Got another strange one..

We are about to migrate to a new exchange organisation so have put in a bunch of new servers which are in the same admin and routing group as the existing server..

the existing server is also acting as the bridgehead server for the group and recieves all the mail from our firewall.

problem is any mailbox on any other server than the bridgehead will not receive mail from an external source OR a mailbox on the bridgehead server.

doing a message shows that the bridgehead server is chucking the mail back-out to the firewall instead of to the correct server..

any ideas?

Is the bridgehead server configured as master under rout groups > members. Also check the config under connectors if you have any.

is your DNS set up right?

Is the bridgehead server configured as master under rout groups > members. Also check the config under connectors if you have any.

Yes the bridgehead is the master... and the smtp connector works..

i presume the other servers dont need connectors because they are in the same group?

i presume the other servers dont need connectors because they are in the same group?

Correct, all the servers should know what mailbox is where and route internally using the MTA, SMTP shouldnt come into it unless its for an external domain.

Correct, all the servers should know what mailbox is where and route internally using the MTA, SMTP shouldnt come into it unless its for an external domain.

Checking the queues i can see that the current server has a load of stuff queued up to chuck at the new servers... public folder replication and a few test messages.

we had a similar problem trying to get the existing public folders to replicate off this server, in the end we scrapped them and created a store on the new systems for them, which is replicating about fine..

so it looks like our current server "cant see" the new machines, even tho you can see and admin them in ESM, and resolve other boxes dns names.

concequently its not passing any data out to the other servers but will happily accept replication and emails from others...