Change from POP3 connector to SMTP

You should leave the POP3 collector running for about 48 hours to make sure that once the MX records have changed, any mail that is still sent to the original ISP still gets picked up, but after that, shut it down as you will only get spam.

Make sure you install a good anti-spam product on your SBS 2003 server and have a read of my blog article to tighten up your security:

http://alanhardisty.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/increase-in-hacker-attempts-on-windows-exchange-servers-one-way-to-slow-them-down/

A good anti-Spam tool you may want to trial is Vamsoft ORF Fusion for SBS (www.vamsoft.com)

Alan

Thanks Alan, you answered some points of this on a previous post and one of the points you confirmed was that it was beneficial to stick with this ISP as a Smarthost.

You said to check with the ISP that this was something they offer and we emailed them a couple of days ago to confirm this, but no reply yet,

However, I realised the mxrecord points to the ISP anyway, so do they do need to make any changes and in this scenario should we stll let the pop3 connector keep running for 48 hrs?

Thanks,

Caroline

I thought it might be familiar!

If you change the MX record, then that will cut out the ISP anyway and then I would still leave the POP3 collector running for 48 hours, just in case, but after that, kill it off.

If you keep two MX records, primary to your server and secondary to the ISP, then you will need to keep the POP3 collector permanently, but you'll probably only get spam from the ISP, if they don't filter it out for you, which from the sounds of it, they do.

Alan

No we are keeping the mxrecord as mail.theisp.net.

Happy to keep them handling the emails, no spam in 9 years,

We just need the download from them via SMTP as POP3 is too slow. Does the ISP need to do anything on their side?

You can't download using SMTP.  SMTP is a mail delivery protocol where emails are delivered to your server.

POP3 is an email collection protocol, so your emails will use SMTP to get to your ISP and if they can forward emails to your server once the spam is removed then great, otherwise you are stuck collecting them via POP3.

You will have to ask your ISP if they can forward the emails to your server directly or not.

Alan

I always thought SMTP could work with a smarthost, or is that just outgoing mail e.g

http://www.arrowmail.co.uk/howto/smrthost.aspx

OK thanks, I see now.

thanks