work done, get the Admin Script Pack.

 

[mtownbound]

Thanks Mark. The DNS looks good. It's a static IP and the DNS is the server itself. The only server in the DNS tab is the server.

Am I overlooking a resolving issue? I didn't see anything out of the ordinary in the host file.


Thanks again!!!

 

[markdmac]

Hard to tell. Have you looked at the public DNS for that domain using IPTOOLS.COM?

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

Work SMARTER not HARDER. The Spider's Parlor's Admin Script Pack is a collection of Administrative scripts designed to make IT Administration easier! Save time, get more work done, get the Admin Script Pack.

 

[mtownbound]

I checked iptools.com and everything is resolving to the right server.

All the Exchange settings are pointing to the correct server and there is nothing that is pointing to the rocket.com domain. The email policy is pointing to the acme.com smtp address. Do I need to add rocket.com to the recipient policy??

 

[58sniper]

any SMTP domain you wish to receive mail for MUST appear in at least one recipient policy. It's how you tell the server to accept mail for that domain.

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/

 

[mtownbound]

Our users are just using their rocket.com .pst files in outlook and the ones that have the acme.com accounts have both in outlook. So they have a Exchange and a POP account. Do I need to put the rocket.com domain in the recipient policy even if our Exchange server is not being used to manage that domain?

 

[58sniper]

No - only if you want Exchange to receive mail for that domain.

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/

 

[markdmac]

So the user accounts are configured with both Exchange and POP? That is not a supported configuration. You should be using the POP3 connector from SBS.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

Work SMARTER not HARDER. The Spider's Parlor's Admin Script Pack is a collection of Administrative scripts designed to make IT Administration easier! Save time, get more work done, get the Admin Script Pack.

 

[mtownbound]

No, sorry if I misled you. Several users have multiple accounts in Outlook, one being the local Exchange acme.com account and the other being the pop rocket.com account.

So they have a mailbox and a seperate personal folders for the POP account


Thanks again!!

 

[markdmac]

Microsoft considers that setup to be unsupported. That is not to say that it won't work, but it is not ideal.

You should instead try setting up the POP3 Connector on the server to pull the users email down into Exchange. users can setup rules to move the mail to different folders if they like. You should discourage the use of PST files since the failure of a PC will cause data loss.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

Work SMARTER not HARDER. The Spider's Parlor's Admin Script Pack is a collection of Administrative scripts designed to make IT Administration easier! Save time, get more work done, get the Admin Script Pack.

 

[58sniper]

The best scenario would be to have both domains delivered to the server directly. But Mark's right - stay away from POP3 on the client and the use of .pst files.

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/