Question

Exchange 2000 issues

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I seem to have 2 issues. Both are on the same setup.

Windows 2000 Server running Exchange 2000. Both have all the latest patches and SP's.

1) Mail will flow inbound just fine. Some mail will flow outbound just fine. Certian addy's just have in the SMTP queue ( AOL,Yahoo, Bellsouth ). Other mail going out ( gmail and several others ) seem to flow fine.

2) In the Exchange System Manager --> under tools --> Status has a RED X on my mail server name and under status it is UNREACHABLE. All services are running and as I said in issue 1 mail comes in fine and certian mail going out.

Any advice on this would be great.

Sounds like it may be a firewall issue or DNS issue. On the exchange server you can open a cmd window, type in nslookup

c:>nslookup
>set type=mx
>yahoo.com

You should get a response like:
mx1.mail.yahoo.com internet address = xxxxxxxxxx

>exit

Then I would (in the same cmd window) type in:

c:> telnet mx1.mail.yahoo.com 25

This should connect to yahoo's mail server on the SMTP port. If this works, then DNS and SMTP work.

I would check the queue properties for more information at this point.

If it does not work and there are no firewall issues connecting to these servers, you can (in a cmd windows) run the following:

c:> tracert mx1.mail.yahoo.com

You should see the trace route, this will tell you where you are getting hung up.