Send and Receive Connectors in Exchange 2019
Content
It’s already included in the Exchange Online subscription license, and this way, you don’t need a third-party spam filter for extra costs. There are two send connectors configured and enabled in exchange connectors our example. Run the Get-SendConnector cmdlet to find the configured send connectors in Exchange with PowerShell.
Exchange 2019 Mail Flow and Transport Services
- If we want to create a connector from O365 to our on-premise environment, we must create a send connector as smart host inside the on-premise environment.
- By default, it is impossible to relay messages outside the Exchange organization, except for authenticated SMTP.
- Send Connectors are not configured by default when you first install Exchange Server 2013.
- Checking these files manually is doable but painful, I use a PowerShell script called SMTP-Review.ps1 which retrieves the IP addresses from all hosts from the protocol receive logfiles.
- Fellow MVP Thomas Stensitzki has written a PowerShell script that copies a Receive Connector from one (old) Exchange server to another (new) Exchange server.
If the recipient is internal, the message is sent to the transport service. If the recipient is on the same server, the frontend transport service sends the message to the transport server on this server. If the recipient is on a different server, the frontend transport service sends the message directly to the transport service on that server. The transport service listens on port Proof of space 2525 and places the incoming message in the submission queue.
Remove old outbound send connector
Send Connectors do not need much management, but there are some properties that need attention. An important property of a Send Connector is the SourceTransportServers property. This is the property that determines which Exchange servers can use the Send Connector. Inspecting the headers from an on-premises https://www.xcritical.com/ mailbox user to a Gmail address in Message Header Analyzer, we can see that route from the on-premises server directly to Google servers. The message does not traverse through Exchange Online.
Create send connector in Exchange with PowerShell
In an Exchange migration project, I received a list of IP addresses from a parallel project implementing new multifunctional devices in the organization. When a new Exchange server is installed in the organization, the new Exchange server can be added to the Send Connector. You can do this using the Exchange Admin Center by navigating to Mail flow → Send Connectors. Select Scoping and in the Source Servers section click the + icon to add a new Exchange server. You may also like Renew certificate in Exchange Hybrid. Send a test mail from an Exchange on-premises mailbox to a Gmail address.
Create send connector in Exchange with EAC
Review your new connector configuration and click Next to validate the connector. Choose Only when I have a transport rule… and click Next. Send and Receive Connectors on an Exchange server do not need daily maintenance, but instead, they need maintenance when something changes in your infrastructure. These changes can be adding or removing the Exchange server, changes in SMTP routing, or moving Relay Connectors. This way you have a new Relay Connector which uses all remote IP addresses from the old Relay Connector.
This means that when an on-premises mailbox user sends an email, the shortest route to the internet is to use that connector. Verify that the default receive connectors are successfully created in Exchange Server. In our example, we will remove all the default receive connectors because we like to recreate them all. In the protocol logfile, you can see the date and time of the communication, which receive connector was used, and which IP address is connecting to your server. This can be very useful when you must troubleshoot mail flow issues.
If the email does not arrive you can inspect the transport queues on your Exchange servers for stuck email. If you like to disable the send connector, click the Disable link in the details pane. Some information regarding message ID, Exchange server IP address, and port numbers have been removed for readability.
In this article, I discussed the transport services and the default receive connectors in Exchange 2019. In a default situation, all devices, servers, and applications can access the Exchange 2019 server and send email messages to recipients in Exchange 2019 anonymously. By default, it is impossible to relay messages outside the Exchange organization, except for authenticated SMTP. At the top of the pipeline, you see the front-end transport services. This is where external SMTP messages are sent and received. When a message is received from an external sender on port 25, the server determines, based on a directory lookup, if the recipient is an internal recipient or an external recipient.
Fellow MVP Thomas Stensitzki has written a PowerShell script that copies a Receive Connector from one (old) Exchange server to another (new) Exchange server. My approach is to leave the default Receive Connectors as is and add additional Receive Connectors for special purposes. An SMTP Relay connector is an example of such an additional Receive Connector. Sign in to the Microsoft 365 Exchange admin center and verify the connectors. Give the connector a name and set the type to Internet. An organization can have one, two, or several Send Connectors to provide the specific email routing that they need.
The obvious way to test a new send connector is to send an email from inside the organization to an external recipient. For this article we’ll focus on the first two scenarios, as they are the most common; sending directly to the internet, and sending via a smart host. We’ll also cover testing and troubleshooting a Send Connector, and some more advanced configuration options. Now that we’ve created a connector, we need to create a mail flow rule that will send mails to the connector based on the criteria you define. There are many conditions that you can select from to control when messages should be sent to the connector. You may also like Add Exchange Server to existing send connector.
Otherwise, you will need to create at least one Send Connector yourself. After we have modified the TTL for the MX-records, we need to configure your Office 365 subscription. That means, we need to accept all mails on behalf of our organization. If we want to create a connector from O365 to our on-premise environment, we must create a send connector as smart host inside the on-premise environment. This is logged in the protocol receive logfiles on the Exchange server. Checking these files manually is doable but painful, I use a PowerShell script called SMTP-Review.ps1 which retrieves the IP addresses from all hosts from the protocol receive logfiles.
I see a lot of customers struggling with SMTP and SMTP relay, so it’s time to update our knowledge about SMTP transport services. To recreate the default receive connectors in Exchange Server with a PowerShell script, follow the steps below. Click the + button to add the source servers for the connector. These are the servers that will be responsible for routing email out from your organization to the internet.
Select Delivery and under the ‘route mail through smart hosts’, use the + icon to add a new smart host. Send Connectors are not configured by default when you first install Exchange Server 2013. If the Exchange 2013 server is installed in an existing organization then other Send Connectors may already exist that facilitate outbound mail flow.