Force outgoing SMTP to another SMTP server?

[Scott L]

Ladies and Gents, I have a problem.

I have an Exchange 2003 server Outlook 2002 (XP) workstations. (may
consider moving to Outlook 2003 at a later date as it's brilliant)


Anyhow,...

The way this very small business is set up, is that the users download
mail from a POP external mailbox over the net and store the mail on
their Exchange server store. (don't ask and no I simply can not change
it from this, budget is too small)

Now the thing is, if they REPLY to an INTERNAL exchange recipient on
the domain and CC in an EXTERNAL recipient, my exchange server (or
perhaps the outlook client, not sure where the decision is "made") will
send the external email via the exchange servers own SMTP "engine"

This is _BAD_BAD_BAD!
This exchange server has been added to "spam listings" because
essentially she's behind a standard home user ip address of an ISP.
(and the mail header says it's from "expat.local.blah." (internal stuff
from the domain)

The domain/ip address (MX and A records, if I have my terminology
right) for the business are on a completely different machine. (as
mentioned before with external pop retreival)


So what I want is this.

Either Outlook 2002 (XP), 2003 OR the Exchange server to
abso-fricken-loutely ALWAYS send SMTP external emails via the smtp
server of their ISP, ensuring that they don't get added to any further
spam blacklistings.




The doman name in question is expat(d0t)com(d0t)au

Sadly, I'm fairly new to administering this kind of stuff and fairly
new to mx records, domain names, lookups all that business.
Their ISP's outgoing mail server is smtp(d0t)ihug(d0t)com(d0t)au
The company which hosts this is pop(d0t)ozhosting(d0t)com [yes,
completely different company to the ISP]
Of course finally the machine ITSELF has a dynamic IP address in ihugs
range.

I'm not entirely certain EVEN if we do get them to ALWAYS route mail
from the correct SMTP server for the ISP if it will fix the spam
listings they are being added to,..... because the reply address on the
emails is different to the domain that's sending them. (expat vs ihug)
(hopefully I'm wrong)



So, to summarise, ASSUMING that spam blocking "engines" don't care the
reply address domain is different to the smtp server sending the
email,,........ can I stop them being spam listed by stopping this
exchange server EVER sending external email, and if so from Outlook or
Exchange?

Thank you muchly.


- Scott

 

[Michael S. Meyers-Jouan]

Scott,

If this is a small business that doesn't have any other E-mail servers, you
SHOULD be able to get your domain registrar to change the domain records so
the MX record points to your Exchange Server while the A record remains
wherever it is now. IF (and this is a pretty big if for "consumer" accounts)
the IP address assigned to your server is static -- that is, it doesn't
change unpredictably when you have to restart routers or other devices --
you should be good to go. However, you really do need to work on getting the
server to identify itself externally by the published domain name -- read
the Exchange Server help files.

Mike

Ladies and Gents, I have a problem.

I have an Exchange 2003 server Outlook 2002 (XP) workstations. (may
consider moving to Outlook 2003 at a later date as it's brilliant)


Anyhow,...

The way this very small business is set up, is that the users download
mail from a POP external mailbox over the net and store the mail on
their Exchange server store. (don't ask and no I simply can not change
it from this, budget is too small)

Now the thing is, if they REPLY to an INTERNAL exchange recipient on
the domain and CC in an EXTERNAL recipient, my exchange server (or
perhaps the outlook client, not sure where the decision is "made") will
send the external email via the exchange servers own SMTP "engine"

This is _BAD_BAD_BAD!
This exchange server has been added to "spam listings" because
essentially she's behind a standard home user ip address of an ISP.
(and the mail header says it's from "expat.local.blah." (internal stuff
from the domain)

The domain/ip address (MX and A records, if I have my terminology
right) for the business are on a completely different machine. (as
mentioned before with external pop retreival)


So what I want is this.

Either Outlook 2002 (XP), 2003 OR the Exchange server to
abso-fricken-loutely ALWAYS send SMTP external emails via the smtp
server of their ISP, ensuring that they don't get added to any further
spam blacklistings.




The doman name in question is expat(d0t)com(d0t)au

Sadly, I'm fairly new to administering this kind of stuff and fairly
new to mx records, domain names, lookups all that business.
Their ISP's outgoing mail server is smtp(d0t)ihug(d0t)com(d0t)au
The company which hosts this is pop(d0t)ozhosting(d0t)com [yes,
completely different company to the ISP]
Of course finally the machine ITSELF has a dynamic IP address in ihugs
range.

I'm not entirely certain EVEN if we do get them to ALWAYS route mail
from the correct SMTP server for the ISP if it will fix the spam
listings they are being added to,..... because the reply address on the
emails is different to the domain that's sending them. (expat vs ihug)
(hopefully I'm wrong)



So, to summarise, ASSUMING that spam blocking "engines" don't care the
reply address domain is different to the smtp server sending the
email,,........ can I stop them being spam listed by stopping this
exchange server EVER sending external email, and if so from Outlook or
Exchange?

Thank you muchly.


- Scott

 

[Per W.]

Scott,

If this is a small business that doesn't have any other E-mail servers,
you SHOULD be able to get your domain registrar to change the domain
records so the MX record points to your Exchange Server while the A record
remains wherever it is now. IF (and this is a pretty big if for "consumer"
accounts) the IP address assigned to your server is static -- that is, it
doesn't change unpredictably when you have to restart routers or other
devices -- you should be good to go. However, you really do need to work
on getting the server to identify itself externally by the published
domain name -- read the Exchange Server help files.

Then he needs 2 or more smtp server and on different networks. The best
thing for a small business is to have your ISP to handle the SMTP and then
get the mail from POP3 downloads, OR have the ISP to send the mail in to
your smtp server. Then you dont need to wory if your server is down, and if
you only open the firewall for your ISP then your security is over 100%
better. I cant in my wildest imagination understand why so many
"professional" peopel that is on this news group and other exchange, sbs
newsgroups tell peopel that they should use internal smtp servers and not
there ISPs smtp service, WHY????????

NEVER USE YOUR OWN SMTP SERVER AS PRIMARY MAILSERVER IF YOU DONT HAVE YOUR
OWN IT DEPARTMENT. NEVER.

/Per W.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

Ladies and Gents, I have a problem.

I have an Exchange 2003 server Outlook 2002 (XP) workstations. (may
consider moving to Outlook 2003 at a later date as it's brilliant)


Anyhow,...

The way this very small business is set up, is that the users download
mail from a POP external mailbox over the net and store the mail on
their Exchange server store. (don't ask and no I simply can not change
it from this, budget is too small)

Sorry, I just can't help myself. Why do you think it would cost more to do
this in a more efficient manner?

Now the thing is, if they REPLY to an INTERNAL exchange recipient on
the domain and CC in an EXTERNAL recipient, my exchange server (or
perhaps the outlook client, not sure where the decision is "made")
will send the external email via the exchange servers own SMTP
"engine"

Yes, because OLXP is "smart" and will always reply using the account via
which the message was received. This can be manually changed in Outlook per
message...

This is _BAD_BAD_BAD!
This exchange server has been added to "spam listings" because
essentially she's behind a standard home user ip address of an ISP.
(and the mail header says it's from "expat.local.blah." (internal
stuff from the domain)

The Exchange server can be set up to forward all outbound Internet mail to a
smarthost (her ISP's SMTP server) which will work fine.

The domain/ip address (MX and A records, if I have my terminology
right) for the business are on a completely different machine. (as
mentioned before with external pop retreival)

Can be changed easily even if she's on a home network - see various options
at www.dyndns.org or www.no-ip.com - but even if you wish to keep the
current setup with Outlook using POP mail, it shouldn't matter if the server
is set up to forward Internet mail to the ISP's SMTP server for delivery.

So what I want is this.

Either Outlook 2002 (XP), 2003 OR the Exchange server to
abso-fricken-loutely ALWAYS send SMTP external emails via the smtp
server of their ISP, ensuring that they don't get added to any further
spam blacklistings.




The doman name in question is expat(d0t)com(d0t)au

Sadly, I'm fairly new to administering this kind of stuff and fairly
new to mx records, domain names, lookups all that business.
Their ISP's outgoing mail server is smtp(d0t)ihug(d0t)com(d0t)au
The company which hosts this is pop(d0t)ozhosting(d0t)com [yes,
completely different company to the ISP]
Of course finally the machine ITSELF has a dynamic IP address in ihugs
range.

I'm not entirely certain EVEN if we do get them to ALWAYS route mail
from the correct SMTP server for the ISP if it will fix the spam
listings they are being added to,..... because the reply address on
the emails is different to the domain that's sending them. (expat vs
ihug) (hopefully I'm wrong)



So, to summarise, ASSUMING that spam blocking "engines" don't care the
reply address domain is different to the smtp server sending the
email,,........ can I stop them being spam listed by stopping this
exchange server EVER sending external email, and if so from Outlook or
Exchange?

My preference would really be to clean up the existing configuration rather
than use workarounds -