Re: Tracing emails from outside clients
- From: "Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]" <lanwench@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 07:33:14 -0400
maitakeboy <maitakeboy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Thanks again for the quick and comprehensive reply. Just one last
question: when you say "preconfigure the zone", what exactly do you
mean?
Wherever you wish to host the DNS just make sure you create the identical
records before you flip the nameservers to the new host. That way there's no
difference between the info I get from one nameserver and another.
Basically don't I simply copy what I have now, and just change the
host and let that replicate out?
I don't know what you mean by "replicate" - I think you're looking for the
word "propagate," but even that is not an accurate term. When DNS caches
expire (the length of time the info is cached is determined by the TTL) the
servers will go check for new info. I'm not sure how long nameservers are
cached, but it isn't long, I think. Regardless, if the new servers are ready
(and identical to the old) then this becomes a nonissue for you.
"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]" wrote:
maitakeboy <maitakeboy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Thanks for your reply, Lanwench!
Earthlink hosts my DNS (sorry for not being precise in my original
post) mainly because of inertia: they were our original ISP and
website hosts, and though I've changed both of those I've never
moved the DNS out of an abundance of fear and caution. I got burned
by a bad replication of DNS when I changed public IPs several years
ago. If ISPs are not good DNS hosts, what do you consider to be the
optimal choice for hosting DNS records?
I personally like www.dyndns.com.
You would preconfigure the zone so that when you change nameservers
it's transparent.
The secondary server arrangement is just a legacy thing. I kind of
like it as an emergency backup.I have configured the manual forward
on it.
Ask Earthlink what it's actually doing with the mail. I would get
rid of that.
As far as looking at queues, I didn't think there were any incoming
queues anymore on Exchange 2003. Just outgoing.
I misspoke - try connections, But I don't think you'll see anything.
These senders can sporadically connect. If it were just a traffic
issue, then I would expect there to be a completely random
distribution of emails coming into the secondary server. But the
same external senders show up repeatedly, sending to the same
users, which I guess is the main clue that it's DNS on their side?
It could be, but removing the extra MX records (which you do not
need) would probably fix everything right up :)
Thanks again for your help.
"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]" wrote:
maitakeboy <maitakeboy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I have a somewhat unique problem. I host my own mail server, an
Exchange 2003 with a Barracuda 300 spam and virus firewall sitting
in front of it.
My MX record is hosted by Earthlink, our ISP
Actually, correction: your DNS is hosted with them - and I would
strongly suggest moving away from them. They are not known to be
very good DNS
hosts - ISPs generally aren't. And their support is dreadful.
. hey attach secondary
mail servers which they host, to our MX record
Sorry to be pedantic again, but you mean that your domain has
multiple MX records and theirs are higher-cost / lower preference
MX records which go to backup servers. I'm actually puzzled by this
because I thought Earthlink stopped doing "store and forward" for
people a long time ago. What's the reason you have this
configuration?
. I get about 10 - 12
emails a day which get shunted to that secondary server which is
then automatically forwarded to me as the network admin.
By what means?
Most, but not all
of the messages sent to the secondary server, seem to be from 3
or 4 clients, for 3 or 4 of my users, which leads me to believe
there is some configuration issue, not simply a traffic issue.
I'm having a hard time diagnosing what's going on, since there
are no "failures" as far as the sending server is concerned. It
just makes a connection wiht the secondary server. Is it possible
to trace this problem any other way than disabling the secondary
servers?
Not really, unless you're sitting in front of the senders' servers.
Simplest to change your MX records - especially as I wouldn't
recommend sticking with this configuration (nd especially with this
host). If it's for backup purposes, note that your senders' servers
will retry delivery for several days if your server is unavailable.
Would real-time
tracking of some sort show why the connection to the main server
is failing?
Your firewall logs might show them trying to connect, I guess.
Is ther real-time tracking available with Exchange?
No, but you can look in your queues.
Does
Message tracking show attempts to connect to the primary MX
record, before connecting to the secondary MX record? I had this
problem before the barracuda, btw. I had SAVMSE.
Nope.
Thanks for any help on this.
Have these senders ever been able tp semd to your users?
.
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