Does Exchange support SMTPS receive connectors?

Question

I'm aware that Exchange supports opportunistic TLS (STARTTLS). But can I create a SMTPS receive connector (plain SSL)?

Solution

There's conflicting answers out there, but the consensus seems to be no. You can set up a STARTTLS listener on port 465, but that won't get you SMTPS.

From Technet (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2007.11.exchangeqa.aspx):

Q: I want to use secure SMTP—how do I get Exchange Server to listen for SMTP on port 465?

A: I'm sorry, but you can't do this. Yes, you can make any SMTP virtual server or Receive connector listen on port 465, but that will not achieve your goal of secure SMTP (SMTPS).

Comments

[Philip]

Nobody should be using SMTPS. Use SMTP (Port 25) + STARTTLS for server to server connections, and MSP (Port 587) + STARTTLS for client connections. This has been the standard since 1998.

[kralyk]

This is correct. There was never any great reason for Exchange to support an implicit SSL connection.