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How to Configure Microsoft Exchange to use the Arrowmail
Smarthosts
Arrowmail has 3 separate smarthost mail-servers and, luckily, both Exchange 2003
and 2007 know how to make use of multiple smarthosts for redundancy and
load-balancing.
This means that if one of our smarthosts is very busy, has failed or is
undergoing maintenance, your Exchange server can continue to send out emails,
uninterrupted.
In Exchange 2003, it's possible to configure a smarthost on the Default
SMTP Virtual Server but, if you do it this way, you can only set a
single
smarthost.
You must, therefore, use an SMTP Connector for your outgoing
emails which does allow multiple smarthosts to be
specified.
For Exchange 2007 there's only one way to configure a smarthost which is on the
Send Connector.
For simplicity, the instructions on this page assume that you only have one
Exchange server in your organization.
If you have multiple Exchange servers, there are a few minor differences which
we'll be happy to advise you about.
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How To Configure a Smarthost on Exchange 2003
Open Exchange System Manager and click on the +
next to Connectors to see if you are already using an SMTP
Connector.
SBS2003 comes with a pre-configured SMTP Connector as shown below:-
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If you need to create a new connector:-
Right-click on Connectors and select New - SMTP
Connector...
If a SMTP Connector already exists, right-click on it and choose
Properties
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If you only have one
Exchange server, it's unlikely
you'll need more than one
SMTP Connector.
Multiple
SMTP Connectors are used to
send certain emails via different routes. |
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The SMTP Connector - Properties page opens which has 8 tabs.
(There could be a 9th tab called Security if you've previously
enabled this tab by a Registry change, but, in any case, there's nothing to
configure on this tab.)
We'll start on the General tab where there are 3 things to
configure:-
Name |
Call it what you want, but "All Outgoing Email" is a good name.
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Smarthosts |
Select "Forward all mail through this connector to the following smart hosts"
and enter Arrowmail's 3 smarthosts, separated by semicolons. The full
string to enter is:-
smarthost1.arrowmail.co.uk;smarthost2.arrowmail.co.uk;smarthost3.arrowmail.co.uk
"Copy and Paste" the above line into your
SMTP Connector
if you like.
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Bridgehead Server |
This is your Exchange server. Click Add... and there will
only be one option. |
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If you're editing an existing SMTP
Connector it will already have a name which can't be changed here.
If you want to rename the connector,
close this page, right-click on the SMTP Connector and choose
Rename |
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Go to the Address Space tab. Click Add...
and select the default options which are:- Type = SMTP Email Domain =
* Cost = 1 Connector scope = Entire Organization "Allow
messages to be relayed to these domains" is not
selected
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Go to the Advanced tab.
Click on Outbound Security...
Select Basic authentication (password is sent in clear text)
and then
Modify...
Enter your username and password for the Arrowmail Smarthosts.
If you would like all messages, sent from your server to our smarthosts, to be
encrypted then select TLS encryption:-
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The Arrowmail smarthosts require
authentication and support TLS encryption.
We will issue you with your own username and password
which will be the same for all 3 of our smarthosts. |
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There's nothing to change on the other 5 tabs, but we've shown what they should
look like, anyway, so you can check that nothing's been changed.
The Connected Routing Groups tab:-
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The Delivery Restrictions tab:-
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The Content Restrictions tab:-
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The Delivery Options tab:-
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...and finally, the Details tab:-
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Click OK and close Exchange System Manager.
In order for the new settings to take effect, you need to restart the following
services:-
Microsoft Exchange Routing Engine and
Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP).
Rebooting the server will also enable the new settings, if this is easier.
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How To Configure a Smarthost on Exchange 2007
If your Exchange Server 2007 is currently able to send emails externally, a
Send Connector must already have been created and configured correctly
on the Hub Transport server.
Configuring Exchange 2007 to use the Arrowmail Smarthosts, therefore, just
requires you to modify the settings on this
Send Connector.
For Exchange 2007, Microsoft has split up into separate roles, the various jobs
that Exchange has to perform, with the implication that each role will be
handled by a different server.
The Hub Transport role is the one responsible for sending and receiving external
emails.
In the real world of small to medium sized companies, a single
Exchange server is likely to be performing all the various roles.
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Open Exchange Management Console
Click on the + next to Organization Configuration
Select Hub Transport and
select the Send Connectors tab:-
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(If you can't see all the columns
shown above, click View - Add/Remove Columns...)
Right-click on the existing Send Connector, select
Properties
and go to the Network tab.
Select "Route mail through the following smart hosts:" and
click Add:-
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Specify the first smarthost as shown below:-
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Add all 3 of Arrowmail's smarthosts:-
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Click Change... to set the authentication options.
Type the username and password we've issued to you below:-
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There shouldn't be anything that needs changing on the other 3 tabs, but we've
shown below, what they should typically look like.
The General tab:-
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The
Fully Qualified Domain Name(FQDN)
should be the DNS name of the public IP address your server operates behind.
Our smarthosts don't care what FQDN you enter, but if you're sending email
directly, without using a smarthost, it's important to get this
entry to match your actual FQDN |
When you
need help
trouble-shooting smarthost connection problems, you can change the "Protocol
logging level:"
to Verbose. |
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The Address Space tab:-
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The asterisk in
the Domain column indicates that all
emails
will be sent through this
Send Connector |
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The Source Server tab:-
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Notice, in the
Role column,
that this server is performing all the Exchange 2007
roles. |
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When you've finished, the Send Connector
should look like this:-
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The changes you've made to the Send Connector will take effect
straight away without you having to reboot the server or restart any services.
What if you don't use Exchange as your in-house Mail-server?
Many mail-server programs, other than Exchange, can take advantage of multiple
smarthosts. However, if the one you're using use can only be configured for
one smarthost, you should set it to use:-
smarthost.arrowmail.co.uk
We will make sure that this DNS name is always pointing to a functional
mail-server.
If your mail-server isn't able to authenticate to our smarthosts then, as long
as you are using a fixed public IP address, we can allow anonymous access from
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How to Create a Sender Policy Framework Record to Authorise
our Servers to send out your Company's Email
It's by no means essential, but if you use our smarthosts, it can help make email
delivery more reliable if you create a special DNS record with whoever is
handling the DNS for your domain name, which is usually your domain registrar.
This DNS record is to comply with the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) anti-spam
initiative and it identifies our servers as being
approved for sending emails from your domain.
It's a TXT record, which not all DNS servers or ISP control panels can handle,
but if they can this is the record you need to add:-
mycompany.com. IN TXT "v=spf1
include:arrowmail.co.uk -all"
This is how it should appear in your DNS Zone File, including the inverted
commas, but with your domain name substituted for
mycompany.com.
If you give us the logon details for your domain registrar's control panel we'll
set it up for you. If your current DNS servers can't handle TXT records you
could move to DNS servers that can. This doesn't require you to change your
domain registrar.
We can host and manage your domain's DNS for you if you like, and create the required TXT records,
for £1.85/month - for details got to www.dnsmax.co.uk
You can check that your SPF record has been successfully setup by sending an
email to:-
check-auth@verifier.port25.com
Make sure that the From address you use is covered by the SPF record, no need to
put anything in the Subject Line or the body of the email.
You should receive a reply containing something like the extract below, which
also checks out any other anti-spam initiatives such as DomainKeys, DKIM, and
Sender-ID:-
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The SPF system has not yet been adopted widely enough to be a reliable method for
identifying spam but, when sending emails, it can tip the balance your favour,
especially with heavy-handed anti-spam systems.
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If you prefer, you can, instead, email your comments to
support@arrowmail.co.uk
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