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    Forwarding port 25 for Exchange Server NOT Working

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved NAT
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    • chpalmerC
      chpalmer
      last edited by

      @chpalmer: I'm not seeing where to set static port to yes. I've been using mxtoolbox and it says I'm fine on all tests. Fixed that tcp/udp to tcp, tks.
      Attaching my current firewall RULES.

      http://mxtoolbox.com/diagnostic.aspx    What does this say?

      Static port-   Go to your outbound nat rule, edit/ down to translation…   click the box that says static port.

      tcp/udp wont break you but just safer to have what you need...

      If you want to see port activity getting through go to your firewall rule and click the "Log packets that are handled by this rule" box.

      Triggering snowflakes one by one..
      Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590T CPU @ 2.00GHz on an M400 WG box.

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      • chpalmerC
        chpalmer
        last edited by

        Blot out your IP and DNS if you dont want those out…

        So your box is connecting.

        5.429 seconds  makes me wonder...  I generally see under 100ms on my hmail box here.  Have you ever had postfix or any other proxy installed on or between your units?

        Triggering snowflakes one by one..
        Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590T CPU @ 2.00GHz on an M400 WG box.

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        • T
          tomf
          last edited by

              • Repost * * *

          s win – didn't know what I was looking for.

          mxtoolbox.com results:

          220 exch.domain.com Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service ready at Mon, 10 Oct 2011 13:09:04 -0700

          OK - 208.xx.xx.88 resolves to mail.domain.com, domain.com, exch.domain.com
          OK - Reverse DNS matches SMTP Banner
          0 seconds - Good on Connection time
          Not an open relay.
          5.429 seconds - Warning on Transaction time

          Session Transcript:
          HELO please-read-policy.mxtoolbox.com
          250 exch.domain.com Hello [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] [62 ms]
          MAIL FROM: supertool@mxtoolbox.com250 2.1.0 Sender OK [78 ms]
          RCPT TO: test@example.com550 5.7.1 Unable to relay [5086 ms]/test@example.com/supertool@mxtoolbox.com

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          • T
            tomf
            last edited by

            I have not had any postfix or proxy of any sort on there.

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            • marcellocM
              marcelloc
              last edited by

              try this:

              • remove port 25 nat

              • install postfix forwarder

              • configure package general tab (enable, select wan and add your domain/exchange ip)

              • save config

              • redo smtp check from http://mxtoolbox.com/diagnostic.aspx

              Treinamentos de Elite: http://sys-squad.com

              Help a community developer! ;D

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              • T
                tomf
                last edited by

                That gets a much better Transaction time.
                No incoming mail. I'm guessing there are more configurations that need to be done the postfix forwarder?

                220 vrouter.domain.com ESMTP Postfix

                OK - 208.xx.xx.88 resolves to mail.domain.com, domain.com, exch.domain.com
                OK - Reverse DNS matches SMTP Banner
                0 seconds - Good on Connection time
                Not an open relay.
                0.827 seconds - Good on Transaction time

                Session Transcript:
                HELO please-read-policy.mxtoolbox.com
                250 vrouter.domain.com [62 ms]
                MAIL FROM: supertool@mxtoolbox.com250 2.1.0 Ok [172 ms]
                RCPT TO: test@example.com554 5.7.1 test@example.com: Relay access denied [265 ms]
                QUIT
                221 2.0.0 Bye [62 ms]/test@example.com/test@example.com/supertool@mxtoolbox.com

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • chpalmerC
                  chpalmer
                  last edited by

                  try this:

                  remove port 25 nat
                      install postfix forwarder
                      configure package general tab (enable, select wan and add your domain/exchange ip)
                      save config
                      redo smtp check from http://mxtoolbox.com/diagnostic.aspx

                  marcelloc- you read my mind…

                  "0.827 seconds - Good on Transaction time"  Could be something in your system spinning up...  Probably not a deal killer either...  My backup email server on a desktop at a location far from my datacenter does the same thing till it gets woke up after sitting a while.  Since its XP, on a desktop...

                  I was actually going to send an email to postmaster@"your domain" and see what my server logged but did a copy paste after I hit the copy key on your earlier post...  Are you in a position to try that from another email server you have?

                  Triggering snowflakes one by one..
                  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590T CPU @ 2.00GHz on an M400 WG box.

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                  • T
                    tomf
                    last edited by

                    I can only send from another system that is on my main subnet 208.xx.xx.xx:

                    With this postfix forwarder I'm getting really fast return error messages now.

                    ###########

                    This is the mail system at host vrouter.domain.com

                    I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not
                    be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.

                    For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster.

                    If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
                    delete your own text from the attached returned message.

                    The mail system

                    tommyf@domain.com: mail for 208.xx.xx.88 loops back to myself
                    Reporting-MTA: dns; vrouter.domain.com
                    X-Postfix-Queue-ID: 5F50517047
                    X-Postfix-Sender: rfc822; tommy@domain2.com
                    Arrival-Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2011 15:57:23 -0700 (PDT)

                    Final-Recipient: rfc822; tommyf@domain.com
                    Original-Recipient: rfc822;tommyf@domain.com
                    Action: failed
                    Status: 5.4.6
                    Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; mail for 208.xx.xx.88 loops back to myself

                    #########/tommyf@domain.com

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                    • T
                      tomf
                      last edited by

                      If you want to send a message to postmaster, please go ahead, if you still have that domain info.

                      I'm trying to figure out the looping issue.  This is definitely not my forte, but improving.

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                      • T
                        tomf
                        last edited by

                        I'm confused over this looping back to self error.

                        I have DNS set up as:
                            mail.domain.com
                            exch.domain.com  (also the name of the exchange server and what comes up in the banner)
                            domain.com

                        All three resolve to the same IP: 208.xx.xx.88

                        But the router is set as vrouterdomain.domain.com.
                        There is no DNS set for this host name vrouterdomain.

                        IF I change the domain on the router from domain.com to somethingelse.com, then I get:  Warning - Reverse DNS does not match SMTP Banner.
                        The only thing that has changed is the domain name of the router, which is not configured for DNS anyway, and is not the name of the exchange server.
                        I don't see why the name of the router affects the reverse DNS to not match what is in the exchange banner.

                        I have another exchange server installation, which I've compared settings, DNS, NAT, routing, and it works ok, but uses a hardware SonicWall.
                        This exchange server works if I take the pfsense out of the picture.

                        So I'm thinking the loopback problem has to do with how the pfsense router is named.

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                        • marcellocM
                          marcelloc
                          last edited by

                          Postfix do a lot of checks to validate email.

                          dns is one of the most used checks. if you have exchange, you may also have internal dns configured.

                          set pfsense dns to this internal server and set mx name/domain/ip to your exchange and also create a host entry for pfsense.

                          To end postfix forwarder configuration, check other tabs like antispam and valid recipients.

                          to see the server log, choose /var/log/maillog option at gui and do a tail -f on it at console.

                          Treinamentos de Elite: http://sys-squad.com

                          Help a community developer! ;D

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                          • T
                            tomf
                            last edited by

                            I'm not clear on what you mean by "set pfsense dns to my internal server".

                            I have a host entry in the internal DNS for pfsense, pointing to 192.x.x.1

                            I'm tailing logs, and only get the same error of looping back to self no matter what options I change and try.

                            In these logs it shows
                                message-id=20111011183805.90A2C1704D@vrouter.domain.com

                            I think I'm confused as to why the vrouter.domain.com is even in the picture as all the ports are supposed to be forwarded directly to the internal exch.domain.com.

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                            • marcellocM
                              marcelloc
                              last edited by

                              @tomf:

                              I'm not clear on what you mean by "set pfsense dns to my internal server".

                              set pfsense box dns to your internal ad dns.
                              create an A record for pfsense and assign it at pfsense box.

                              @tomf:

                              I think I'm confused as to why the vrouter.domain.com is even in the picture as all the ports are supposed to be forwarded directly to the internal exch.domain.com.

                              The postfix test was a suggestion to test your scenario and improve many times your mail security.

                              The problem maybe at your exchange box.

                              Finish postfix forwarder setup and see if it work.

                              To test pfsense to exchange communications, do this:

                              Go to your pfsense console and telnet your exchange at port 25 and see if you get instant access to port or not.
                              Then type smtp comands you saw at mxtoolbox.com

                              • HELO please-read-policy.mxtoolbox.com

                              • MAIL FROM:

                              • RCPT TO:test@example.com/test@example.com

                              • QUIT

                              Treinamentos de Elite: http://sys-squad.com

                              Help a community developer! ;D

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                              • T
                                tomf
                                last edited by

                                pfSense DNS is set to my internal DNS, using the 192.168.1.201 IP address of the internal DNS.
                                I have an entry in that local DNS for the pfsense.

                                From console on my exchange server, and on pfsense, I can do nslookup on pfsense and the exchange server and get correct responses.

                                I can telnet from pfsense to the exchange server port 25 and run those commands from mxtoolbox.

                                I can run mxtoolbox smtp check and all comes back green.
                                All mxtoolbox tests come out good.

                                If I send email from my gmail account it does not arrive.
                                Nothing shows in tailing the maillog.

                                It took about 30 minutes to get an error back from gmail:

                                Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 554 554 5.7.1 tf@domain.com: Relay access denied (state 14)./tf@domain.com

                                When this 30 minute mark hit, then the maillog shows (vrouter is my pfsense hostname):

                                Oct 12 11:01:28 vrouter postfix/postscreen[34753]: CONNECT from [209.85.161.174]:42489
                                Oct 12 11:01:34 vrouter postfix/postscreen[34753]: PASS OLD [209.85.161.174]:42489
                                Oct 12 11:01:34 vrouter postfix/smtpd[34859]: connect from mail-gx0-f174.google.com[209.85.161.174]
                                Oct 12 11:01:34 vrouter postfix/smtpd[34859]: NOQUEUE: reject: RCPT from mail-gx0-f174.google.com[209.85.161.174]: 554 5.7.1 tf@domain.com: Relay access denied; from= tf@gmail.comto= tf@domain.comproto=ESMTP helo= <mail-gx0-f174.google.com>Oct 12 11:01:34 vrouter postfix/smtpd[34859]: disconnect from mail-gx0-f174.google.com[209.85.161.174]</mail-gx0-f174.google.com>/tf@domain.com/tf@gmail.com/tf@domain.com

                                I appreciate the patience here with my questions. I like using the postfix forwarder and I want to take advantage of the additional features it has, so I'm going to keep working on this.

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                                • T
                                  tomf
                                  last edited by

                                  Finally working. Thanks all for the help and guidance.

                                  In the postfix forwarder tab for Domains to Forward, I had listed the exchange server and its internal IP, which was exch.domain.com. The not relaying error finally clicked with me that the mail was coming in as mail.domain.com. So I added that with the same internal IP to the Domains to Forward and things began to work. For good measure I added the root domain also.

                                  I am still having odd issues which I'll take to an exchange forum.

                                  I'm jazzed about pfSense, and hope to use it more. Great work!

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