Windows Small Business Server 2011 installation and configuration – Part 4 configuring “Configure a Smart Host for internet e-mail”
Go directly to SBS 2011 index file. With links to all articles from this serie.
When you finished part 3 “Setup your internet address” and returned to the SBS Console you now choose Configure a Smart Host for internet e-mail” to start the wizard.
Note: Before we start this wizard has only to be completed if you would like or need to configure a Smart host to send you mail through if you use DNS to send mail through you can skip this step.
So this is a really short wizard, started with some information about what we are going to configure.
We now enter the fully qualified domain name (fqdn) or ip address of the smart host we would like or need to use. You should configure a smart host if your isp blocks port 25 on their network.
If your smart host requires authentication than enter the user name and password.
You now have successful configured a smart host for outgoing mail.
Go back to part 3 “Setup your internet address”
Continue with Part 5 configuring “Add a trusted certificate”
Tags: installation, sbs 2011, sbs console
Dear Sir,
SBS 2011 how to send/receive email from internet/external ?
Thanks & regards,
Hi,
By default SBS uses an send connector using DNS, if you have followed the Connect to the internet wizard.
Also receiving emails works by default, you have to point your mx record to your server so mail will be delivered there.
Regards
Ronny
The problem for sending email was there was a smarthost configured but the smarthost was pointing to the same sbs server.
About the receiving email was the external mx was pointing to the wrong ip address
Just thought I would share this, you can check if outgoing port 25 is being blocked at http://port25.icannotconnect.com
Is this step necessary if I wanted to use the POP3 Connector?
This option has nothing to do with the pop3 connector, the smart host is only for sending email via a smarthost. The pop3 connector is for receiving email.
Thanks for the information.
I am having problems getting the pop3 connector to work with SBS 2011. Tomorrow I will just do a clean install of it once again (still in testing phase) and follow along with your blog.
No problem, there are some known issues with the pop connector, take a look at this article: http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2009/07/01/sbs-2008-introducing-the-pop3-connector.aspx scroll a bit down for the issues. It is about SBS 2008 but the issues are the same with SBS 2011.
After a couple of days trial, error, repeat… I finally solved my pop3 connector problem.
I was given the wrong pop3 account information. That was only discovered when I decided to test it out with my own personal email account.
Time to see if I can get the thing send mail *cry*
Good day, I have done a bare metal install of SBS 2011. We can receive email from the internet but cannot respond to the emails. Another issue is when I respond to the emails it shows up inbox again as new email. I have been testing with the OWA account. I’m very new to sbs2011 so not sure if i have setup everything properly. The domain that hosts our website only provides a MX record so we can receive but not sure how to set up so we can send email (I followed all the wizards for send connectors etc) but still no luck. I could really use some advice for what I will be looking for
Hi,
The Configure a Smart Host for internet e-mail wizard configures the send connector, what did you enter during the wizard? Normal you need to configure to use DNS for sending email. You could contact your provider to ask if it is needed to configure a smart host for sending, some providers block port 25 on there network and you need to use there smart host to send email.
Hi – excellent resource – THANKS
Question please. I am upgrading our system from SBS 2003 to SBS 2011. We have always used the POP3 Connector since SBS 4.5. This time I’m looking at using SMTP. I’ve started to look at the DNS records and see that I can have a priority and more than one MX record. Currently it points at our ISP mail server which then manages the mail into individual POP3 boxes.
I understand if our SBS server is unreachable (internet problem, power outage) mail would be returned as undeliverable to the sender – correct?
However could I have a second MX record with a higher priority that still points at the ISP mail server, which would catch all mail if our SBS is unreachable? Then use the POP connector to fetch mail to a single account accessible by all users?
Thanks for any advice.
It is partely right that mail will bounce when your mail server is not reachable, only most mail servers are configured to try up to 48 hours before they stop trying delivering and send a non delivery report. Just to add the 48 hours is a configurable value so every mail server administrator can change this value to something they prefer.
They way you describe with first delivering mail via direct smtp delivery and with a second MX to the ISP for fallback would be a good solution to make sure the mail is always delivered and if the mail server has an outage it will be catch at your ISP and catched by the SBS server when it is up and running. This is a configuration I have used befor and works realy fine.
Thanks for the reply. I’ve posted the question at our ISP Business forum and I have received an answer that it currently won’t work due to the ISP configuration. I don’t understand why – but will ask anyway. If they can’t I guess I can redirect it to another POP3 box with another provider – say Google Mail?
I have an old domain lying around so I might try anyway with that before trying with the primary domain. Is it possible to use direct smtp delivery and POP connector at the same time? That way I could test with my old domain with smtp first.
Yes you can use another let’s say POP3 provider (or even another smtp fallback (bsmtp) solution for accepting your email or even more than 1 if you would like, you can configure as much as you like.
Mail will always try to be delivered to the MX record with highest priority (lowest number) if this fails for what reason it will try to deliver to the second highest MX and so on.
Thanks!
Hi – Thank you for this resource. I am new to Exchange and have been using this info quite a bit.
Can I skip this step (use smarthost) if we will use DNS instead. Sounds elementary but I don’t want to miss a step just in case it is needed.
Thanks
Hi,
No problem! If you are gonna use DNS for sending email you do not need to run the configure a smarthost wizard.
I have configured For email,Out email is fine. and incoming too.But if i can not send email to certain domains mail address.like google and yahoo works.But any domain registered with anybody else like godaddy does not work.
what do you think?
There is a known dns issue with problems sending to certain toplevel domains, maybe this is the same as your problem, see this article.
Hi, still I am not convenient how it works. I have an ISP which holds my web site and 20 email accounts. So the emails from and to user1-20@myweb.xx (located at isp) must pass to my sbs. My sbs domain name is the same as the ISP’s located domain name. Do I need to set up a connector for every account?
Hi,
if you are going to use POP3 for mail delivery and use the SBS POP3 connector you need to configure pop accounts for all mailboxes you are going to use. Otherwise you should or use a third party POP connector, or the best alternative switch to SMTP mail delivery which is recommended.
my client network is using class A ip (100.1.0.1) I have configured SBS on this ip range. how should i activate pop3 connector bypassing “Set up your Internet address”
Ofcourse the best would be change the subnet back to a class A subnet, do you really need a class A range, you can just use 100.1.0.x with mask 255.255.255.0. Otherwise I would try to run the setup your internet address wizard and afterwards change the subnet mask after that setup the pop3 connector
Hi,
I have just install SBS2011.
Im not able to send mail and I have a smarthost configured with smtp.ziggo.nl
Strainge thing is that with the actual SBS2003 it’s working fine with the same smarthost.
Can you help me?
Thanks in advance, Edwin
Hi Edwin,
Can you post the config of the Send Connector by using Exchange Management Shell and run this command: Get-SendConnector | FL
Hi Ronnypot,
Thanks for your advice. I will get this config information and post it soon as I am on the location.
Rgds, Edwin
Hi Edwin,
I would suggest to post the question on the SBS Technet Forum, I am also helping people over there but there are more professionals that can help you.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/smallbusinessserver/threads
Hmm, strange. Im really confused now. Today I checked the smtp port from the actual SBS2003 server and it is using port 25. But when I check port 25 its blocked! How on earth is this possible? This server is also using smart host filter. I was not able to check the port settings from the SBS2011 because de company is using mailserver from the SBS2003. (SBS2011 is disconnect untill we can swap the server). One more thing. I did received one test mail which was send to a @gmail.com account but not to our @live.nl account.
I have checked portsettings from the SBS2011 and it was port 25. So I changed it to 587 but now I have the next results;
send mail to xx@live.nl nothing happen
send mail to xx@gmail.com, got a reply undeliverable mail. check systemadministrator
This is the current config:
AddressSpaces : {smtp:*;1}
AuthenticationCredential :
Comment :
ConnectedDomains : {}
ConnectionInactivityTimeOut : 00:10:00
DNSRoutingEnabled : False
DomainSecureEnabled : False
Enabled : True
ErrorPolicies : Default
ForceHELO : False
Fqdn : remote.blablabla.nl
HomeMTA : Microsoft MTA
HomeMtaServerId : SERVER
Identity : Windows SBS Internet Send SERVER
IgnoreSTARTTLS : False
IsScopedConnector : False
IsSmtpConnector : True
LinkedReceiveConnector :
MaxMessageSize : 10 MB (10,485,760 bytes)
Name : Windows SBS Internet Send SERVER
Port : 587
ProtocolLoggingLevel : None
RequireOorg : False
RequireTLS : False
SmartHostAuthMechanism : None
SmartHosts : {smtp.ziggo.nl}
SmartHostsString : smtp.ziggo.nl
SmtpMaxMessagesPerConnection : 20
SourceIPAddress : 0.0.0.0
SourceRoutingGroup : Exchange Routing Group (DWBGZMFD01QNBJR)
SourceTransportServers : {SERVER}
TlsAuthLevel :
TlsDomain :
UseExternalDNSServersEnabled : False
I do not think smtp.ziggo.nl is using port 587 to receive email, this should be port 25.
But I think maybe ziggo is blocking something I do not no if the have any policies about sending and receiving email. You might try calling them and ask if they block port 25 on there network or maybe for some customers.
Okay, everything is working fine, except one thing. I can send mail to all domains except @live.nl addresses. Please advise me how to troubleshoot this one last issue! Thanks again
It might be live.nl is blocking your emails for whatever reason. It might be because your servers ip address was on a block list and is cleared by other providers but not yet by live.nl. Only thing you could do is send it via a smarthost or contact live.nl why they are blocking your email.
Hi RonnyPot
I am new to SBS 2011 and Exchange.
I have set up and installed SBS2011. It connects to the web, users are set up and their email addresses are configured. I keep reading on various forums that SBS email/exchange just works. My old OSX mail server had an internet IP given to me by my service provider. This IP is in my MX record. So any mail sent mail.test.com would go to IP 1xx.9x.2xx.5x. I want SBS to use the same IP. What I cannot figure out is where or how to get SBS 2011 to link to that IP in the server configuration. My web hardware set up is as followed. Fibre Optic broadband which has a Netgear UTM50 connected with an Internet IP. The SBS 2011 Server is connected to the Netgear UTM via a Gigabyte switch.
I can see that your guides and knowledge is first class. Please can you be kind enough to help out a newbie. Thanks
Hi,
It is indeed the case that when you install SBS using the wizards all Exchange related settings are done automatic. The only thing you need to make care of is that email is delivered from the internet to your SBS server. THis needs to be done at your external DNS server, probably your ISP or any other provider that hosts your domainname.com. You need to create a DNS A record for remote.yourdomain.com (or if you used any other name during setup) and point it to the Internet IP. Second you need to create a DNS MX record that points to remote.yourdomain.com. Last your router / firewall must allow SMTP traffic (port 25) and send this to the SBS server.
I also forgot to mention the email config I would like is IMAP and I have an SSL Cert already set up.
Why use imap? It is by far better to use just the Exchange connection from outlook even from the outside of your network, Outlook uses outlook anywhere (rpc over https) to connect over a secure ssl (https) connection. Or if you have smartphones use ActiveSync also by default configured it has a seamless synchronisation of Email, calendar, contacts etc.
to use active sync on smartphone.
do I use the remote.mydomain.com address to configure
I already have made a-record in isp advanced dns setting
I get a certificate error when trying to access remotely then 404 forbidden.using builtin certificate.
the remote.mydomain.com work ok internal lan
could it be a firewall issue?
If you have configured your SBS server using the wizards and used remote.yourdomain.com as the address you should use this for activesync indeed. At the isp dns you have to configure an A record for remote.yourdomain.com that points to the external ip address of your internet router. And the router must accept port 443 and send it to the sbs server.
Hi Ronny,
I am using smarthost already. Is there a way to check for blacklist issues on the SBS2011 server? How can I trace mails send to live.nl? Since Windows8 is using more cloud solutions it is very important that sending mail to @live.nl should work. Again, from the actual SBS2003 there is no problem with it. Thanks again, Edwin
Does the email to @live.nl come back with an error or you don’t get any error back?
Also please check via Exchange Management Console, Toolbox, Queue viewer if the emails are still in the exchange queue. If not use the Exchange Message Tracking to see if the email realy left your Exchange server.
If the mail has left the Exchange server there is nothing on your server wrong, so you might contact Ziggo and ask if they can see where the message stays. (you are sending via there smarthost so they must see the message come trough)
Hi Ronny,
No, the email to @live.nl does not come back with an error. So it looks like the SBS server thinks, he is the live.nl domain itself?
I have checked the queue and there is no mail relay.
Maybe its better to install the server again ;-( Rgds, Edwin
Hi Edwin,
If the emails are not in the Queue anymore they are send from you server so your server is not the problem. A reinstall would not help, you better contact Ziggo if they can see where the emails are going to.
Hi Ronny,
Problem solved! Caused by a strange distrubitiongroup with configuration for *live.nl with a non resistent mail address as reply address. After deleting this distrubitiongroup, everything was working fine. Name of this group was private addressbook. Thank you very much for all the help!
Rgds, Edwin
Great you solved your problem! and thanks for sharing the solution!
can you recommend a good spamfilter?
There are so mucht different spam filters, ofcourse there is a basic option included within Exchange, but if you want more option it all depends on your wishes and demands. I have good experiences with GFI MailEssentials/Security or Barracuda products
to all who use ziggo. incoming mail on port 25 works outgoing is standard blacked. you will have to use the smarthost settings from smtp.ziggo.nl