Switched from ExchSrv2000 back to ISP Pop3 Mail - please help

[Sriram]

Yesterday, my office had me move our email system out of Exchange Server
2000, back to the POP3 mail offered by our webhost. I asked our webhost to
change the MX to point back to them. So far no problem, as from the
outside of our office (where we have an ADSL connection with a static IP
address), as I am able to access the new POP3 email accounts (our pop3
server address is "mail.hughesenterprises.net". However, from inside our
office, that server name will not resolve, so we are unable to connect to
our pop3 boxes. I can ping to "mail.hughesenterprises.net" from the oustide
world and it returns properly, but from inside our office, it says "cannot
find host". I am assuming this is a DNS issue from inside our office but
need any advice I can get to get this resolved before the start of business
tomorrow morning. Thank you in advance for any advice/help.
Sriram

 

[Kurt]

What is the name of your internal domain?

....kurt

 

[Kevin D. Goodknecht Sr. [MVP]]

Yesterday, my office had me move our email system out of Exchange
Server 2000, back to the POP3 mail offered by our webhost. I asked
our webhost to change the MX to point back to them. So far no
problem, as from the outside of our office (where we have an ADSL
connection with a static IP address), as I am able to access the new
POP3 email accounts (our pop3 server address is
"mail.hughesenterprises.net". However, from inside our office, that
server name will not resolve, so we are unable to connect to our pop3
boxes. I can ping to "mail.hughesenterprises.net" from the oustide
world and it returns properly, but from inside our office, it says
"cannot find host". I am assuming this is a DNS issue from inside
our office but need any advice I can get to get this resolved before
the start of business tomorrow morning. Thank you in advance for any
advice/help.
Sriram

Assuming hughesenterprises.net is your internal domain, open that zone in
the DNS management console and create a new record named mail giving the IP
of the external hosting provider's POP3 server where your mail is housed.

 

[Frankster]

hosting provider's POP3 server where your mail is housed.

I first read that to say "where your mail is hosed"! LOL.

-Frank

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

In

I first read that to say "where your mail is hosed"! LOL.

-Frank

Well, reverting from Exchange back to POP/PSTs would go in that category as
far as I'm concerned, I must say. Quite a downgrade.

 

[Frankster]

"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"

In

Well, reverting from Exchange back to POP/PSTs would go in that category
as far as I'm concerned, I must say. Quite a downgrade.

I think you are assuming that the Exchange mail system was working well to
begin with. Considering that DNS is still not right, I doubt that it was.
Probably why the (managers?) wanted to see something change. Whadayabet they
remember before Exchange, using POP3, when they had no trouble So,
they're probably thinking... let's just switch back.

Did I even come close Sriram?

-Frank

 

[Ace Fekay [MVP]]

In Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]

Well, reverting from Exchange back to POP/PSTs would go in that
category as far as I'm concerned, I must say. Quite a downgrade.

I agree that is a downgrade especially compared to the rich feature set that
Exchange offers. I'm also assuming, as Frankster, that probably something
was up with Exchange ihternally, (I am willing to bet it was probably an AD
issue), and they couldn't figure out what the problem was therefore switched
back to simple POP3 services.

Ace

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

In

"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"

In

Well, reverting from Exchange back to POP/PSTs would go in that
category as far as I'm concerned, I must say. Quite a downgrade.

I think you are assuming that the Exchange mail system was working
well to begin with.

Probably. But fixing the symptom isn't as good as fixing the cause!

 

[Frankster]

I think you are assuming that the Exchange mail system was working

Probably. But fixing the symptom isn't as good as fixing the cause!

Is this the first time you've seen management inject unfounded technical
measures? Hehe... It's not my first (if that is what is happening...)

After a long career in IT, culminating in managing an IT group of 85 folks,
one thing I have learned and that I incorporated into my hiring practices,
is that to be successful in IT you need to be able pitch a good technical
case to management, in terms that they can understand, for your recommended
actions. If you can't, management will take the technical decisions into
their own hands (and that's a mess!). Sounds like something along those
lines is happening here.

It's easy to read these newsgroups and suggest technical solutions, but
quite another to get them accepted by management and implemented into the
corporate world. Anyhow, just rambling. Sometimes ya' gotta do what ya'
gotta do. In this case, maybe it is "just give us mail!". Now!

Not to put blame on IT though. Often the managers themselves refuse to fund
the solution that will fix the cause. Sometimes refusing the fund the better
more expensive solution is the right call. We almost never know enough in
these newsgroups to understand the company culture, which has to be reckoned
with.

-Frank

 

[Sriram]

Well, reverting from Exchange back to POP/PSTs would go in that

I think you are assuming that the Exchange mail system was working
well to begin with. Considering that DNS is still not right, I doubt
that it was. Probably why the (managers?) wanted to see something
change. Whadayabet they remember before Exchange, using POP3, when
they had no trouble So, they're probably thinking... let's just
switch back.

Did I even come close Sriram?

-Frank

Frank, I do agree with your thoughts. The main reason though, was the
fact that the box that housed Exchange Server is about 5 years old, and
it functioned as the PDC, Mail Server, and Application Server. Most of
the AD users were getting an incessant amount of spam (to no fault of
theirs of course and:

1) Our webhost offers SpamAssassin, which I know does a very good job
getting rid of the most obvious stuff. On top of the overhead this one
box was already handling, we didn't find any third-party filtering
packages that really did the job.

2) The company decided not to fork over the money at this exact time
for a new box that could support Exchsrv 2003.

Thanks to the help of you gentlemen, I was able to get the DNS zones
setup properly, and was able to get the LDAP function of AD to work
properly, so it all worked out great. Thank you all again for the help.
Hopefully I can offer the same someday.

Sriram

 

[Frankster]

Frank, I do agree with your thoughts. The main reason though, was the
fact that the box that housed Exchange Server is about 5 years old, and
it functioned as the PDC, Mail Server, and Application Server. Most of
the AD users were getting an incessant amount of spam (to no fault of
theirs of course and:

1) Our webhost offers SpamAssassin, which I know does a very good job
getting rid of the most obvious stuff. On top of the overhead this one
box was already handling, we didn't find any third-party filtering
packages that really did the job.

2) The company decided not to fork over the money at this exact time
for a new box that could support Exchsrv 2003.

Thanks to the help of you gentlemen, I was able to get the DNS zones
setup properly, and was able to get the LDAP function of AD to work
properly, so it all worked out great. Thank you all again for the help.
Hopefully I can offer the same someday.

Sriram

Very interesting. Good luck.

Just FYI, I use Kerio mail server product called Kerio Mail Server (go
figure!). It is a great product. Much cheaper than Exchange. Not as many
features but very good. You might want to look at it one day. Great spam
filtering with easy adjustment increments. IMAP, POP, LDAP, Active Directory
support, webmail, and the secure versions of each of those. It will even run
on an XP workstation. http://www.kerio.com/us/kms_home.html.

-Frank