Re: Move from POP3 Connector to Exchange SMTP

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Hi,
You'll start to lose mail after a few days. I had a customer who lost their internet connection for almost a week recently. I looked into the various mail backup services about like exchange continuity etc, the problem with a lot of these is that although they will hold the email for you, users can't get to it to read and send email. What I have done is arrange a cheap hosting package for them just for email, use this as the backup mx record. The hosting company provides webmail access so they can still work while the office is out of action, once the server is back online the pop3 collector grabs the queued mail and puts it back into exchange.
simon

TerryM wrote:
Thanks, I'm learning..

I guess what I am not clear on is what happens if for instance I have the server down for some kind of maintenace, maybe over a weekend or something, or the DSL is down etc..

How long before mail starts to bounce.

Terry



"SuperGumby [SBS MVP]" <not@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:OZRR5f1FIHA.2268@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The pointer (PTR) record, what you refer to as 'reverse DNS', is not _necessary_ but it will help remote systems accepting your email rather than rejecting it as SPAM.

Just to point out. MX records carry a 'weight', the lower the number the higher the priority. Your record for the SBS needs to be lowest number, highest priority.

The 'Use DNS to route email' is only used outgoing, you either send directly to other servers or through a certain server (normally your ISP's), commonly called a 'smart host'. Whether you need to or not, or whether this is desirable, has no bearing on your ability to receive by SMTP.

SMTP and the POP connector are not exclusive choices, you can enable 'Use Exchange' and 'email is delivered directly to my server' while continuing to use the POP connector, until everything is in place and propogated in DNS.

Using the POP connector and mailboxes at the ISP as a backup is a kludge. It actually means maintaining a system which you hope to in fact never need. If forced to I might consider using a 'global' mailbox at the ISP but the fact is I do not expect SBS to be down for anywhere near the period of time that would cause email to start bouncing with no backup. If SBS is down I have bigger problems than accessing email.

mail.example.com may be reused as the backup MX, implemented by whatever method.

Something many forget about is the SMTP Banner. Google it and you'll see all sorts of instructions on changing it. I actually don't go as far as what is advised though ('telnet mickmalloy.dyndns.org 25' to see mine). It should reflect the public server name. Doing so is quite easy, SBS console, Advanced Management, First Org (Exch), Servers, SBS, Protocols, SMTP, call up the properties for the default SMTP Virtual Server, on the delivery tab, Advanced, change the fully qualified name to sbs.example.com.

Probably the final step is to implement the IMF (Intelligent Message Filter), but that deserves a thread of it's own.

"TerryM" <TerryM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:7BE76BCE-0829-48F6-A871-7F63755A5E86@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hello

We are finally planning on migrating from the POP3 connector to Exchange SMTP on our SBS 2003 R2 box. But I am not IT pro (just the designated IT guy), and want to make sure I understand the steps correctly. For this discussion our domain name is "example.com"

We already have an 'A' record in the form "SBS.Example.com" that points to the static IP address our our SBS. We use this for remote access.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but all we should need to do is

1 Get our ISP (in our case not the same company that hosts our domain) to create a Reverse DNS record for our static IP (not sure how this works).

2 Create a new MX record that points to SBS.Example.com with a higher number priority than the pop service currently has, and wait a few days for the records to propagate.

3 On the change over day run CEICW and change email delivery to "Use DNS to route e-mail" and add "Use Exchange (e-mail is delivered directly to my server)" to the retrieval method.

4 Then promote the new MX record to the top of the heap.

5 Wait a few days then run CEICW again and get rid of the "Use Microsoft Connector for POP3 Mailboxes" retrieval method.

Is this right?

The only thing I don't know yet is if our domain host offers a backup MX service. If they do then we could add a lower priority MX record for that then ditch the old pop MX records?


If we keep the keep our POP3 accounts could this act as a backup service that would allow us to use there webmail should our server be down for an extended period?

Do I need to change the CNAME record that currently exists for "mail.example.com" that points to "mail.domainhost.com" to something else?

Thanks

Terry Mc





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