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Exchange 2003 Outgoing SMTP delivery issues

We have had an Exchange 2003 mail server for a few years and have had great results without many big configuration changes, until now. Recently we added a new Qwest T-1 and changed our firewall to a Watchgaurd. After the change we have had a number of problems delivering mail to certain hosts. These hosts require that your mail server send mail with certain mail header requirements.

I am trying to get input on what’s required on all levels for mail delivery.

For outgoing mail to pass header requirements what should be in place at your DNS provider Ex: A record, your ISP Ex: Reverse DNS, your firewall and internal Windows DNS server, and your Exchange server?

Currently our mail server is sending an EHLO that won’t resolve. The format is internalhostDNSserver.internaldoamin.xxx.
Here is an example display of full headers received portion when I receive mail in my Yahoo account.

Received:

from 209.188.99.98 (EHLO appsrv10.mahowaldins.net) (209.188.99.98) by mta152.mail.re2.yahoo.com with SMTP; Wed, 28 Jan 2009 19:14:08 -0800

What should this be? If the internal mail server is called “exch” can you use mail.doamin.com then rely in internal DNS to do the rest?

How should this also correlate with your ISP reverse DNS, should they matchup some how?

Solution:
The solution was provided by Web: http://www.linkedin.com/in/astorrs Twitter: twitter.com/astorrs
http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Sender-Policy-Framework.html
SPF or Sender Policy Framework will help your Exchange Server delivery mail smoothly.

http://technodrone.blogspot.com has a write up on Converting a VM from A older version of Xen to VMware using the VMware Converter 4.0 titled : Converting a Linux Virtual Machine With an LVM

He went through quite a process. Make sure to check it out.

“

I was entrusted with the task to try and migrate a VM from Xen 3.2 to ESX. Well you would think that is a trivial task – it should be. But let us not forget that we are talking here about version 3.2, which is two generations back from the current Citrix Xensource which is in use today.
After successfully migrating it I would like to share with you the procedure.
This was done on a Xen Guest VM runnning Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 3 (Taroon Update 7)

“

Full Source Post.

http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2009/01/converting-linux-virtual-machine-with.html

http://vmguy.com/wordpress/index.php posted his weekly Notable KB Articles from the week.

“

27 Articles new or updated this past week.  The first one is very relevant.

• We are experiencing issues with the knowledge base
• Verifying isolation mode usage in ThinApp
• Troubleshooting Adding an ESX Server Host to a VMware High Availability Cluster
• Limitations to application support in ThinApp
• Troubleshooting the build process in VMware ThinApp

“

None of these hit home for me, ( just didn’t apply) so I went looking for more, and found the following.

How to Store Snapshot Files on an Alternate LUN

Datastores no longer available during upgrade

I’ll quote them below.

“

How to Store Snapshot Files on an Alternate LUN

KB Article
1003023

Updated
Jan. 26, 2009

Products

VMware ESX

VMware VirtualCenter

Details

Snapshot files are stored in the directory where the <VMname>.vmx file exists.

If you have limited space on the LUN where the <VMname>.vmx file exists, it may be necessary to specify an alternate location for the delta files that are created when you take snapshots of a VM.

Solution

This can be accomplised by defining an alternative working directory in the <VMname>.vmx   for the VM. The side effect of defining an alternative working directory is that the swap file will also be created in the alternative location.

The step to do this are:

1) Power off the VM

2) Edit the <VMname>.vmx file

      * add a line that looks like the following **

workingDir = "/vmfs/volumes/47384c5e-41fd4f1c-69c3-00163581bcf/directory_for_vmname_snapshotfile/"

3) Remove the VM from inventory in VirtualCenter

4) Add the VM to inventory in VirtuaCenter

5) Power on VM

6) Take snapshots as desired

Note: It may not be necessary to remove from inventory and add back into inventory, but in repro this produced consistent results.

You cannot use the advanced edit setting feature in VirtualCenter to add this line to the <VMname>.vmx file and have this take effect.

Note: This appears to only work as expected when you edit the .vmx file directly.

“

And

“

Datastores no longer available during upgrade

KB Article
1008031

Updated
Jan. 25, 2009

Products

VMware Lab Manager

Product Versions

VMware Lab Manager 3.0.x

Symptoms

• Cannot complete an upgrade from Lab Manager 2.x to 3.x.

• Required VMFS datastores no longer available.

• An error is received while upgrading Lab Manager from version 2.x to 3.x after specifying VirtualCenter credentials in the configuration wizard.

• The wizard does not proceed forward until each unavailable datastore is deleted from the configuration.

Resolution

This issue occurs when the credentials you gave for VirtualCenter do not have sufficient permissions to access the datastores and other required objects.

To verify the permissions, connect to VirtualCenter using the same credentials specified in the Lab Manager configuration wizard. If you are not able to see the configured hosts, clusters, or datastores, you must reconfigure the account privileges to make these objects accessible, or use a different account.

For more information on configuring VirtualCenter permissions, see the Basic System Administration guide, specifically the Managing Users, Groups, Permissions, and Roles section.

“

Those two caught my eye.

Thanks to The VMguy and VMware.

http://www.virtualpro.co.uk has a cool write up on building a ESX White Box.

I know a lot of small shops that could find this very interesting, so I wanted to share this blog.

“

There have been a couple of postings recently by people who have spent some time custom building PC’s capable of running VMWare ESX. A great example is Eric Sloof who has built a monster white box capable of running the new VI4 Beta software.

That’s got me interested in building one,  perhaps to road test new features if I can ever get invited to participate in a VMWare beta program,  or perhaps just to run ESX 3.5i so I can play about with new Microsoft Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2 Beta.

One of the main issues with building a whitebox is ensuring compatibility with the VMWare HCL,  so where on earth do you start looking so you can ensure your whitebox works.  Well I’ve put togethere some links together to get you started,  I hope they’re of some help.

VMWare Hardware Compatibility List

The new fully searchable HCL just has to be on the list,  double check your planned components,  you may be suprised to find they are actually supported on the HCL.

VM-Help.com – The unnofficial VMWare ESX whitebox HCL

This site is stacked full of useful information on tried and tested hardware combinations

The Ultimate Whitebox web site

Though this is a relatively new site it has some really well laid out information on hardware combos

Tim Jacobs post on his Whitebox

This post is just under a year old but still contains some good information.

Now HP were doing some crazy deals on their HP ML tower server range last year.  I was having a look at servers direct in the UK today and the prices are pretty good,  I’m tempted to buy one of these  rather than build a solution from scratch.

So how have people got on with ESX on the HP ML Series server? Well here are a few more links that may help.

instaling ESX 3.5 on the HP ML110 G5

Kiwi Si who runs the TechHead has a great lab article about installing ESX 3.5 on the ML110 G5

ESX 3.5 operating on a ML115 G5

Virtual VCP has put this article together detailing the changes required to get ESX 3.5 working on the new ML115 G5 servers.

Thing to remember with all whiteboxes are they are not supported by VMWare and you will be relying on the VMWare community to help you out with any problems.  My advice is,  if someone has listed the exact components that worked for them,  copy it as it will most likely work for you.

“

I think that a White box is the way to go for testing, and I think it is great that people are blogging about their experiences and or where to start the process when building these.

Thanks to VirtualPro

Full Source Link http://www.virtualpro.co.uk/2009/01/17/where-to-start-with-your-vmware-esx-whitebox/

Some of our client devices have a need to do a daily reboot, and I didn’t feel like manly setting up a scheduled task on each device. I needed something I could run via login script or USB stick, that only takes a couple of seconds of time per device.

Therefore, with some help from the Internet I developed the following.

schtasks.exe /create /RU SYSTEM /SC DAILY /TN Reboot /st 00:15:00 /TR "shutdown -r -f -t 60"

Copy the above line and paste it into notepad, or your text editor of choice, and save it as a .bat file.

This will set the device you run this on, to make a new scheduled task, which is daily reboot at 12:15 , which is run as system, with a 60 sec count down.  Admin rights are required to create this task.

Run it once per PC you want to reboot .

I hope someone can find this useful.

VirtualPro has a Write Up on How to get into Power Shell, being a nub at Power Shell, I thought it was a good as any place to start.

“

There has been a lot of chat recently around the virtualisation Twitter community about the benefits of Powershell.  A lot of people have been asking whether or not they should switch scripting languages and dive into learning Powershell. Opinion appears to be varied as a lot of people are successfully using  languages such as Perl for VMware scripting and see no need to change.

I’ve only dabbled with Powershell a little,  primarily when the VI toolkit was released as I was intrigued  as to what it could do, I wasn’t disappointed. I’ve now decided to knuckle down and attempt to learn the Powershell basics by reading the Windows Powershell scripting guide. This book primarily covers Powershell from a Microsoft perspective but the principles should stand firm for VMware Powershell scripting,  I’ll just have to dedicate some time to experimenting with the VI toolkit  a little more.

Once I’ve worked my way through the Microsoft book, I’ll be looking to purchase Hal Rottenberg’s “Managing VMware with Windows Powershell” when it’s eventually released.  Virtu-Al conducted a technical review of the book and has written a blog post detailing his thoughts on this much awaited book. Sounds like just what’s needed to progress on the VMware automation skill set.

So what evidence is there that Powershell is taking over as the scripting language of choice.  Well the following little snippets of news certainly indicate that Microsoft are putting their weight behind it and in essence basing their key platforms upon it.

• Microsofts PowerShell 2.0 included  with Windows 2008 R2
• Over 240 New cmdlets in 2008 R2 along dev tools for building your own cmdlets
• The new AD Administrative Center GUI console based on Powershell. 

So where do I start?

So Powershell is where you want to be, we’ve established that.  so where should you start? Here are a few links to get you (and me) started with Powershell.

Download the one of the following versions of Windows Powershell

Windows PowerShell V1.0 or Windows Powershell V2.0 CTP3 (this is a pre-release version)

Download the following from Toolkit from VMware

Vmware Infrastructrue Toolkit V1.0 Update 1

Check out some of these sites on how to get started with Powershell

Microsoft Getting started with Powershell guide

Microsoft Powershell V1.0 Documentation pack

MSDN – Getting started with Powershell guide

Check out some of these sites for tips on how to get started with Powershell and VMware

Virtu-Al’s getting started with the VI Toolkit blog post

Managing Vmware with Powershell FAQ document

VMware Communities VI Toolkit site

Some Scripts to give you a taster of what is possible

Eric Seiberts top 10 Powershell scripts for Virtual Infrastructure

VMWorld 2008 VI Toolkit scripting contest winners

Some handy links to help you on your Powershell quest

Hugo Peeters – A one man scripting machine

Hal Rottenberg – Techprosiac blog site

Vmware VI toolkit Blog site

Windows Powershell Blog Site

The PowerShell Twitterers list courtesy of Mind of Root

“

Now, I would be fibbing to say I had read every link and tried this out.

I wanted to blog this, so when the time comes to learn Power Shell, I have it where I can find it, when I get the time to sit down and force my self to learn Power Shell.

Please read the full source to this Post

http://www.virtualpro.co.uk/2009/01/13/powershell-and-vmware-virtual-infrastructure/

Thanks to VirtualPro