Mail flow using connectors in Office 365

After the message arrives, copy the headers and paste them into the Message Header Analyzer. The new send connector will look as follow in the on-premises Exchange admin center. One thing you have to know is, that the very first thing you have to do is to set your publich exchange connectors DNS MX-record’s TTL down. My recommendation is to set the TTL for the MX-records from 3600 to 300, one day before moving . This allows us to have less or no problems at all by changing the mail flow.More information about MX-records you can find HERE.

Managing Send and Receive Connectors in Exchange 2019

exchange connectors

When https://www.xcritical.com/ you choose to use a smart host you also get the option to configure authentication for the Send Connector. This is only necessary if the smart host requires it. Many email security servers/appliances or even hosted solutions will simply authenticate you based on your IP address rather than require other credentials. Organizations often want to use Exchange Online for outbound mail because of Exchange Online Protection (message hygiene).

Add send connector for outbound mail via Office 365

  • My approach is to leave the default Receive Connectors as is and add additional Receive Connectors for special purposes.
  • Time marches on, and new versions of Exchange Server mean that it’s appropriate to review the current position up to and including Exchange 2019.
  • Sometimes the list of IP addresses to add is too long to type out or the IP addresses come from an external source.
  • The transport service listens on port 2525 and places the incoming message in the submission queue.
  • Right now, the on-premises Exchange organization has a send connector for outbound mail to the internet.
  • With 2025 in full swing, it’s time to do some reflecting!

The obvious Fintech way to test a new send connector is to send an email from inside the organization to an external recipient. For this article we’ll focus on the first two scenarios, as they are the most common; sending directly to the internet, and sending via a smart host. We’ll also cover testing and troubleshooting a Send Connector, and some more advanced configuration options. Now that we’ve created a connector, we need to create a mail flow rule that will send mails to the connector based on the criteria you define. There are many conditions that you can select from to control when messages should be sent to the connector. You may also like Add Exchange Server to existing send connector.

Create send connector in Exchange with EAC

Multiple servers will provide redundancy for outbound mail flow. To recreate the default receive connectors in Exchange admin center, go through the screens below and ensure that you configure the same configuration for each receive connector. Start Exchange Management Shell as administrator and run the Set-ReceiveConnectors.ps1 PowerShell script to recreate the default receive connectors. In the next step, we will show how to recreate the default receive connectors with a PowerShell script.

Restart Microsoft Exchange Transport service

What if we like to add a send connector with PowerShell? Sign in to Exchange Admin Center as an administrator or with an account with the privileges to add a send connector in Exchange Server. In the next article, we will migrate mailboxes to Office 365. The send connector is now visible in the Exchange Admin Center. In the figure below, you can see how the Office365 connectors work in both scenarios. It’s quicker to create a send connector with PowerShell.

Review your new connector configuration and click Next to validate the connector. Choose Only when I have a transport rule… and click Next. Send and Receive Connectors on an Exchange server do not need daily maintenance, but instead, they need maintenance when something changes in your infrastructure. These changes can be adding or removing the Exchange server, changes in SMTP routing, or moving Relay Connectors. This way you have a new Relay Connector which uses all remote IP addresses from the old Relay Connector.

You learned how to create a send connector in Exchange Server. You learned how to create a send connector in Exchange with EAC and PowerShell. Configuring a new send connector in Exchange with PowerShell is faster. Don’t forget that you can disable the created send connector instead of removing it.

I use the script published by Ali Tajran which you can download here. This script checks if any host is still using a Receive Connector on an (old) Exchange server. We showed how to configure outbound mail via Office 365. Change the Exchange on-premises outbound mail flow before, during, or after migration. From that point, the outbound mail flow will go via Exchange Online Protection and land in the recipient’s mailbox. Right now, the on-premises Exchange organization has a send connector for outbound mail to the internet.

exchange connectors

If the recipient is internal, the message is sent to the transport service. If the recipient is on the same server, the frontend transport service sends the message to the transport server on this server. If the recipient is on a different server, the frontend transport service sends the message directly to the transport service on that server. The transport service listens on port 2525 and places the incoming message in the submission queue.

Transport services in Exchange have not changed dramatically since Exchange 2013. This means that all transport components are now combined in one server role. In this week’s episode, we dive deep into Microsoft’s latest announcements and changes that will impact your organization in 2025 and beyond. Sometimes the list of IP addresses to add is too long to type out or the IP addresses come from an external source.

exchange connectors

Join the movement and receive our weekly Tech related newsletter. In 2012, Paul Cunningham wrote about this topic based on the state of the art at the time (Exchange 2013). Time marches on, and new versions of Exchange Server mean that it’s appropriate to review the current position up to and including Exchange 2019. With 2025 in full swing, it’s time to do some reflecting! In this episode of practical protection, we look back at the major Microsoft security events in 2024 and how you can prepare yourself for what’s to come in 2025. When migrating an older Exchange version with a Relay Connector to a newer Exchange version you must migrate the Relay Connector to the new Exchange server as well.

In an Exchange migration project, I received a list of IP addresses from a parallel project implementing new multifunctional devices in the organization. When a new Exchange server is installed in the organization, the new Exchange server can be added to the Send Connector. You can do this using the Exchange Admin Center by navigating to Mail flow → Send Connectors. Select Scoping and in the Source Servers section click the + icon to add a new Exchange server. You may also like Renew certificate in Exchange Hybrid. Send a test mail from an Exchange on-premises mailbox to a Gmail address.

In our example, we will configure outgoing mail via Exchange Online before we migrate mailboxes to Office 365. Looking up MX records means your server will be relying on DNS. If the server’s TCP/IP settings are configured for DNS servers inside your network that can’t resolve external names, then you can configure Exchange to use different DNS servers for external lookups. Did this help you to create a new send connector in Exchange Server? Remember to test the send connector with a simple test to verify that the outgoing mail works. You can now remove the old outbound send connector or wait a couple of days before you do a removal.

It’s already included in the Exchange Online subscription license, and this way, you don’t need a third-party spam filter for extra costs. There are two send connectors configured and enabled in our example. Run the Get-SendConnector cmdlet to find the configured send connectors in Exchange with PowerShell.

That’s an excellent way if you like to troubleshoot and test send connectors. In my next article, I will discuss how to customize that receive connector and the various options available for SMTP relay. The mailbox transport service is the only service that uses RPC communication.

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