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Exchange 2k3 - incoming emails ok, outgoing emails stuck in queue and piling up fast!

Hello,

I just switched this weekend from our ISP's e-mail service to Exchange 2k3. It's currently running on a Wind2k3 standard server with TrendMicro Scanmail 7.0. We are able to send and receive fine within the organization. We can also receive external emails fine, but when we cannot e-mail outside our network. Strangely, it only worked 3 different times this weekend and I was able to send out some e-mails, but as of now, the messages are getting stuck on Queue and are piling up fast! We get hit with a ton of spam so we implemented TrendMicro's ScanMail to block off all that spam, but I've noticed that 99.9% of the messages waiting to out out on the server are all related to spam messages we got (non-existent e-mail accounts on our domain) and the postmaster account is trying to reply to all of them. I have currently about 10 messages out of 1,300 in queue that are test messages. I seriously need urgent help, Monday morning is rolling around and I can't get our Exchange server to email the outside world. Please advise someone on what I can look or try. Thank you much in anticipation.

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rakeshmiglani

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kgreeneit

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bcontreras

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Gentlemen,

Ok, solved one problem, one is still pending. I followed the instructions about NDR. It appears we were being reverse NDR. I made the changes on my Exchange server so that it filters out people not on our Active Directory. That has stopped all of the 'postmaster@domain.com' emails trying to get out. My queue on Exchange still has messages though, but for real e-mails from inside users trying to email the outside world. I checked to see if we were setup as an open relay and we are not. So with that eliminated, it appears the problem can be DNS related? I checked 'kgreeneit' message about my smtp connector but under my "Connector" folder in Exchange, I don't have any SMTP connectors. I am getting this DNS error message on the 'system' viewer of Event viewer:

SMTP could not connect to any DNS server. Either none are configured, or all are down.

I'll research this one right now on the MS site, but if anyone has any input, I would greatly appreciate!

bcontreras

ASKER

I'd like to add that I just ran a dcdiag /v /fix and I got this error which might help decipher this mess:

"The hosts xxxx-xxx-xxxxx._msdcs.domainname.com could not be resolved to an IP address. Check the DNS server, DHCP, server name, etc. Although the Guid DNS (xxxx-xxx-xxx._msdcs.domainname.com) could be resolved, the server name (exchange.domainname.com) resolved to the IP address (local IP address of my exch server) and was pingable. Check that the IP address is registered correctly with the DNS server. EXCHANGE failed test Connectivity."

Everything else passes but the initial connectivity test. Any thoughts?

kgreeneit

Hi there, can you list all the connectors that you do have in the connectors folder in exchange system manager?

bcontreras

ASKER

I went ahead and used a smart host to deliver my mail and it instantly sent out all the pending emails on queue. It seems there is a problem in DNS but for now, I'll use Smart Host to deliver the mail. Thank you both because rakeshmiglani helped me clean out all the junk from queue while kgreeneit lead me to the smart host option. Thanks again!