Separate Domains

[Cogen]

Hi ... I work for a small ISP that is currently trying to address the world wide spam problem (our clients get too much). One of the solutions that a staff member has mentioned is to give our clients their own domain name (potentially a few thousand clients). We would not allow the domain to have anything in the way of a website, but the customer would have a personalized email address, and would receive less spam because of it.

I was just wondering if anyone here has any comments on that idea? Is it a good/bad idea.

 

[PhillyCheeseSteak]

If you want to use exchange, you might want to create a seperate domain so that the user accounts are not in the same active directory environment as your corporate accounts.

Create the domain in a seperate forest and use a one-way trust CORPDOMAIN---> NEWDOMAIN to administer it.

Good luck,

Phil.

 

[PhillyCheeseSteak]

To clarify, I am referring to a Windows 2000/2003 domain..which means you'll bring up in the minimum two new boxes, a domain controller, and an exchange server.

 

[xmsre]

You can accept for delivery from as many smtp email domains as you want. This isn't the same, nor does it depend on active directory domains.

If I have a single AD domain, isphost.com, I can recieve mail for multiple companies; abccorp.com, defcorp.com, and xyzcorp.com. I do this by hosting a domain in EXTERNAL DNS with an MX record that points to my exchange server. For the host in all these MX records, I need an A record and a PTR record. On Exchange, you must have a recipient policy for each smtp domain that you are hosting in order to accept mail for delivery to that smtp mail domain. You would create recipient policies for @abccorm.com, @defcorp.com, and @xyzcorp.com. Then there's the matter of applying the correct address to the right users, setting up adressbooks and delegating management. This article should help:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;318635

There's also a Patterns & Practices book my Microsoft Press that covers hosting Exchange 2000 in detail.

 

[PhillyCheeseSteak]

Yes, but again, you don't want to have thousands of customer accounts in your corporate active directory domain, hence the additional domain.