Exchange making me want to go suicidal - please help

[dmurray14]

Hello,

I posted this in off topic, technical support, and now someone suggested I put it here. I would REALLY appreciate ANY help in getting this worked out. Thanks

-

This is my last ditch effort in trying to get some help with my exchange server. I had it running for a while, but now it's not sending any mail externally. I think it has something to do with the DNS records, but I wouldn't know what's wrong - I'm new to both windows 2000 server and exchange server. I would REALLY appreciate any help - e-mail is very critical and this needs to be fixed ASAP. If there's any kind soul on this board with exchange server or Windows 2000 server DNS knowledge, I would very very much appreciate any help or suggestions! Thanks in advance.

Dan Murray

AIM:hockeydanFL

 

[spyordie007]

you're going to need to include a bit more information than that, I'm assuming you are running AD is your Exchange server also a DC? What happens when you try to send a message externally? What error messages? What appears in your event log?

-Spy

 

[dmurray14]

OK, no problem.

Yes, I'm running AD. This server, which is the only server on the network, is the Domain Controller. I'm very new to this, and DNS is kind of my weak spot. I suspect that could be where the problem lies, but I'm not quite sure. As far as exchange, messages sent internally are received and sent perfectly. For a while though, I couldn't get external e-mails to be delivered internally. I played around with it for a little, working on the DNS and also with my registrar, but I'm not quite sure what I did to get the external mail coming in working right. For a while I just had ZoneEdit as my name servers, and they were forwarding all e-mail addressed to my domain to one email address. When I installed the domain, I put in the DC as the primary name server, and made ZoneEdit's secondary. Still, though, messages were being delivered to the ZoneEdit forward address instead of being taken by exchange server. In an effort to get things working, I had my registrar just remove ZoneEdit from my list of nameservers alltogether. Since this, mail has been delivered to Exchange reliably and quickly. The problem is now mail cannot be sent. When I was trying to fix the previous problem, I also messed with my DNS records, thinking they may have been the problem too. I don't really remember what I did to them, but I will include all my DNS records at the bottom of this post incase you'd like to take a look. So anyway, I don't think the Exchange server is resolving names properly, because outgoing messages just sit in the queue with "Retry" next to the name of the domain in which they were addressed to. After right-clicking and choosing "Force Connection" the status changes to "Active" for about a minute then goes right back to "Retry." I am completely lost as to what I did to break it. I was also suggested by someone to check the properties of the SMTP virtual server under Delivery and make sure I had name servers in there for it to use, which I didn't. Unfortunately, adding them made no difference whatsoever. The Event Log doesn't seem to be showing any errors or anything out of the ordinary for Exchange, so I don't know what's going on there either. By the way, I am running Windows 2000 with SP3 and Exchange 2003 RC1. Hopefully I've provided enough information to help, otherwise just tell me what you need and I'll get it. Thanks so much!

Dan


DNS RECORDS:

(same as parent folder)...........Start of Authority...........[101], server.domain.net., administrator.domain.net.

(same as parent folder)...........Name Server..................server.domain.net.

(same as parent folder)...........Name Server..................ns1.domain.net.

(same as parent folder)...........Host...............................xx.xx.xx.xx (Public IP)

(same as parent folder)...........Host...............................10.0.0.1

(same as parent folder)...........Mail Exchanger...............[10] mail.domain.net.

server......................................Host...............................10.0.0.1

mail..........................................Host...............................xx.xx.xx.xx (Public IP)

 

[NogginBoink]

What do the Exchange logs say?

 

[dmurray14]

I don't think I have logging enabled. I was checking the logs from the Event Viewer, which wasn't giving anything out of the ordinary. I also checked the log in the exchsrvr directory, but it didn't look like it had anything of use in it. Where else should I be looking?

Thanks,
Dan

 

[spyordie007]

e-mail is very critical and this needs to be fixed ASAP

Windows 2000 with SP3 and Exchange 2003 RC1

I'm very new to this, and DNS is kind of my weak spot.

No offence man but this is a very bad combination, if e-mail is as important as you say it is than you should:
a. Know more about what you are doing before relying upon it.
b. Not run the Release Candidate in a production enviroment.

I don't think the Exchange server is resolving names properly, because outgoing messages just sit in the queue with "Retry" next to the name of the domain in which they were addressed to. After right-clicking and choosing "Force Connection" the status changes to "Active" for about a minute then goes right back to "Retry."

This could also mean you are using a blacklisted IP address, what internet host are you using for the mail server itself?

Plus like NogginBoink asked pull out the exchange logs.

-Spy

 

[dmurray14]

Spy,

OK, critical isn't quite the right word then! "Important" is probably better. This really isn't a production enviornment, just a small domain I'm giving this a try on.

I'm not quite sure what a blacklisted IP is- I'm using Comcast for an ISP if that's what you're asking though.

 

[kt]

This may be a long shot, but do you have open relay turned on? If you do, what may have happened is your mail server could've been used to relay spam emails and got blacklisted. I know a lot of mail servers have an option to automatically download a list of blacklisted IP's from a remote source to prevent spams hitting their servers. Check why emails are not going thru. There should be a log stating why emails are not going through.

Oops, should've read all the way thru.. someone already mentioned your IP might've been blacklisted. What does it mean? It means other email servers are rejecting any emails sent thru your email server IP address.

 

[dmurray14]

Nope, I know for sure that I don't have an open relay. Where would I find the log that tells me why messages aren't going through?

Thanks

 

[dmurray14]

Well, thanks for all the help guys. These seems to be more trouble than it's worth, so I'm just gonna go ahead and reformat. Thanks again.