Bardlebee
asked on
How does an email know where to go?
I understand that email goes to a domain, but how would I set that up? Do I have to contact my ISP in order to have my domain be a FQDN so that my exchange server can be seen from the outside and get emails?
For example, if I sent an email to "123@mydomain.com" how does it get there? My assumption is that in order to have this happen I must have a domain controller, a FQDN setup with my ISP and the ISP routes traffic to my domain.
Is this correct?
For example, if I sent an email to "123@mydomain.com" how does it get there? My assumption is that in order to have this happen I must have a domain controller, a FQDN setup with my ISP and the ISP routes traffic to my domain.
Is this correct?
saverman
You need to point the domain to the IP-address of your mail server. I don't know if your ISP can help you to register the domain, I doubt it, but any web hotel should be able to help you.
You need to tell your ISP to create an MX record for your domain. That is how the rest of the world knows how to reach your IP address.
No it doesnt.
For your FQDN (ie example.com) you will have an MX record which will point to where your email can be collected
This can be your ISP, or your exchange server, or even a spam filtering service.
You can find an mx record for any domain using mxtoolbox.com and typing in the domain.
You do not have to have a domain controller or even host the email yourself if whoever has control over your domain hosts your email, as the mx record will point to them.
For your FQDN (ie example.com) you will have an MX record which will point to where your email can be collected
This can be your ISP, or your exchange server, or even a spam filtering service.
You can find an mx record for any domain using mxtoolbox.com and typing in the domain.
You do not have to have a domain controller or even host the email yourself if whoever has control over your domain hosts your email, as the mx record will point to them.
Once you have purchased your domain name you need to ensure that the MX records from whoever you buy the domain from are pointing to the IP of your exchange server. The MX records are what are used for email routing.
You also have to ensure all necessary ports are open to reach your server.
You also have to ensure all necessary ports are open to reach your server.
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ASKER
What is the deal with obtaining a certificate? UC? SAN?
The certificate would be required for Outlook Anywhere, if you wanted to be able to securely have users interface with Exchange 2007 or later you can purchase a UC cert to cover all the various hostnames combinations needed. You may also be able to use a self-signed cert instead....but if you have mobile users that travel and still will need access you'll want to purchase one though a cert authority (godaddy.com has some of the cheapest out there....like $80/year or so)
ASKER
So a certification is not required if I don't want to bother to give people access to mobile email?
Not required to purchase one, you can use a self-signed one on your local domain which will suffice for domain members. If you're deploying MS SBS server then as part of the standard rollout the server can generate the self-signed certificate for you.
ASKER
Just one more question then I will close this:
Do I need a Domain Controller to have a successful Exchange server? or does it get to complicated at that point.
Do I need a Domain Controller to have a successful Exchange server? or does it get to complicated at that point.
Is you currently don't have a Windows Domain, then I would recomend looking into Microsoft Small Biz Server (SBS) This one server will be your domain controller and exchange server all in one. It also has many other out of the box things to make it rather nice.
Now to interact with Exchange, no, a user's PC does not HAVE to be a member of that domain (but life is easier if it is)
Now to interact with Exchange, no, a user's PC does not HAVE to be a member of that domain (but life is easier if it is)
ASKER
Well to give some perspective, I have 100+ users on a peer to peer network. We have a few servers with Server 2003 and I can setup a Domain Controller, provided I buy the user licenses.
As far as bringing up the domain controller is that something you would recommend with a clinic of this size?
As far as bringing up the domain controller is that something you would recommend with a clinic of this size?
Oh yes! Personally the thought of managing a network that size without the use of a domain for centralized user management alone just sounds awful. I'm not a Microsoft koolaid guy, but I would strongly recommend one in your case.