Not receiving alerts on Sharepoint 2003 site.

The test revealed the problem.  The IIS server is not able to reach the Exchange server, or at least I cant reach it using the telnet command like you mentioned.  

Also, tried this on my workstation pc and got a mail off with no problem so it appears that the connection is being refused from the IIS server, which would explain why email alerts arent being sent.

Not a Exchange admin so know very little.  Any suggestions?

What do you gt back from telnet? As usually, a mail server accepts anonymous connection requests (nevertheless it may refuse the mail itself), do you get a mail header line back from exchange line "220 servername ..." or do you simply see a black sceen 0> no response?

Can you ping your mail server fom the Sharepoint server?

Telnet returns the following:

c:>telnet tvl-exch 25
Connecting to tvl-exch....could not open connection to the host on port 25, connection failed.


I can ping the tvl-exch server from the IIS server.

This is interesting, if telnet connects anonymous it should not make a difference, which machine you use, as long as they are on the same subnet or the routing is setup correctly. Have you tried to telnet via IP address instead on the name, maybe it is "simply" a name resolution problem.

I can ping with the name or the IP address of the Exchange server.  Attempting to telnet with either the name or the IP fails.

Both servers are on the same subnet.  I agree this is interesting, but bordering on the edge of frustration :-)

You should have a look at the Internet Mail connector at your Exchange Server. This connector is responsible for accepting your request. As it do to respond to your request, I assume, that there is somewhere a rule, which denies the connection request, either that requests are restricted to a few IP addresses or something else.

By default, Exchange is responding to all requests, as every server has to be able to send mails to your server. Exceptions may be, that you only poll down mails from your ISP or that you have a secondary server in from of exchange, so that exchange was restricted only to accept mails from this "front-end" server.

I assume your Share-Point server is member of your domain, isn't it?

It appears that the telnet session was the tale tell sign.  The IIS server is unable to connect to the Exchange Server.  

Yes the IIS server is a member of the domain.

I'll address that problem and see what happens.  

Its a configuration problem with the exchange server.  

Thanks for the help.

I am new to site and wonder if my post should be started as new question?

I would like to know what configuration changes were required on the exchange server to allow your alerts to work.  I have the same problem, but with ALL smtp-based alerts.  For example, my backup, sharepoint, and faxing services all fail to send mail.  

I should mention that I am running SBS2003 so all services (iis, exchange, faxing) are on one box.  

If I telnet from the SBS box to port 25 I get rejected.

What can I do to allow messages to flow properly on the network?

Thanks.

tssabat: 1.) As it may have a different reason, and 2.) to be sure that others will read your question, and 3.) wreneau do honor his points to the experts, you should open a new question.  

But in general (also for wreneau). If you can not telnet your mail service or port 25 and it fails, it may have different reasons:
- Exchange is not listening on port 25 as the port was changed or in conflict with another service. (May be an ISA issue)
- ISA is installed on the same machine and misconfigurated. ISA should listen only on external interfaces, not on internal (LAT or LDT do not conain the internal IPs / domains). Also, some clients of ISA may not allow telnet. So use a client without any ISA clients (the ISA itself do not have any client software from ISA of course)
- DNS is not configured correctly
Use netstat -n to see, on which IP addresses your machine is listening (0.0.0.0 means, a service listens on all interfaces)
Use netstat -b to see, which service / executable is responsible for that.

In response to your statements

1) exchange does listen on port 25, as I can connect to it from any desktop and send mail via telnet.  It is only locally, from the exchange server's command line, that I can't send mail via telnet.  Sharepoint is on same server as Exchange, so SMTP mail must be sent from Sharepont services to Exchange on same box.  I have tried telnet servername 25, telnet IP 25, and Telnet 127.0.0.1 25 and I am met with the following message:  "Could not open connection to the host, on port 25: connect failed"

2) Regarding ISA, I do not have ISA installed and use a harware firewall.  Port 25 traffic is not blocked, as I can telnet via port 25 from any desktop machine on network.

3)  I tried netstat -n and I received the message for applicable IP
"Local address: 192.168.2.x:25, state: Time_wait"
I don't know what that means.

netstat -b shows you the EXE file ==> the service which is listening. As port 25 is listening on one IP, this should be the IP on which exchange should listen to.

wreneau,
This question has been classified as abandoned.  I will make a recommendation to the moderators on its resolution in approximately 4 days.  I would appreciate any comments by the experts that would help me in making a recommendation.

It is assumed that any participant not responding to this request is no longer interested in its final disposition.

If the asker does not know how to close the question, the options are here:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/help.jsp#hs5

JBlond
EE Cleanup Volunteer