If you would like to read the other parts in this article series please go to:
- Configuring Edge Transport Server Without Edge Synchronization (Part 1)
- Configuring Edge Transport Server Without Edge Synchronization (Part 2)
- Configuring Edge Transport Server Without Edge Synchronization (Part 4)
Introduction
If you have been following the first two parts of this four-part article series, you will know that so far we have spent plenty of time describing the overall setup and the creation of the Send Connector required allowing the Hub Transport server to send messages towards the Edge Transport server. In this, part three, we will complete the configuration of the Hub Transport server by looking at the requirements of the Receive Connector. We will then move on to look at the configuration of the internal Receive Connector on the Edge Transport server.
Hub Transport Receive Connector
You might now be thinking that, since we have now created a Send Connector to transfer outbound messages from the Hub Transport server, what about the configuration required on the Hub Transport server to receive inbound messages from the Edge Transport server?
Each Hub Transport server is equipped, by default, with two Receive Connectors. To access these, perform the following steps:
- Run the Exchange Management Console.
- Expand the Server Configuration object in the console tree and then select Hub Transport underneath it. In the work pane you will notice that the single Receive Connector tab is already selected and underneath this, the two Receive Connectors installed by default. What I have just explained above can be seen in Figure 7.
Note:
The action pane has been removed for clarity.
Figure 7: Hub Transport Default Receive Connector
The first Receive Connector shown is called Client {server name}. We are not interested in this Receive Connector for this article as this connector is created to support POP3 and IMAP4 clients. The second Receive Connector shown is called Default {server name}. This connector is of interest to us as it is created to accept messages from other Exchange servers, including Edge Transport servers. To see this configuration, double-click the default Receive Connector to bring up its properties and go to the Permission Groups tab as shown in Figure 8. You will note that permissions are already set on this connector such that inbound message transfer can already take place from an Edge Transport server. In other words, no additional configuration of this connector is required.
Figure 8: Default Hub Transport Receive Connector Permissions Groups
Edge Transport Internal Receive Connector
Earlier in parts one and two of this article series we looked at creating a Send Connector within the internal Exchange 2007 organization that was responsible for sending messages to Internet-based recipients. The target of this connector was the Edge Transport server and you will remember that we used Basic Authentication over TLS to achieve an additional level of security. Whilst the configuration of the Send Connector ensures that messages destined for Internet-based users are sent to the Edge Transport server, we obviously need a configuration element on the Edge Transport server to ensure that these messages are received.
When the Edge Transport server role is deployed, a Receive Connector is created by default. This connector has the default name of Default internal receive connector {server name}. At this point in time we need to leave the default Receive Connector alone and instead create a new one that receives the messages sent via the Hub Transport server. Later in this article series I will note what needs to be done with the default Receive Connector on the Edge Transport server.
We now need to create a new Receive Connector on the Edge Transport server and configure this Receive Connector so that it listens on the IP address of the internal network card, since the Hub Transport server is obviously on the internal network. Here’s the process to do this:
- Run the Exchange Management Console on the Edge Transport server.
- Right-click on the Edge Transport server name in the console tree and choose New Receive Connector… from the context menu.
- On the opening Introduction screen of the New Receive Connector wizard, give the Receive Connector a suitable name and set the intended use to be Internal as you can see from Figure 9. Setting the intended use to internal allows the connector to receive messages from other Exchange servers within the organization, namely the Hub Transport servers. Once complete, click Next.
Figure 9: Edge Transport Receive Connector Configuration
- On the Remote Network Settings screen of the New Receive Connector wizard, highlight the default IP address range of 0.0.0.0-255.255.255.255 and then click the remove button, which has the red cross on it. This will remove this default IP address range from the configuration.
- Next click the Add… button which will bring up the Add IP Address(es) of Remote Servers window as you can see from Figure 10. Here you need to enter the IP address of the Hub Transport server that you want to be able to connect to this Edge Transport server. In my case, I have a single Hub Transport server to add so it is simply a case of entering the IP address of this Hub Transport server, namely 10.1.1.1. If you wish to enter multiple IP addresses, you simply add them one at a time by clicking the Add… button again. Click OK when you have entered the required IP addresses.
Figure 10: Entering the IP Address of the Hub Transport Server
- Back at the New Receive Connector wizard’s Remote Network Settings page, click Next to proceed to the New Connector page of the wizard where you will see a configuration summary. Review the configuration and click the New button when you are ready.
- The wizard will now create the new connector and display the associated Exchange Management Shell cmdlet that will also create the connector if you wish to script this configuration. When you are ready, click the Finish button to exit the wizard.
If you have been following the process closely, you may have noticed that at no point during the creation of the connector via the wizard there was a configuration option available to specify that you wished to link this connector to the internal network card IP address. To do this, we need to edit the properties of the newly created connector. Here are the required steps:
- Back in the Exchange Management Console, right-click the newly created Receive Connector and choose Properties from the context menu.
- In the properties of the Receive Connector, click the Network tab.
- Click the Edit… button in the section titled Use these local IP addresses to receive mail.
- In the Edit Receive Connector Binding window, choose the Specify an IP address option and enter the IP address of the Edge Transport server’s internal network card. In my example, this is 10.1.1.2. When done, click OK and then click OK again to close the connector’s properties window.
This completes the configuration of the internal Receive Connector on the Edge Transport server.
Summary
That concludes part three of this four-part article series. We have now completed the configuration required on the Hub Transport server and one of the four configuration elements required on the Edge Transport server. In the last part of this article series we will complete the configuration of the Edge Transport server, namely the configuration of the internal Send Connector, the Internet Send Connector and the Internet Receive Connector.
If you would like to read the other parts in this article series please go to:
