How to make Exchange support .com mail on a .local domain?
The problem: I need to move our .com mail from a 3rd party host to our local exchange server. The only problem is that our local domain is currently a .local domain. How do I make the link between the .com emails to the .local users? The current situation (hardware/software): Windows Domain (*.local) Uses Active Directory and every user logs into the domain Exchange 2003 Standard server - Hosts all .local mail 3rd party hosts our .com domain and mail. Each user accesses it via POP3 configured locally in Outlook on every workstation and phone. Because of every computer accessing the mail via POP3, it gets pulled down into the .local inbox. Then the mail is pushed to the exchange server to be backed up. Right now every user has two email accounts configured (1. Microsoft Exchange account, aka. cfruin@marshallexcelsior.local and 2. POP3 .com account, aka. cfruin@marshallexcelsior.com). Currently the default is set to the .com accounts and the users mostly ignore the .local accounts. The only time this is an issue is when the users create calendar events, because they are .local calendars the users can send invites but never recieve the reply (.local to .com doesn't route). I want to change the MX record to point to our external IP address. I have set up port forwarding to the exchange server so that all mail will go there. From there how do I create a link to the .com mail? How do I make the exchange server understand that the user cfruin will have a login on the domain of cfruin@marshallexcelsior.local but an email of cfruin@marshallexcelsior.com? In the end I just want the users to have the exchange inbox (.local) and be able to send/receive .com emails. It seems that IIS and the Exchange Internet Mail Wizard should play some role in the solution, but I cannot seem to get the pieces to fit together. Sorry for the long post, but wanted to include enough context to facilitate an answer. Thank you for the help! Chris Fruin
May 18th, 2010 4:25pm

To give your users the .com domain is no more complicated than changing the .local to .com in Exchange 2003 Recipients Policy. The whole 'local domain' thing is not the way to think about it. That's the server, done and dusted. The revised email addresses will be applied to all the user accounts. The trick is timing. The MX record can be fixed easy. Get the ISP to change the A record (to which the MX points) IP address to whatever your local setup will be (I.e. direct to the server, to the firewall that does port forwarding etc. etc). Then there's the cut-over thing. Obviously you can set Outlook up to talk to Exchange and the users can communicate between each other with no issue. The users can send to the Internet with no issue. People replying and doing fresh messages TO your domain will, until the MX cuts over, go to the POP service. How would you like to handle the day or so that will take? "Chris Fruin" wrote in message news:cb5f91b1-ab18-423e-a816-f6dddc4b77ad... The problem: I need to move our .com mail from a 3rd party host to our local exchange server. The only problem is that our local domain is currently a .local domain. How do I make the link between the .com emails to the .local users? The current situation (hardware/software): Windows Domain (*.local) Uses Active Directory and every user logs into the domain Exchange 2003 Standard server - Hosts all .local mail 3rd party hosts our .com domain and mail. Each user accesses it via POP3 configured locally in Outlook on every workstation and phone. Because of every computer accessing the mail via POP3, it gets pulled down into the .local inbox. Then the mail is pushed to the exchange server to be backed up. Right now every user has two email accounts configured (1. Microsoft Exchange account, aka. cfruin@marshallexcelsior.local and 2. POP3 .com account, aka. cfruin@marshallexcelsior.com). Currently the default is set to the .com accounts and the users mostly ignore the ..local accounts. The only time this is an issue is when the users create calendar events, because they are .local calendars the users can send invites but never recieve the reply (.local to .com doesn't route). I want to change the MX record to point to our external IP address. I have set up port forwarding to the exchange server so that all mail will go there. From there how do I create a link to the .com mail? How do I make the exchange server understand that the user cfruin will have a login on the domain of cfruin@marshallexcelsior.local but an email of cfruin@marshallexcelsior.com? In the end I just want the users to have the exchange inbox (.local) and be able to send/receive .com emails. It seems that IIS and the Exchange Internet Mail Wizard should play some role in the solution, but I cannot seem to get the pieces to fit together. Sorry for the long post, but wanted to include enough context to facilitate an answer. Thank you for the help! Chris Fruin Mark Arnold, Exchange MVP.
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May 18th, 2010 4:49pm

Can the outlook clients just be left to pull from POP and Exchange, and once the MX record change takes place there will be nothing to pull from POP and the users will just get it from exchange?. Then a week later remove the POP account from each workstation. Would this approach be seamless to the user?
May 18th, 2010 4:57pm

Sure. "Chris Fruin" wrote in message news:1e8f93a4-8d67-4771-af53-d2ff1547d827... Can the outlook clients just be left to pull from POP and Exchange, and once the MX record change takes place there will be nothing to pull from POP and the users will just get it from exchange?. Then a week later remove the POP account from each workstation. Would this approach be seamless to the user? Mark Arnold, Exchange MVP.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
May 18th, 2010 6:48pm

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