I am using provtest to create & mail enable contacts for some test clients in my HMC4.5 test environment. When I mail enable the contact the procedure requires that I provide the PrimarySMTP address with the SMTP Domain name of the hosted Organization and
the contacts actual email address as an External Address.
This seems to be causing some trouble for me when Emails are sent to multiple people & contacts and someone replies to all, the reply sometimes bounces from some of the contacts because they are replying to the hosted domain & not to the contacts real email
address.
Does anyone know of a workaround where I can specify the Primary SMTP address of the contact as their real address and just leave out creating an SMTP address in the hosted organization for them?
Johan Dreyer
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Now, I am a bit unclear why you would want to do this (i.e., what is the operational/business case behind this). Generally, restrictions like this in HMC are there for a reason (typically to prevent the hoster from appearing on anti-spam blacklists.)
If the contacts have an address in the organization as primary SMTP address, responding to this address should work.
So, as soon as we know what you want to achieve, we might be able to help you.
The Hosted Organization (hosted.com) requires a contact created for a contractor (contractor.com) called Joe Bloggs.
Now when I create the Contact for Joe Blogs, hist Primary SMTP Address is set as
JoeBloggs@hosted.com and external SMTP Address is set as
JoeBloggs@contractor.com. As a result, when my hosted.com users select the contractors name from the GAL, the SMTP address which is used is the Primary SMTP address NOT the External SMTP Address.
Now I understand that Exchange will use the external SMTP address to forward the email to the correct person, however, the Envelope Address still remains as
Joebloggs@hosted.com and this sometimes causes email to bounce, more specifically when an email is sent to many people, including the contact and someone hits "Reply to All".
What I would like to achieve is that the contacts External Email Address (joebloggs@contractor.com) is the email address which is always used when sending emails to the contractor. I do not see how this would
violate any anti-spam blocklist rules since I am simply queueing emails as per normal process & not Relaying them.
I hope this makes a little more sense?
Johan Dreyer
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Thank you for pointing me in this direction. The thought to do this had not even crossed my mind.
I will be trying this out next week and let you know how I get on. I have little to no experience in programming/coding so may be on here looking for some help and guidence from you.
Have a great weekend.
Johan Dreyer
------------
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http://blog.sortedit.net
I am looking into writing the transport agent for the address rewrite and presently in the process of downloading the Exchange 2007 SDK as well as internet research.
I found the following blog article and would appreciate if you could look through it and provide your feedback. I am considering using this as a base starting point for my agent.
Hmm... OK, well lets see how I get on then and I'l post my findings and agent script on my blog if it works.
I have also asked the person who complained to reproduce the error since I have tried myself and not had a problem.
In my experience, the HMC method of creating contacts has always been the Exchange Standard method and I have never had a problem before. My troubleshooting & testing revealed no problems, however the NDR sent by the client showed clearly the reason being
that someone had replied to the contacts Primary SMTP and not their Actual email address.
No, we are not using Edge or External Facing Hub Transport, we have opted to use a Linux Based Solution called SpamTitan which is reasonably priced and serves the purpose, in my opinion, a lot better.
Johan Dreyer
------------
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My troubleshooting & testing revealed no problems, however the NDR sent by the client showed clearly the reason being that someone had replied to the contacts Primary SMTP and not their Actual email address.
Well, you have to check what servers exactly generated NDR and why. It could be Exchage hub if contact marked as "Require that all senders are authenticated" and message is coming from outside (anonymous) world. It could be you SpamTitan if it uses similar
to Exchange egde server approach for periodic directory synchronization instead of dynamically check if e-mail address legitimate.
Well, you have to check what servers exactly generated NDR and why. It could be Exchage hub if contact marked as "Require that all senders are authenticated" and message is coming from outside (anonymous) world. It could be you SpamTitan if it uses similar
to Exchange egde server approach for periodic directory synchronization instead of dynamically check if e-mail address legitimate.
Dmitri,
I have looked further into this problem & it is not our servers which have blocked the message, it is the recipient domain servers. The reason for this is also clear - open relay prevention. Below is a transcript of what I can see on my server logs:
The NDR is then generated by the contractor.com MX server since the above action is considered a relay attempt (same from & to envelope addresses.)
This would be solved if the correct envelope address was used when emails to a contact left my network since the email would never leave the contractors server, it would simply be processed & delivered locally.
This means that this is a problem which all hosters out there are likely to run into at some point when someone hits "reply to all" on an email message which was originally sent to them as a contact selected from a hosted GAL.
And it means that the Transport Agent to re-write the envelope address will be the only solution.
Johan Dreyer
------------
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http://blog.sortedit.net
fjdreyer
Member
31 Points
29 Posts
Cannot Create Contacts with External SMTP Address as the Primary Address
Mar 05, 2009 04:05 AM|LINK
Guys, I hope someone can help with this -
I am using provtest to create & mail enable contacts for some test clients in my HMC4.5 test environment. When I mail enable the contact the procedure requires that I provide the PrimarySMTP address with the SMTP Domain name of the hosted Organization and the contacts actual email address as an External Address.
This seems to be causing some trouble for me when Emails are sent to multiple people & contacts and someone replies to all, the reply sometimes bounces from some of the contacts because they are replying to the hosted domain & not to the contacts real email address.
Does anyone know of a workaround where I can specify the Primary SMTP address of the contact as their real address and just leave out creating an SMTP address in the hosted organization for them?
------------
Share the knowledge, share the power
http://blog.sortedit.net
jhaul
Member
43 Points
9 Posts
Re: Cannot Create Contacts with External SMTP Address as the Primary Address
Mar 06, 2009 10:59 AM|LINK
Now, I am a bit unclear why you would want to do this (i.e., what is the operational/business case behind this). Generally, restrictions like this in HMC are there for a reason (typically to prevent the hoster from appearing on anti-spam blacklists.)
If the contacts have an address in the organization as primary SMTP address, responding to this address should work.
So, as soon as we know what you want to achieve, we might be able to help you.
fjdreyer
Member
31 Points
29 Posts
Re: Cannot Create Contacts with External SMTP Address as the Primary Address
Mar 06, 2009 05:56 PM|LINK
Scenario is something like this:
The Hosted Organization (hosted.com) requires a contact created for a contractor (contractor.com) called Joe Bloggs.
Now when I create the Contact for Joe Blogs, hist Primary SMTP Address is set as JoeBloggs@hosted.com and external SMTP Address is set as JoeBloggs@contractor.com. As a result, when my hosted.com users select the contractors name from the GAL, the SMTP address which is used is the Primary SMTP address NOT the External SMTP Address.
Now I understand that Exchange will use the external SMTP address to forward the email to the correct person, however, the Envelope Address still remains as Joebloggs@hosted.com and this sometimes causes email to bounce, more specifically when an email is sent to many people, including the contact and someone hits "Reply to All".
What I would like to achieve is that the contacts External Email Address (joebloggs@contractor.com) is the email address which is always used when sending emails to the contractor. I do not see how this would violate any anti-spam blocklist rules since I am simply queueing emails as per normal process & not Relaying them.
I hope this makes a little more sense?
------------
Share the knowledge, share the power
http://blog.sortedit.net
DmitriG
Contributor
4212 Points
1101 Posts
Re: Cannot Create Contacts with External SMTP Address as the Primary Address
Mar 06, 2009 06:22 PM|LINK
Johan,
You have to develop Transport Agent to re-write such SMTP addresses in the message envelope (To:).
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa579185.aspx
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/12/04/431755.aspx
Dmitri Gaikovoi
fjdreyer
Member
31 Points
29 Posts
Re: Cannot Create Contacts with External SMTP Address as the Primary Address
Mar 06, 2009 06:41 PM|LINK
Dimitri,
Thank you for pointing me in this direction. The thought to do this had not even crossed my mind.
I will be trying this out next week and let you know how I get on. I have little to no experience in programming/coding so may be on here looking for some help and guidence from you.
Have a great weekend.
------------
Share the knowledge, share the power
http://blog.sortedit.net
fjdreyer
Member
31 Points
29 Posts
Re: Cannot Create Contacts with External SMTP Address as the Primary Address
Mar 07, 2009 05:41 AM|LINK
Dmitri,
I am looking into writing the transport agent for the address rewrite and presently in the process of downloading the Exchange 2007 SDK as well as internet research.
I found the following blog article and would appreciate if you could look through it and provide your feedback. I am considering using this as a base starting point for my agent.
http://blogs.msdn.com/akashb/archive/2009/02/24/how-to-rewrite-the-to-address-in-transport-agents-on-a-hub-server.aspx
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DmitriG
Contributor
4212 Points
1101 Posts
Re: Cannot Create Contacts with External SMTP Address as the Primary Address
Mar 07, 2009 01:55 PM|LINK
Look ok for me. ;-) FYI, I've never done Exchange 2007 transport Agent development since I've never need one. ;-)
In our environment, we do not have problems with the way HMC creates contacts. Or, at least, nobody complains to me ;-)
BTW, do you use EDGE servers in your environment?
Dmitri Gaikovoi
fjdreyer
Member
31 Points
29 Posts
Re: Cannot Create Contacts with External SMTP Address as the Primary Address
Mar 08, 2009 03:52 AM|LINK
Hmm... OK, well lets see how I get on then and I'l post my findings and agent script on my blog if it works.
I have also asked the person who complained to reproduce the error since I have tried myself and not had a problem.
In my experience, the HMC method of creating contacts has always been the Exchange Standard method and I have never had a problem before. My troubleshooting & testing revealed no problems, however the NDR sent by the client showed clearly the reason being that someone had replied to the contacts Primary SMTP and not their Actual email address.
No, we are not using Edge or External Facing Hub Transport, we have opted to use a Linux Based Solution called SpamTitan which is reasonably priced and serves the purpose, in my opinion, a lot better.
------------
Share the knowledge, share the power
http://blog.sortedit.net
DmitriG
Contributor
4212 Points
1101 Posts
Re: Cannot Create Contacts with External SMTP Address as the Primary Address
Mar 09, 2009 01:40 PM|LINK
Well, you have to check what servers exactly generated NDR and why. It could be Exchage hub if contact marked as "Require that all senders are authenticated" and message is coming from outside (anonymous) world. It could be you SpamTitan if it uses similar to Exchange egde server approach for periodic directory synchronization instead of dynamically check if e-mail address legitimate.
Dmitri Gaikovoi
fjdreyer
Member
31 Points
29 Posts
Re: Cannot Create Contacts with External SMTP Address as the Primary Address
Mar 09, 2009 06:06 PM|LINK
Dmitri,
I have looked further into this problem & it is not our servers which have blocked the message, it is the recipient domain servers. The reason for this is also clear - open relay prevention. Below is a transcript of what I can see on my server logs:
Message Received & Accepted: FROM JoeBloggs@contractor.com TO JoeBloggs@hosted.com source server contractor MX IP
Message Queued: FROM JoeBloggs@contractor.com TO JoeBloggs@contractor.com source server my HUB Server
The NDR is then generated by the contractor.com MX server since the above action is considered a relay attempt (same from & to envelope addresses.)
This would be solved if the correct envelope address was used when emails to a contact left my network since the email would never leave the contractors server, it would simply be processed & delivered locally.
This means that this is a problem which all hosters out there are likely to run into at some point when someone hits "reply to all" on an email message which was originally sent to them as a contact selected from a hosted GAL.
And it means that the Transport Agent to re-write the envelope address will be the only solution.
------------
Share the knowledge, share the power
http://blog.sortedit.net