How to configure Exchange Server to receive emails from internet?

Question

i installed MS Exchange Server 2010 correctly on my development machine following this link: http://www.igetmail.com/how-to-setup-exchange-2010/how-to-complete-the-setup-of-exchange-2010.html#Add_role_-_Active_Directory_Lightweight_Services

and i configured exchange to receive emails from server configuration > hub transport as follows:

• FQDN: WIN-LUFA1DC67PU.mydomain.com
• IPv4 and IPv6 are using port 25
• in authentication tab, the following are checked: 1- Transport Layer Security (TLS) 2- Basic Authentication 3- Exchange Server Authentication 4- Integrated Windows Authentication.
• in permission groups tab, everything is checked except the partners checkbox.

also i created a mailbox and added to it the user account i created which is a member of exchange servers group.

i have some questions:

1- how to login in outlook web app with exchange user account i created ? so that i can see my inbox.

2- what's the necessary DNS configuration , and other configuration required so that i can receive emails on my exchange user account ?

please advise with little details, since it's my first use of exchange server.

Solution

I'm assuming you don't know much about mail servers in general and Exchange specifically; this is fine, we all have to start somewhere, but you will probably need to study a bit more before you can get Exchange (which is quite a complex piece of software) to run properly.

First of all, I strongly suggest you ditch that tutorial you're following and start reading proper documentation; two main reasons for this:

• That tutorial's purpose is to guide you into setting up another software ("IGetMail") to interact with Exchange; so, it's by no means a suprise it doesn't delve much into setting up Exchange correctly.
• It's also full of plainly wrong information, like the idea that you should install AD LDS on an Exchange server (totally useless unless you're setting up an Edge Transport server).

Then, you should also plan your setup a little bit more; f.e. it's possible (although not recommended at all) to install Exchange on a domain controller, but you need to know what can of worms you're opening with doing this (ever tried rebooting that server?). Oh, and BTW, if you didn't even bother to give a name to that poor server, this means you're definitely not paying enough attention to its setup.

Now, about your two questions:

• Assuming Exchange is working correctly, you just need to point your web browser to https://localhost/owa from the server itself, or to https://your.server.name/owa if you have proper DNS resolution in place.
• Before even talking about DNS, your server will need a public static IP address, or a port forwarding configuration in your router/firewall, in order to be able to actually receive anything from anywhere.

Comments

[Massimo]

I don't know who write that article and I only gave it a brief read, but I'm quite sure Exchange doesn't require AD LDS to work, unless you're setting up an Edge Transport server.

[Massimo]

Also... you didn't even bother to give a name to your server?!?

[Massimo]

N.B. No offence and no sarcasm intended; I'm just pointing out you don't seem to have a clue about what you're doing, so I'm inviting you to study a little before starting to install software you don't know and which needs proper planning in order to work at all.

[Mahmoud Saleh]

can you please tell me what's a good place to start, all what i need is to setup exchange server and configure it to recieve emails from the internet, and i want to be able to read those emails.

[Massimo]

If you don't have (at least) a public static IP address and a public DNS domain, you won't be able to receive anything at all. The link I suggested as "proper documentation" is the right place to start.

[slm]

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