Create an Accepted Domain

Applies to: Exchange Server 2010

An accepted domain is any SMTP domain for which Microsoft Exchange accepts incoming messages. Accepted domains can be authoritative or relay domains. Accepted domains are configured as global settings for the Exchange organization and on computers that have the Edge Transport server role installed.

Looking for other management tasks related to transport servers? Check out Managing Transport Servers.

Prerequisites

• You can't create an accepted domain that has the same name as an already configured remote domain. For example, if you have fabrikam.com configured as a remote domain, you can't create an accepted domain for fabrikam.com.
• Before you configure an accepted domain, you must verify that a public Domain Name System (DNS) MX resource record for that SMTP namespace exists and that the MX resource record references a server name and an IP address associated with your Exchange organization.

What Do You Want to Do?

• Use the EMC to create an accepted domain
• Use the Shell to create an accepted domain

Use the EMC to create an accepted domain

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

1. Open the Exchange Management Console. Perform one of the following steps:
   • To create an accepted domain on a computer that has the Edge Transport server role installed, on that computer, in the console tree, select Edge Transport, and then in the work pane, click the Accepted Domains tab.
   • To create an accepted domain on a computer that has the Hub Transport server role installed, on that computer, in the console tree, expand Organization Configuration, select Hub Transport, and then in the work pane, click the Accepted Domains tab.
2. In the action pane, click New Accepted Domain. The New Accepted Domain wizard appears.
3. On the New Accepted Domain page, complete the following fields:
   • Name   To identify the accepted domain, type a unique name in the Name field. We recommend that you select a meaningful name to help you easily identify the purpose of this accepted domain. For example, you may want to use a name that easily identifies this as a subsidiary domain or as a hosted domain. You must use a unique name for each accepted domain.
   • Accepted Domain   Use this field to identify the SMTP namespace for which the Exchange organization accepts e-mail messages. You can use a wildcard character to accept messages for a domain and all its subdomains. For example, you can type *.contoso.com to set Contoso.com and all its subdomains as accepted domains.
4. After you complete these fields on the New Accepted Domain page, select one of the following options to set the accepted domain type:
   • Authoritative Domain   To specify that e-mail messages are delivered to a recipient that has a domain account in your Exchange organization, select this option.
   • Internal Relay Domain   To specify that e-mail messages are either delivered to recipients in your organization or relayed to a server outside your Exchange organization but still under the authority of your company or IT department, select this option.
   • External Relay Domain   To relay e-mail messages to an e-mail server outside the Exchange organization, select this option.
5. Click New to create the new accepted domain.
6. 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 an accepted domain

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

You use the New-AcceptedDomain cmdlet to create new accepted domains in your organization. The following examples show how this cmdlet can be used.

The following example creates an authoritative domain.

New-AcceptedDomain -Name "Contoso" -DomainName contoso.com -DomainType Authoritative 

The following example creates an internal relay domain.

New-AcceptedDomain -Name "Fourth Coffee" -DomainName fourthcoffee.com -DomainType InternalRelay

The following example creates an external relay domain.

New-AcceptedDomain -Name "Woodgrove Bank" -DomainName woodgrovebank.com -DomainType ExternalRelay

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