Mail Retreival Frequency

[MarkDraa]

I'm running Exchange v5.0 on an NT4 (SP6) server. We have a single dialup analog account with our ISP. All mail addressed to anything@ourdomain.com gets dumped into this box. We try to keep this connection active continuously, since it is also used for shared internet access.

We've been having problems with timely delivery of incoming mail recently. Our ISP says that although we are sending outgoing mail regularly, we are not requesting icoming mail from their server on a regular basis. For example, this morning, we started sending outgoing mail at around 7:30, but our ISP reports that we didn't request incoming mail from their server until 9:30.

I've looked fruitlessly in Exchange Administrator for a setting that controls the mail polling frequency. I have always assumed that as long as the connection was active, Exchange automatically polled the ISP servers for new mail every few seconds or so. I know I've been on the phone with someone sending me an email and watched it arrive at my desktop within only a few seconds of when it was sent.

I think our ISP is feeding me a line. Can anyone tell me if Exchange allows you to control the mail polling frequency and where this is done?

TIA

Mark

 

[Maruis]

Correct me if I am wrong please?
Your mailserver is not setup as a POP3 server.
You pull all your mail in from your ISP and then your mail server put the mail in all the respective mailboxes.

If this is the case there is no way that you can set your server to poll for new mail from your ISP. You need 3d party software to do this for you.
If your mailserver is setup as a pop3 server then your server will receive mail as somebody else sends it, as long as you have a connection going to the internet.

Hope this helps

 

[MarkDraa]

Thanks for the response, Marius. When you say "If your mailserver is setup as a pop3 server" do you mean my server running Exchange, or my ISPs server?

How do I check this out? (sorry if this is a boneheaded question, I'm new to exchange, I came from a Netware shop!)

Mark

 

[Maruis]

What i mean by POP3 server is that your FQDN is registerd i.e.

http://www.somebody.com

and your mail server will be set-up as POP3 server. This also means that you have a static IP that is registerd in your company name and you have a DNS server installed to resolve your FQDN to an IP address.
POP3: mail.somebody.com
SMTP: smtp.somebody.com
If so then you only use your ISP as a connection to the internet, and your mail server directly receives mail from other mail servers and visa versa.

If not, then you need a different setup as per my first answer.

If you need more info how to do the 3d party setup I will gladly supply you the info.

Hope this answers your question.

 

[MarkDraa]

I believe we DO have a static IP. Our ISP hosts our domain name. My server is SMTP. It is NOT setup as a POP server. This has been working fine for a couple of years (I've only been here a few months..) If 3rd party software is required to poll my ISP for new mail, then how exactly does it work (and has it been working) without that extra software?

I'm confused. (but then, you knew that already, didn't you?)

Mark

 

[Maruis]

Ok np ;-)
Exchange is not able to retrieve mail from your ISP. I suppose someone retrived the mail manually and forwared all the mail to everybody.

You need 3d party software to solve your problem. The one I use is POPCon. It works like a charm.

http://www.christensen-software.com

It can be installed on any machine and acts as a POP3 server on its own. It will retrive mail on the intervals u set and redistribute it to the Exchange server who will put all the mail in the respective mailboxes.

Hope this solves your problem