got a really weird one here. Lab environment...so can do whatever I want. Have an Exchange 2003 Org. Cannot open a connection to port 25 on one Exchange server. We unsintalled all AV, and any other applications that might cause a problem. Have checked and rechecked all settings. Even went so far as to reinstall the SMTP service and we even did an Exchange 2003 /DisasterRecovery reinstall, thinking that there was some type of corruption. Nothing. Still cannot telnet to port 25 to this server. We even installed another Exchange 2003 server on the same subnet to rule out network related issues. We can telnet to the new server just fine! Any ideas?

Any ip restrictions on the SMTP VS that didnt work?

Hi, Did you run netstat -an command to check the current listening port? Is the 25 port available there? Additionally, please check the port configuration on the SMTP VS. Thanks Allen

Thanks for your replies. I don't know of any IP restrictions on the SMTP VS. Here is the output of Netstat -an. The primary IP address of this server is 10.30.88.35 Active Connections Proto Local Address Foreign Address State TCP 0.0.0.0:25 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:80 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:119 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:135 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:445 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:563 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:593 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:691 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:1037 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:1040 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:1041 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:1042 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:1046 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:1050 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:1085 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:1097 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:1106 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:1115 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:1322 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:1350 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:2000 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:2301 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:2381 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:3389 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:6001 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:6002 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:6004 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:8081 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:49400 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 0.0.0.0:49401 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 10.30.88.35:139 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 10.30.88.35:691 10.30.88.35:1178 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:691 10.30.88.35:1201 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:691 10.30.88.35:4803 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:1068 10.30.88.32:389 CLOSE_WAIT TCP 10.30.88.35:1087 10.30.88.32:389 CLOSE_WAIT TCP 10.30.88.35:1090 10.30.88.32:389 CLOSE_WAIT TCP 10.30.88.35:1096 10.30.88.32:389 CLOSE_WAIT TCP 10.30.88.35:1105 10.30.88.32:389 CLOSE_WAIT TCP 10.30.88.35:1178 10.30.88.35:691 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:1180 10.30.88.32:1025 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:1201 10.30.88.35:691 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:4803 10.30.88.35:691 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:11947 10.30.88.32:389 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:11950 10.30.88.32:3268 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:11951 10.30.88.32:3268 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:11952 10.30.88.32:3268 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:11955 10.30.88.32:389 CLOSE_WAIT TCP 10.30.88.35:11956 10.30.88.32:389 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:11957 10.30.88.32:389 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:11966 10.30.88.32:389 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:11967 10.30.88.32:389 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:12070 10.30.88.32:389 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:15014 10.30.88.32:389 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:18573 10.30.88.32:389 CLOSE_WAIT TCP 10.30.88.35:18888 10.30.88.32:389 CLOSE_WAIT TCP 10.30.88.35:19145 10.30.88.35:135 TIME_WAIT TCP 10.30.88.35:19146 10.30.88.35:135 TIME_WAIT TCP 10.30.88.35:19151 10.30.88.32:389 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:19158 10.30.88.35:135 TIME_WAIT TCP 10.30.88.35:19159 10.30.88.35:135 TIME_WAIT TCP 10.30.88.35:19162 10.30.88.32:135 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:19163 10.30.88.32:1025 TIME_WAIT TCP 10.30.88.35:19168 10.30.88.32:445 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:19174 10.30.88.32:1025 ESTABLISHED TCP 10.30.88.35:19177 10.30.88.32:389 TIME_WAIT TCP 10.30.88.35:19178 10.30.88.32:389 TIME_WAIT TCP 10.30.88.35:19179 10.30.88.32:445 ESTABLISHED TCP 127.0.0.1:2000 127.0.0.1:19181 ESTABLISHED TCP 127.0.0.1:5152 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING TCP 127.0.0.1:19181 127.0.0.1:2000 ESTABLISHED UDP 0.0.0.0:135 *:* UDP 0.0.0.0:161 *:* UDP 0.0.0.0:445 *:* UDP 0.0.0.0:500 *:* UDP 0.0.0.0:1047 *:* UDP 0.0.0.0:1051 *:* UDP 0.0.0.0:1086 *:* UDP 0.0.0.0:1098 *:* UDP 0.0.0.0:1107 *:* UDP 0.0.0.0:3456 *:* UDP 0.0.0.0:3457 *:* UDP 0.0.0.0:4500 *:* UDP 0.0.0.0:8082 *:* UDP 0.0.0.0:34125 *:* UDP 0.0.0.0:52311 *:* UDP 10.30.88.35:123 *:* UDP 10.30.88.35:137 *:* UDP 10.30.88.35:138 *:* UDP 127.0.0.1:123 *:* UDP 127.0.0.1:1025 *:* UDP 127.0.0.1:1048 *:* UDP 127.0.0.1:1055 *:* UDP 127.0.0.1:1088 *:* UDP 127.0.0.1:1093 *:* UDP 127.0.0.1:1110 *:* UDP 127.0.0.1:1137 *:* UDP 127.0.0.1:1142 *:* UDP 127.0.0.1:1323 *:* UDP 127.0.0.1:1440 *:* UDP 127.0.0.1:3456 *:* UDP 127.0.0.1:3457 *:*

There wasnt any 3rd party software or anti-virus installed that may have hooked into SMTP?

Sure there is. Mcafee. we uninstalled it and rebooted the server. No change.

Problem solved. It ended up being an IPSec Policy in a GPO that was blocking port 25.