So, I’m pretty proficient with computers and networking, but I fear I may be out of my element here. My company has recently started hosting email on Windows SBS 2003 (Service pack 2, if that helps) and Exchange. We also use DNS2GO to resolve our domain name to point to the server as a static IP address is too expensive right now.
Our domain name is hosted through Godaddy. At their domain settings page I set MX record 0 to our DNS2GO domain, and MX record 10 to Godaddy’s settings (mailstore1.secureserver.net, which I got by talking to their tech support).
Now to the crux of the issue. We can successfully send an receive emails. But the problem is when the server goes down or we lose internet here for whatever reason, I’d like the Godaddy MX record to act as a sort of backup to hold the emails until the server is back online.
Isn’t that what having the MX record set to 10 supposed to do? Or am I missing something here? And if I’m barking up the wrong tree, anyone have advice for how I can achieve what I just mentioned? I’m thinking maybe I could setup each account from Exchange at Godaddy as well and use the pop3 connector for when our server does go down. But that seems rather cumbersome.
Thanks in advance!
Jeff
You are correct in how the MX records are set up. Other mail servers will use the MX record with the lowest priority first. If they cannot connect to that server, they will try the next priorty, etc. However, GoDaddy is likely not configured to queue your mail for later delivery to your own server - it’s probably configured to deliver mail to its own mailboxes.
So, you can set up GoDaddy mailboxes for each user and have them check periodically. If Outlook is configured to deliver to the mail store (Mailbox - NAME\Inbox), any GoDaddy mail will be retrieved via POP3 or IMAP4 and put right into the Exchange store.
But, it sounds like you are looking for a mail queuing service. Maybe GoDaddy provides this, otherwise there are other options. (Google email queuing service).
Other thoughts: on your MX record, be sure to set the TTL to something low so other servers will update often in case your IP changes.
Also, you should set your SMTP connector FQDN properly so as to avoid your outbound mail being flagged as spam. Ideally, you want your server to respond to a reverse DNS lookup, but this is done by the ISP providing the line. Since this IP changes, that might not be possible; next best might to be set it to the DNS2GO FQDN.
In Exchange 2007, this is under Organization Config -> Hub Transport -> Send Connectors -> SMTP -> FQDN.
Most likely whats going on is that after the failed attempt to your smtp server, it tries the godaddy one, which dutifully produces a “mailbox not found” or “domain doesnt exist” error. You need to establish either a wildcard rule or replicate your email addresses on the backup smtp service. Then you can retrieve them or resend them once your primary line comes back up.
Just tried your smtp with an arbitary domain:
Im guessing your senders are just getting a 550.
dasgupta,
Thanks for the mail queuing service info! The first site I encountered was mxsave.com. $3.99 per domain per month. Seems pretty reasonable. Do you have any recommendations here?
As for the SMTP, I have it going out through our ISP’s server in the SMTP connector. That was a lesson I learned the hard way.
I have one other issue. Currently we have 3 domains setup for email with our Windows SBS. Eventually we will weed this down to just one, but in the mean time we have emails going to each domain. When we used POP3 this wasn’t an issue, just setup a new POP3 email account in Outlook, and from there when sending a message you’d have the option to choose which account you’d send an email from. But now that they are all on the domain we have, say, an active directory account for Gilded Lily as glily with email address glily@domain1.com, glily@domain2.com and glily@domain3.com. But in Outlook (2003 and 2007) you can only have 1 exchange account. I know I can go to advanced setting and choose to open additional mailboxes with my Exchange account, but I can’t open the glily accounts separately. As far as i can tell all email going to any glily account will end up in the main exchange inbox with no way to choose how I send an email as. Any thoughts on that?
Thanks again! I’m digging having full control over my email, I just gotta figure out the little tricks 
Jeff
Yeah, I think I’m gonna go with a mail queuing service as suggested above. Setting up duplicate email accounts through Godaddy, and then the POP3 connector strikes me as too cumbersome.
Unfortunately I can’t offer any recommendations as to email queuing services - we have multiple servers in multiple sites. If you decide not to use a service, I would drop GoDaddy as a secondary host, as that is just making the issue worse. Do keep in mind that the sender’s server will queue the mail locally and continue to try to deliver for a specified period defined on their end.
As for the multiple domain issue, that’s an old Outlook missing feature that I don’t believe has been fixed. There are a few clunky workarounds:
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For each user that would need to send from a secondary address, first remove that address (be sure to uncheck “Automatically update email addresses…”). Then, create a distribution group with that email address and the original recipient as the only member. Finally, give that person SendAs permissions on the group. Explanation here.
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Set up a second POP3 account for the secondary email address. POP3 does not actually have to work since the email will be delivered via Exchange, but just in case ensure that it is set to be delivered to the user’s Mailbox, not a PST. Set up the SMTP side properly with the secondary email address (EX07 will require you to use port 587 and authenticate, plus make sure that receive connector is enabled).
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I have no experience with this product myself, but I did find this: http://www.ivasoft.biz/choosefrom2007.shtml