Exchange: Mail Relay

Exchange can communicate directly with the Internet without a mail relay. You just set up the Internet Mail Server to use DNS to send the mail merrily on it's way and you point your DNS MX records at your Exchange server to get the inbound mail coming.

Advantages - it's pretty effective and doesn't incur any additional cost. However, if it is connected directly to the Internet, you will almost certainly want to add an Exchange-enabled virus-scanning program (Groupshield, for example) and that will add some cost.

Disadvantages are primarily those of security issues with a server directly connected to the Internet. You'll want to put the Exchange server behind a firewall and that will mean you'll have to enable the appropriate port. But sometimes it is also an advantage to use an outside server that can scan the e-mail before it ever gets into your system.

But, all things considered, for a small system, I'm quite comfortable with using Exchange direct to the Internet, provided a firewall is installed and properly configured.

paul

I found out the hard way the problems with Exchange's relay. Spamming. By default, Exchange is open to relay, and anybody with some knowledge of exchange and your ip address can get to it and use it for spamming...unles you disable the relay forcingusers to authenticate, and that can be done in seconds. If you have anybody using Macs and getting their mail through RAS, they will lose it as the only people able to use mail will be those that are authenticated.

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