Create an SMTP Send Connector

Applies to: Exchange Server 2010

Send connectors create a logical connection to remote e-mail systems and are responsible for outbound transmission of e-mail messages. If you use the EdgeSync process, it will configure the Send connectors required for mail flow to the Internet and to the Edge Transport servers in your Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 organization. If your organization requires a Send connector with specific configuration options, or if you don't use the EdgeSync process, you must manually configure Send connectors.

You can use the EMC or the Shell to create a Send connector for Exchange 2010.

Looking for other management tasks related to connectors? Check out Managing Connectors.

Prerequisites

You should determine the specific usage for the Send connector before you create it so you can correctly configure its properties. To learn more about Send connectors, see Understanding Send Connectors.

What Do You Want to Do?

• Use the EMC to create a Send connector
• Use the Shell to create a Send connector

Use the EMC to create a Send connector

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the "Send connectors" entry in the Transport Permissions topic.

1. Open the Exchange Management Console. Perform one of the following:

   • On a computer that has the Edge Transport server role installed, select Edge Transport, and then in the work pane, click the Send Connectors tab.
   • To create a Send connector on a Hub Transport server role, in the console tree, expand Organization Configuration, select Hub Transport, and then in the work pane, click the Send Connectors tab.

2. In the action pane, click New Send Connector. The New SMTP Send Connector wizard starts.

3. On the Introduction page, follow these steps:
   a. In the Name field, type a meaningful name for this connector. Specify a name for the Send connector that helps you distinguish this Send connector from other Send connectors in your configuration.
   b. In the Select the intended use for this connector field, select the usage type for the connector. The usage type determines the default permission sets assigned on the connector and grants those permissions to trusted security principals. The following usage types are available:
   Custom   Select this option to create a customized connector to connect with systems that aren't servers running Exchange 2010.
   Internal   Internal Send connectors send e-mail to servers in your Exchange organization. This connector is configured to route e-mail to your internal Exchange servers as smart hosts.
   Internet   Internet Send connectors send e-mail to the Internet. This connector is configured to use Domain Name System (DNS) MX records to route e-mail.
   Partner   Partner Send connectors send e-mail to partner domains. This connector is configured to only allow connections to servers that authenticate with Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates for SMTP domains included in the list of domain-secured domains. You can add domains to this list by using the TLSSendDomainSecureList parameter in the Set-TransportConfig command.
   For more information about Send connector usage types, see Understanding Send Connectors.
   c. Click Next.

4. On the Address space page, specify an address space to which the Send connector sends mail.
   You can configure either an SMTP address space or a custom address space. Custom address spaces may only be configured on Send connectors that exist on Hub Transport servers. If you use a custom address space type, you must use a smart host to route e-mail.

   Note

   Although you can configure custom address spaces on a Send connector, the Hub Transport server still uses SMTP as the transport mechanism to send messages to other messaging servers using this Send connector. To send messages to messaging servers that don't use SMTP as their primary transport mechanism, such as a third-party fax gateway server, you must use a Foreign connector. For more information about Foreign connectors, see Understanding Foreign Connectors.

   To configure an address space, do the following:

   • Add   To specify an address space for which this Send connector is responsible, click Add or the drop-down arrow located next to Add. If you click Add, the address space type is SMTP. If you click the drop-down arrow located next to Add, you can select SMTP Address Space or Custom Address Space. For each new address space, you need to configure the following:
     • Type   This field describes the address space that you enter in the Address field. If you clicked Add, this field is set to SMTP and is unavailable.
     • Address Specify the address space for the Send connector. If you entered SMTP or X400 in the Type field, Exchange verifies the syntax of the address space that you enter. Exchange can't verify any other types of addresses; therefore, you need to make sure that you specify any custom addresses using the correct syntax. If you're entering an SMTP address, you can include the wildcard character (*) in the address space as defined in RFC 1035. For example, *, *.com, and *.contoso.com are permitted, but *contoso.com isn't permitted.
     • Include all subdomains   This option is only available when you're specifying an SMTP address space. Select this option if you also want to use this connector to route mail to all subdomains of the specified address space. If you entered an address space that contains the wildcard character, this option is automatically selected.
     • Cost Use the address space cost to set the selection priority when more than one Send connector is configured for the same address space. During routing resolution, when the connector selection is made, the least cost routing path to the destination address space is selected. The valid input range is from 1 through 100.
   • Edit To modify an existing address space in the address space list, select the address space, and then click Edit. You can configure the same options described for the Add button previously, with the exception of Type. You can't change the type of an existing address space.
   • Remove To delete the domain name from the list of domains, select a domain name, and then click .
   • Scoped send connector   By default, all Send connectors that you create can be used by all the Hub Transport servers in your Exchange organization. However, you can limit the scope of any Send connector so that it can be used only by other Hub Transport servers that exist in the same Active Directory site. To limit the scope of this Send connector, select Scoped send connector.
     After you finish, click Next.

5. On the Network settings page, select how to send e-mail with the Send connector. The following options are available:

   • Use domain name system (DNS) "MX" records to route mail automatically   This option is available only if you selected a usage type of Custom, Partner, or Internet in step 3. When you select this option, the Send connector uses DNS to resolve the IP address of the remote SMTP servers and route mail.

   • Route mail through the following smart hosts   This option is available only if you selected a usage type of Custom, Internal, or Internet in step 3. Select this option to route all outbound mail to specific smart hosts instead of using DNS to resolve the IP addresses of remote SMTP servers. After you select this option, you can select the following:
     Add   To add a smart host, click Add. You can specify either of the following options in the window that appears:
     ● IP Address   Select this option to identify the smart host by IP address (for example: 192.168.100.1).
     ● Fully qualified domain name (FQDN)   Select this option to identify the smart host by FQDN (for example, smarthost.contoso.com).
     Edit   To edit an existing smart host, select the smart host, and then click Edit.
     Remove   To remove an existing smart host, select the smart host, and then click .

   • Use the External DNS Lookup settings on the transport server   Select this check box if you want to use a specific list of external DNS servers instead of the DNS servers configured on the network adapters of the source servers configured for this Send connector.

     Important

     Verify that you have configured the external DNS servers list by using the Set-TransportServer cmdlet, or by using the External DNS Lookups tab in the properties of the Hub Transport server object or the Edge Transport server object.

     After you finish, click Next.

6. On the Configure smart host authentication settings page, select the method used to authenticate to the smart host.
   By default, no authentication is used. To configure the smart host authentication settings, click Change. You can specify one of the following options in the window that appears:
   • None   Select this option if the smart host is configured to accept anonymous connections.
   • Basic Authentication   Select this option if the smart host requires Basic authentication. Basic authentication requires that you provide a user name and password. We strongly recommend that you use an encrypted connection if you're using Basic authentication, because the user name and password are sent in clear text. Select the Basic Authentication over TLS check box to enable encryption on the connection. Also, if you specify more than one smart host for this Send connector, all of the specified smart hosts must accept the same user name and password.
   • Exchange Server Authentication   Select this option to authenticate to a smart host by using an Exchange authentication mechanism, such as TLS direct trust or TLS\Kerberos.
   • Externally Secured (for example, with IPsec) Select this option if the connection to the smart host is secured by external means, such as being physically secured over a private network or secured using Internet Protocol security (IPsec). When you select this option, you make an assertion of external security that can't be programmatically verified by Exchange.
   Click Next.

7. The Source Server page only appears on Hub Transport servers. By default, the Hub Transport server that you are currently working on is listed as a source server. To add a source server, click Add. In the Select Hub Transport or Subscribed Edge Transport Server dialog box, select the Hub Transport servers or the subscribed Edge Transport servers that will be used as the source server for sending messages to the address space that you provided in step 4. The list of source servers can contain all Hub Transport servers or all subscribed Edge Transport servers, but not a combination of both. After you finish adding additional source servers, click OK.
   To add more source servers, click Add and repeat this step.
   To remove an existing source server, select the source server, and then click .

   Note

   Removing a subscribed Edge Transport server from the list doesn't remove the Send connector from the Edge Transport server. It just stops the Microsoft Exchange EdgeSync service from propagating this Send connector configuration to that Edge Transport server.

   After you finish, click Next.

8. On the New Connector page, review the configuration summary for the connector. If you want to modify the settings, click Back. To create the Send connector by using the settings in the configuration summary, click New.

9. On the Completion page, review the following, and then click Finish to close the wizard:

   • A status of Completed indicates that the wizard completed the task successfully.
   • A status of Failed indicates that the task wasn't completed. If the task fails, review the summary for an explanation, and then click Back to make any configuration changes.

Use the Shell to create a Send connector

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the "Send connectors" entry in the Transport Permissions topic.

This command creates a Send connector.

New-SendConnector -Name <Connector Name> -AddressSpaces <Address Space> <Optional Parameters>

This example creates a Send connector called Subsidiary Send Connector that has the following settings:

• Connector usage type is Custom.
• Connector sends messages to the SMTP address space Contoso.com and all subdomains. The address space cost is 5.
• Connector sends messages to the SMTP address space named Fabrikam.com and all subdomains. The address space cost is 8.
• E-mail is routed through a smart host at IP address 192.168.1.20.
• Maximum message size of 20 MB is allowed on this connector.

New-SendConnector -Name "Subsidiary Send Connector" -Usage Custom -AddressSpace "*.contoso.com;5","*.fabrikam.com;8" -DNSRoutingEnabled $false -SmartHosts 192.168.1.20 -MaxMessageSize 20MB

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see New-SendConnector.