Unable to send via a smart host

[Carl]

Hi

We are having some problems with sending emails to certain domain names, so
we have decided to send all mail via our ISP smart host rather than use DNS
to route mail.

However when we reconfigure the connector to use our ISP smart host all mail
sits in the undelverable queue, with a SMTP protocol error, we have tried
both our ISP name and IP Address but it doesn't work.

Does anybody have some good trouble shooting techniques to find out where
the problem is occuring

We are running Windows 2000 server (sp4) with Exchange 2000 (sp3)

thanks

Carl

[Oliver Moazzezi]

Further,

Enabling SMTP protocol logging should show whether it's the lack of
authentication that is the issue.

Oliver

[Carl]

Hi Oliver

I have spoken to the ISP, I enabled logging and I recieve the following:
error 4001
Message delivery to the remote domain "relay.clara.net" Failed.
The error message is an SMTP protocol error occured.
The smtp verb which cause the error is HELO. The responce from the remote
server is 501 syntactically invalid HELO arguments.

Now I have googled this and it seems another IT guy has had this problem,
and it's because the server has a _ (underscore) in the Server name, our
clients server which we didnt set up has a name of server_1.
To fix this we need to change the FQDN, any ideas how to do this, the server
is the only domain controller, (it's a small network)

thanks

Carl

Post by Oliver Moazzezi
Further,
Enabling SMTP protocol logging should show whether it's the lack of
authentication that is the issue.
Oliver

[Oliver Moazzezi]

Hi,

Sorry for the late reply, I don't usually check this group.

You can change the FQDN quite easily - do this within ESM | Servers | Your
Server | SMTP | Right Click SMTP virtual server | Properties - it is
configured here.

Ensure you have valid dns resolution on whatever you decide to use as your
FQDN.

Oliver

[Oliver Moazzezi]

Hi,

Does/Is your ISP aware you want to/are using them to send mail?

It may be configured so you have to authenticate first - is this something
you have setup?

A good ISP will only let machines on it's network relay mail using SMTP
AUTH. To want to relay mail off them without authentication would require
them being aware of this and setting this up at their end.

Oliver