Exchange 2000 problem - absolutely desperate, please help...

[bowen]

Hello there,

Sorry about the life-story, but I think a bit of background information may help in this case. I would be very grateful if you would read it all as I am in desperate trouble and really need as much help as I can get…

I have a good knowledge of computers generally and a reasonable grasp of networking but I have never set up or maintained any version of m’soft exchange. I have to do a lot of broadband installations. I use an ADSL router and in general it is a pretty seamless transition – causing a minimum of disruption to the customer.

What was meant to be a very routine installation has gone extremely wrong and I am now in a very awkward situation. I am always very wary about messing around with networks that someone else has set up. In this case I had no choice - we ordered ADSL (to replace an ISDN system) and the phone engineers went round and ripped the old box out, dumped the ADSL modem on the table and left my customer with no internet/email and me with the task of restoring it.

The network is comprised of a Windows 2000 server with a few clients running windows XP, 2000 and 98. They have Small Business Server – which I believe includes Exchange 2000. First thing I did is restore internet access to the server by pointing it to the ADSL router. This successfully got them receiving email again without me even touching the Exchange configuration. I was very happy at this point, but this was short-lived. It would not send external mail. I reasoned that this was because in switching to broadband they had effectively switched ISP – so whatever SMTP servers they were using before would no longer allow the mail through. After a bit of sifting through the Exchange system manager I found the SMTP connector. I checked the properties for this and found a box that said “forward all mail for this connector through the following smart hosts”. In there it said “smtp.freeserve.com” (their old ISP). I may be completely wrong, but I further reasoned that if I could switch this to some functional SMTP servers, the mail would start sending again. I know from experience that I cannot use the BTbroadband SMTP servers (you have to submit the domain to them first and this takes 5 days which I don’t have). So I used some mail server details which I know should work (I tested the account separately through outlook express). But still none of the external mail would send.

I did a bit of further investigation and discovered the queues under server/protocols/default SMTP virtual sever. All the mail was accumulating in the “messages with an unreacheable destination queue”. I tried deleting all these just in case they could be clogging anything up, but this made no difference.

Based on someones suggestion, I went into the SMTP connector properties and knocked out the option to use a smarthost and checked the option to "use DNS to route each address space on this connector". Apparently because the ISP does not block port 25 it should just send OK. I then went into services and restarted the "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol" service. I sent some more test messages but unfortunately they did not send.

I checked the queues again (in Exhchange System Manager - Servers/server01/protocols/SMTP/default SMTP virtual server/Queues). This time they did not go into the “messages with an unreacheable destination queue". Instead some new queues had appeared - one for each domain that the test email was being sent to. It looked something like: SmallBusiness SMTP connector - hotmail (or whatever the domain).com (SMTP connector remote deilvery). The connection state was either active or retry. When I went into properties on the one it read "an internal DNS error caused a failure to find the remote server" and on the other "active remote delivery". None of them sent or arrived.


I am absolutely stuck. I am scared to change anything else because I don’t want to mess up their system. But I have to get this sorted. To make matters worse I have limited access to the system as I have to travel down there and I can’t keep popping in and out and tinkering with stuff or they are going to get annoyed (so far I have been able to keep everyone remarkably calm). I need as much help as possible and I need to solve this as quickly as possible – as I really cannot afford to lose this customer.

Many thanks in advance - in case you hadn't realised, I am really desperate

[LiVeWiRe]

I would venture to say that "an internal DNS error caused a failure to find the remote server" is the root of your problem. Where does the server point for DNS?

Also, have you checked the event logs on the server?

-LW

[bowen]

How do I find out where the server points to for DNS?

Is this a setting within Exchange or is it a general windows setting? In terms of the general windows settings (within properties for TCP-IP) the DNS is the same as the router (192.168.16.99) - that's about as much as I know. I don't know whether this is of any relelvance to the DNS settings, but it can access the internet and send standard emails from outlook express fine.

Cheers.

[bowen]

Hello there,

Just thought I would post back to say I have solved the problem - I can't tell you how relieved I am!

Turns out the server was pointing to the router (instead of itself) for DNS resolution. I rebuilt the configuration as follows:

* First I added the primary and secondary DNS addresses (which I obtained from BT) to the router.

* Then I changed the DNS address of server (in TCP-IP for NIC) so it pointed to itself.

* Then I went into the properties for DNS, went into the DNS forwarding tab (apparently this helps computer to resolve addresses that cannot be resolved locally) and added the two BT DNS's that I got from my ISP

Sorted!

[LiVeWiRe]

Sorry bowen....been without power for the past few days due to the latest hurricane of the week here in Florida!

Glad to hear that you have things running smoothly now!

-LW

[bowen]

No problem at all mate - hope things have settled down over there.


All the best...