MS's IIS - SMTP outgoing email fails

Hi,

I have a specific web service on the Internet which requires to send
an email out to Internet email addresses. I have installed IIS SMTP
service on the same W2K server hoping that it would "relay" the SMTP
email created on the web application out to the Internet destinined
for the recipient. Unfortunately this is failing to send anything out.

The single server is located on a DMZ and has access rules though the
firewall and router permitting outward DNS & SMTP and inward HTTP &
HTTPS connections.

The web service (not IIS) is fully accessible. I can use nslookup on
the server to query external DNS servers to get MX addresses from
domains. I can also Telnet to these addresses on port 25(SMTP) and
then manually craft a valid external email which is delivered. So I
am happy that the router/firewall configurations are working fine.

If I use Outlook on the same server to create an email, sending it to
the IIS service on the same server, it is accepted and Outlook is
happy. However the email simply remains in the IIS SMTP QUEUE
folder, and after a while some non-delivery warnings appear in the
queue. I don't want any inward SMTP from the Internet to arrive at
this server, and all non-delivery notifications etc. are to be sent to
another IP domain via another Internet connection which has a fully
working in and out SMTP service.


I was hoping that IIS's SMTP service would do the external MX lookup
and establish a direct SMTP connection with the recipients IP domain
mail server(s), but it' not I did try setting up a "REMOTE
domain" in IIS for *.co.uk but test emails to this domain were still
queued.

I know there is an option to specify a "smart host" to relay SMTP
emails to, but I don't want to pass this to an external SMPT relay and
I would prefer that this single server was a "smart host" and actually
sent the email.


Questions:

1. can IIS SMTP server take SMTP email from an application the same
server and then connect directl;y out to the Internet to send it on to
the recipient's mail server ?

2. If it can; can anyone got any ideas what may be wrong, or
anything I should be checking ? (The logs only show the SMTP service
accepting the emails but no sign of any attempts to send it)

3. If IIS can't do this: can anyone suggest a simple product that
could ?


TIA
HammY

 

Smells like spam...

<snip>

 

Nope ! Spam has a smokey spicy ham smell

I have a SMTP server at home POSTCAST, but my employer insists on
using IIS and I can't get it to work

Everything works as it should DNS and SMTP port 25, just IIS doesn't
do anything useful.

HammY

 

Well, forgive me, but when I see the words "specific service", "SMTP"
and "relay" in the same sentence, that rings alarm bells.

 

The "specific service" is a public facing web service for online
auctions - not a "live auction", but a simple sealed bids system. The
system is a purchased "complete package" that assumes access to a
SMTP service which there is none on this Internet connection, and I
don't want to bring the email "inside" to process through our
corporate email severs which are required to be kept secure and
isolated from all but a few selected trusted systems.

I intend to put a packet sniifer on the link on Moday to see what is
or is not going out, but I'm impatient and thought I'd try a posting
to see if anyone knew any obvious setup problem with IIS's SMPT
server.

Open to all sensible suggestions.


HammY