Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of raffie613
raffie613

asked on

Exchange 2003 unable to send mail

I can Receive Email fine, and the email seems to be sent, but no one ever gets it outside my internal network.
Yesterday I had to do a database repair on the mail store, but integrity check shows its fine now.
How can I test to see where the email is going and if it is actually leaving my exchange server?
Thank you.
Avatar of Hypercat (Deb)
Hypercat (Deb)
Flag of United States of America image

If you have SMTP logging turned on, then those logs would be the first place I would check.

If you don't have it turned on, the setting is in the ESM, under the properties of the SMTP virtual server, General tab.  I would recommend selecting the "NCSA Common Log File" format, as I find it easier to read.  The log files are saved to the Windows\system32\Logfiles\SMTPSVC folder.
Avatar of raffie613
raffie613

ASKER

ok I have the log files, they were not in NCSA formate but I changed to that. What am I looking for in them?
Raffie,

a simple check - open Exchange System Manager and locate the Servers tab.  under the Servers tab, locate the "server name" of your mail server and open it.  Click on the Queues tab and expand the System Manager to full screen.

If your exchange server is running OK, you should only have about 10 folders shown in the que and they should all be empty.  If you have extra folders or connections, that indicates a problem (or if you have losed of failed or pending messages).

One other question ... do you use a smarthost or does your exchange server deliver the messages directly to the target SMTP servers?
Was it working at one point and then stopped?  Or is this a new setup?

In the ESM under Tools use the Message Tracking Center to look at the last hour or so of emails, be sure to set the Server name and change the Logged Between settings properly so you only get the last few hours worth of email.

You can see from there if it's being processed correctly.

Also is there anything in the SMTP queues, specifically your Default SMTP Virtual Server?  Do you have a custom SMTP connector setup for outbound spam filtering maybe?

warbringer:

The message Queue is loaded. I do not think we use any smart host to deliver mail, just excahnge directly.

northbaytek:
yes,It was working fine until yesterday when the priv1.edb database got corrupted and I had to repair it.
We are receiving mail fine now, just can't get outside.

It looks like message tracking was not enabled. I just enabled it.

SMTP Queues are all reading RETRY and look locked up.

All the questions above are relevant. What you're looking for in the logs is evidence of communication with external email servers. What you're looking for in your logs would be communications showing "MAIL FROM" someone internal to your domain and "RCPT TO" someone external to your domain.  This would be a message that is being sent out and the series of log entries surrounding that communication would show you whether it was successful or not.  If you just post a portion of the log from one of those types of communications (say about 10-15 lines), I can take a look.

here is part of the log file. Would my public folder store being inconsistent and unmountable have anything to  do with this?


2011-05-11 20:04:35 174.129.249.234 emailver.briteleads.com MMIC-FS2 192.168.1.6 0 RCPT - +TO:<jslawson@malkinmanagement.com> 250 0 39 47
2011-05-11 20:04:35 174.129.249.234 emailver.briteleads.com MMIC-FS2 192.168.1.6 0 QUIT - emailver.briteleads.com 240 74 4 0
2011-05-11 20:04:40 112.213.94.14 OutboundConnectionResponse MMIC-FS2 - 25 - - 220+mail.ddre.info+SMTP+Server+(mail.ddre.info)+ready+Wed,+11+May+2011+15:04:39+-0500+(GMT-05:00) 0 97 0 985
2011-05-11 20:04:40 112.213.94.14 OutboundConnectionCommand MMIC-FS2 - 25 EHLO - mail.malkinmanagement.com 0 4 0 985
2011-05-11 20:04:40 112.213.94.14 OutboundConnectionResponse MMIC-FS2 - 25 - - 250-SIZE+1000000 0 16 0 1438
2011-05-11 20:04:40 112.213.94.14 OutboundConnectionCommand MMIC-FS2 - 25 MAIL - FROM:<>+SIZE=6457 0 4 0 1438
2011-05-11 20:05:09 70.39.105.148 OutboundConnectionResponse MMIC-FS2 - 25 - - 220+localhost.localdomain+(PowerMTA(TM)+v3.5r15)+ESMTP+service+ready 0 68 0 78
2011-05-11 20:05:09 70.39.105.148 OutboundConnectionCommand MMIC-FS2 - 25 EHLO - mail.malkinmanagement.com 0 4 0 78
2011-05-11 20:05:09 70.39.105.148 OutboundConnectionResponse MMIC-FS2 - 25 - - 250-localhost.localdomain+says+hello 0 36 0 156
2011-05-11 20:05:09 70.39.105.148 OutboundConnectionCommand MMIC-FS2 - 25 MAIL - FROM:<> 0 4 0 156
2011-05-11 20:05:38 216.66.81.248 OutboundConnectionResponse MMIC-FS2 - 25 - - 220+whistle.ogilm.com+ESMTP 0 27 0 172
2011-05-11 20:05:38 216.66.81.248 OutboundConnectionCommand MMIC-FS2 - 25 EHLO - mail.malkinmanagement.com 0 4 0 172
2011-05-11 20:05:38 216.66.81.245 OutboundConnectionResponse MMIC-FS2 - 25 - - 220+lake.ogilm.com+ESMTP 0 24 0 172
2011-05-11 20:05:38 216.66.81.245 OutboundConnectionCommand MMIC-FS2 - 25 EHLO - mail.malkinmanagement.com 0 4 0 172
2011-05-11 20:05:38 216.66.81.248 OutboundConnectionResponse MMIC-FS2 - 25 - - 250-whistle.ogilm.com 0 21 0 344
2011-05-11 20:05:38 216.66.81.245 OutboundConnectionResponse MMIC-FS2 - 25 - - 250-lake.ogilm.com 0 18 0 344
2011-05-11 20:05:38 216.66.81.248 OutboundConnectionCommand MMIC-FS2 - 25 MAIL - FROM:<> 0 4 0 344
2011-05-11 20:05:38 216.66.81.245 OutboundConnectionCommand MMIC-FS2 - 25 MAIL - FROM:<> 0 4 0 359
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of raffie613
raffie613

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
I wonder what GFI was doing...  glad you found it.

Are you using any custom or built-in scripts with GFI?  Just curious, if you get a moment.
no, but turns out it was a glitch. GFI wan't it and the SMTP queue is still full. I was watching a new SMTP vitual server that I created that showed the new queue as empty. my bad. still need help 911 on this..
false resolution. problem still exists
Sorry for leaving you in the lurch - I ran into a problem situation of my own here.

If the mail was in the Exchange submission queue, then you can probably restart GFI services at this point in time, if you haven't done so yet.  But you will need to monitor the queues to make sure it doesn't build up again.  This is an ongoing problem that we've encountered with GFI - although I really like the anti-spam capabilities of this product, it does occasionally cause the submission queue to hang.

Cheers!
ok removed GFI completely now mail got released and confirmed by recipient this time! thanks again. Someone should give me points!
I stopped the GFI services and the mail left the queue