Software

Background - we have an all NT network, this box is a win2k advanced server with exchange 2k, nothing else. I discovered E2K requires it is run on a PDC, no good for our network, so when I set up this box I made it a domain of its own, and its own PDC. This is a test box only at this point. I open outlook on another machine, set it up to use this test exchange server, compose a test email, send it to myself, it appears to be sent, no errors, but never shows up. I tried to send a message to anohter person in the company, same results. I tried to send to a person outside the company, and get Relay Not Allowed.
<gripe>
I have set up FreeBSD many times, it has email server built in, I can send a message from the command line or gui to anywhere, anybody, and it works. Why doesn't this pig of a program Exchange work with the default settings?
</gripe>

As you can tell, I'm not too happy with this whole experience. I just want/expect the #@#$@ program to work, that's all.

It appears that your trying to send your testbed E2K mail via your company connection to the internet and that your company has it's own mail service [hense its own FQDN]. What appears to be happening is that the receiving end services see that yourtrying to relay via your companies mail service [because it sees the ip address as belonging to your company and not your testbed]and is dening your testbed email [antispam measure]. I believe if you tried a noncompany internet connection your E2K mail server would work. Also your ISP DNS resolution [IP to Domain name] basically says your company NT domain belongs at that IP address. You've created a seperate domain for your E2K test bed and your ISP DNS resolution says nope doesn't belong to that address, therefore the receiving mail service says must be bogus, must be relaying so deny traffic.[antispam measure].

Why can't I submit a reply to your reply without any 'rating'? And still leave the question open? The only way to get my reply submitted was to set not acceptable. That makes no sense to me. Sorry, I'm not in the greatest of moods this morning because of the Exchange problems.

Oh for cryin out loud, ignore the above comment. Only took the server about half an hour to post my comment.

I think perhaps what you need to do, for the purposes of allowing your workstations in one domain to use an Exchange server in another domain, would be to set up a trust relationship between the two domains first. Once you've done that, you should be able to send email from your NT domain through the Win2K Exchange server. BTW, just to be sure you understand the diff, Exchange 2K does not have to run on a Win2K DC, but it has to have Active Directory, so it has to be on a Win2K domain. I runExchange in several locations on Win2K member servers that are part of a Win2K AD domain. (I can't resist the urge to "educate" - sorry. . .)

You also have to have DNS set up properly in your Win2K domain. For your purposes, the easiest thingto do would be to make sure that your Win2K DNS server is NOT set up as a root server, but only as an authoritative server for your Win2K domain (could use it for your NT domain, too, I guess, if you want to). This means you have to delete the rootentry (".") in your DNS zone. Then, you can set it up to forward to your ISP's DNS servers, so that all domain names will be properly resolved.

Hope this helps!

What I didn't explain fully is that your ISP issues you an IP address and if it's a static line like T1 or T3 or a Static DSL line, your company FQDN is resolved to that IP address. NOT your test bed domain name [which you just made up and is probably not registered]. Unlike the USPS which will deliver physical mail to an address regardless of who it's addressed to, unless there is a fowarder listed, SMTP uses Name Servers which translates the ip address to a name. You test bed is trying to send mail with its domain name [but your companies ip address] and other mail servers see that. Because relaying is a "bad" thing "spammers" relay to hide their identity, the other mail servers your test bed is trying to make a connection with say "Nope" not gonna do it.

So, try the telnet test to see if Exchange can open port 25 to send a email. open a command prompt and type telnet.exe press enter
at the telnet prompt type set<space>local_echo press enter now type open<space><domainname><space>25 you should see the Microsoft Exchange Mail server and version #

This means that atleast exchange can open port 25 to be able to send out email. Then for intranet email, you'll have to create a couple of dummy AD user accounts [one on the DC and one on a workstation, connect a workstation to the test bed domain and then send a intranet email to the work station, and a reply to the DC and see if that works. If your planning on migration your NT network to a W2K with AD network, thereis a whole migration package available for that.