Where to assign a new email address for the system administrator

[spencertaylor]

Not quite sure what's happened here but here's some background info:

Exchange 2003 was installed alongside 5.5 - different servers
After some time 5.5 was removed according to MS instructions
Company changes email domain from domaina.com to domainb.com
After some time access to domaina.com was removed
Exchange was sending out NDR's as from domaina.com
Internal gateway spam servers blocked NDR's as domaina.com was no longer supported.
Recipient policies changed to domainb.com
NDR's are now going out from System Administrator who has no email address and so spam servers reject their transport still.
Exchange 2003 has various references to an old domain account login that appears to have been deleted.
All Exchange 2003 services run under local system except AD connector which runs as domain admin account.

So finally the question:

Where do I give the System Administrator and email address like postmaster@domainb.com so the NDR's go through again?

Shouldn't the services be running under a user account with an exchange account to do this? I can only assume this was like this from it's installation alongside 5.5 whose settings have been lost.

Any help/insight would be greatly appreciated.

 

[markdmac]

The postmaster account is tied to the built in domain Administrator account.

You say that 5.5 was removed per MS instructions. Which instructions did you follow? Did you follow this guide?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822450

And did you move to Native mode per

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/272314/?

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.

 

[spencertaylor]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the reply.

It was removed some time ago and I'm not sure those were the instructions followed or not.

The server appears to still be in mixed mode though.

Aside from that the NDR's that I'm catching copies of have the postmaster@domainb.com in the header but when they arrive at the Websense systems for filtering they report a blank from field and are subsequently quarantined.

Does it matter that the exchange services are running as localsystem?

One strange but worrying discovery under the properties of the exchange site shows an Exchange 4.0/5.x service account having an account that doesn't exist anymore. The modify button only allows options to alter the password not the assigned account. Things like this look like the server configuration still has some links to the old 5.5 settings.

 

[markdmac]

I agree, it sounds like the removal was not done properly. See if you can follow any of the steps in that removal doc still. If not try moving to native mode.

If you still see an old service, try disabling it and see if all is still working.

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.

 

[spencertaylor]

Hi Mark,

I've done / fixed the modes and removed 5.5 reference properly but it has made no difference.

Although the headers show a From: email address, there is no Sender Address when the mail arrives at the antispam server and so they are blocked.

Where do you set the sender address for the System Administrator emails?

 

[markdmac]

Add your server IP to the allowed list for SMTP relay.

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.