How to configure External and internal inbound and outbound exchanger servers?

 

What are the important things for email flow in an exchange organization?
How to configure External and internal inbound and outbound exchanger servers?

1. DNS records: A, MX, SPF (Sender Policy Framework)

2. Send Connector

3. Test email flow using https://testconnectivity.microsoft.com/

4. To check the port is open or not go  to

1. You can check you ip first: https://whatismyip.com

2. Port checker : https://portchecker.com

3. Now go to portchecker.com, you will see your current public IP like below.

4. 

5. You can check current port is listening or not 

1. Go to powershell or command prompt and type below common.

2. C:\>netstat -ab

3. 

4. Update DNS record: A, MX and SPF in godaddy.com

1. We gave the internal ip address 192.168.1.7 for the mail server to our mail.group8.tech domain. Whenever someone tries to access : mail.gorup8.tech service, this service will be resolved by this mail server 192.168.1.7.

2. Let see DC1 > Tools> DNS record in public DNS (godaddy.com’s DNS).

3. But If someone tries to access mail.group8.tech from the internet or external network, in that case my local DNS can’t resolve that query.
   For that I need to create a DNS record in godday.com.
   Now Open www.godddy.com and add the A , MX, mail, and TXT records

4. MX record created (received the mail)

5. ‘A’ record and Mail record created

5. The last one is the SPF (send  policy framework) record , which is the TXT record.

1. v=spf1 ip4:your public ip -all

6. If you have a doubt whether the spf or txt record is correct or not you can go to www.kitterman.com and check it. Like below.

When you click “check SPF record, you will get the below result if the SPF is correct. Check it   

out below the yellow sentence. It is passed and valid also.

Now we will verify the DNS record , whether these records are  public or not. For that go to   www.mxtoolbox.com.

1. First check A record of exchange mail. 

1. a:mail.group8.tech

Next we will check we will verify, MX record, is public or not, it is resolved. Now we will check the TXT record , which is passed or resolved.

7. Now we will test internal email flow: www.testconnectivity.microsoft.com

1. Click on “exchange server” option 

1. Click on “inbound SMTP  Email”

Type your any user email: user1.user@group8.tech And click on the “Perform Test” button. You can see the “Connectivity Test successful” message if everything is good.

1. If everything is good, Let’s try to send the email (from outside to inside)
   From gmail to our company (administrator (or any user))

• After sending the email from gmail to our company email: check in our mail server. 

• Below image is from gmail account:

J. now go and check the email on the exchange side: using administrator email.

Type https://mail.group8.tech/ecp Give credential for login Wait for sometime until I get the email from gmail. ( this is an inbound email). We didn’t set up outbound email configuration so let’s configure that. Go to Exchange server https://mail.group8.tech/ecp or owa We have the default Receive connector : Default Frontend EXCHANGE, but we didn’t create any ourselves. This default frontend is responsible for receiving  email from the internet. We don’t have to change anything here. Because by default this connector is configured to receive email. But in Send connector we don’t have any send connector configure so we need to configure it. Click + sign and add below info You will see below image Under source server:  Click on + sign > select mail1 server > click on add button >  OK  Now click on Finish button Let’s go back to https://Testconnectivity.microsoft.com to test Outbound email. Just click on Exchange server > outbound SMTP Email Now put the information like below: Outbound IP address: you WAN ip Perform RBL check : check on ( it will check IP reputation)  Perform sender id check : check on Email address: you can use any email  which was already created in the exchange server. Type verification words Click on “Verify” if it’s ok then click on perform test. If you get all green the performance test is successful. Let’s send the email from the Exchange server to Gmail. Check the Gmail account now. You will receive the email from exchange. You can check the Header of this gmail  Click on 3 dots on right side > choose “show original” option Copy all header Go to https://testconnectivity.microsoft.com/ again  Click on “Message Analyzer” option You will see everything there. Submitting host , receiving host, time, delay, type etc. In this way you can configure your exchange server for external and internal (inbound and outbound email flow) THE END