In this post I will show you how to configure your Exchange 2010 server to send emails to internet.
I recently entered Windows Azure 90 days trial program and hosted my test lab in the cloud. My test lab contains AD and Exchange services. Since this is not the first time I am configuring AD & Exchange services test lab, my setup completed too quick. If you are interested, read my previous article about Step-by-step Exchange Server 2010 Installation Guide. While testing something, I got a requirement to test email flow to internet. My test lab contains AD on one server and Exchange Maibox, CAS, and HTS roles on other server.
Here is the procedure I followed to create the send connector that sends emails from Exchange organization to internet. I am giving both ways(Exchange console method and Powershell way) to do this.
Using Exchange Management Console:
- Open the Exchange Management Console
- In the console tree, expand Organization Configuration, select Hub Transport, and then in the work pane, click the Send Connectors tab.
In the action pane, click New Send Connector. This starts New SMTP Send Connector wizard .
- On Introduction page, give a meaningful name to your connector and set the Select the intended use for this connector field to internet and click Next.
- On the Address space page, click Add and select SMTP Address space.
- In the SMTP Address space popup window, enter “*” in Address Space field without quotes as shown below and click OK and click Next on Address Space page.
- On the Network settings page, select Use domain name system (DNS) “MX” records to route mail automatically and click Next
- In Source Server page select the HTS server which is responsible for sending emails to Internet From your Exchange organization. In my case it is TIBR2. Click Next Once you are done.
- Review the summary and click on New button as shows below
- This completes configuring your Exchange 2010 organization to send emails to external world. You can send a test email from any mailbox to any internet email account like gmail and verify it is delivered. Mine is working without any issues.
Using Powershell
Open Exchange Management Shell and execute the following Powershell command.
New-SendConnector -Name "From Techibee.net to Internet" -AddressSpaces "*" -Usage Internet -DNSRoutingEnabled $true -SourceTransportServers TIBR2
A few important notes:
- The DNS server configured in HTS server which was nominated to send emails to outside should have proper DNS server settings so that it can resolve the MX records of domains to which your users will send emails.
- The HTS server which was nominated should be able to reach the MX servers of the target domains on port 25. This is required to deliver emails to target email servers. You need to configure your firewall rules accordingly if you have any.