Mailing Lists

Hello,

A client has the Mercury email software installed on Windows Server 2003. They wish to maintain ONLY the mailing lists on Mercury, but have everything else migrated to Exchange 2003. Does anyone know how to configure this so that the mailing lists are maintained in Mercury and alll else is configured as per usual in Exchange 2003?

Also, the MX records at the moment are hosted with an external email host. I am aware that in an organisation with Exchange 2003 only, MX records point to the server, but what happens in this case? If anyone manages to come up with a solution I would need a detailed description, sorry about this, but a great many thanks to whoever can provide an answer.

Many thanks,
Jeff

 

I think it will depend on how the mailing lists work.

If it is just a list of customers that they want to send stuff to, just move the SMTP service for the Mercury system so that it uses a different port than 25. For example you could make it 2525. Outgoing services will be unaffected.

If the mailing list is of the type where users send messages to it (to be distributed to list members and/or to subscibe and unsubscribe) then you'll need a route in. Then thing get a little more difficult.

You could run the system so that the mail systems run totally independantly. Install Exchange so that it uses a different port number. Then tell your ISP to forward mail to it at that port. All mail sent to port 25 will be handled by Mercury. All mail sent to the other port will be handled by the Exhange service. To work you'd need the two to use different domains, so mail to domain1.com goes to one service, and to theotherdomain.org goes to the other.

If you want to use a single domain, you'll have to set up exchange to forward the mail to the Mercury service (based on a set of rules. e.g. forward mailinglist@domain.com to Mercury service). You could still run both services on the same server, as long as once again you move one of their SMTP services to a different port (for this option, I'd reconfigure the Mercury service to another port).

If it was me, I'd add a dedicated Exchange server and set it up to forward mailing list e-mails to the existing server. That's probably the simplest solution.

 

Thanks Reggie,

Excellent detailed reply. Due to costs I think the best option would be to install Exchange on the existing server and use one domain as per your response:-

"If you want to use a single domain, you'll have to set up exchange to forward the mail to the Mercury service (based on a set of rules. e.g. forward mailinglist@domain.com to Mercury service). You could still run both services on the same server, as long as once again you move one of their SMTP services to a different port (for this option, I'd reconfigure the Mercury service to another port). "

Just a couple of questions. Sorry for sounding a bit 'thick' here but:-

1. Can you recall in Exchange where the set of rules are configured to forward say mailinglist@domain.com to mercury?
2. Also, regarding moving one of the SMTP services to a different port, do you mean on the router or within the application itself or both?

Thanks Reggie,
Jeff

 

Sorry, I haven't used the latest version of Exchange and they keep moving things around. So I can't tell you the precise location of the settings.

You can run two e-mail servers on the same platform, as long as you ensure they don't try to share ports. Thinking about the issue a little more there may be three other ports you need to reconfigure (POP 110, IMAP 143 and HTML 80. See IANA for common port assignments).

If you are going for the single domain option, and your mail is coming in via SMTP then by default it will come into port 25. This will be the same with the suggested set up. So no change at the router.

At the moment, Mercury will be listening on port 25 for that incoming mail. However, on the new setup you will want Exchange listening on port 25. So first change the Mercury Application settings so that it listens for incoming mail on a different port.

I presume existing mail clients will connect into Mercury, either via POP, IMAP, and/or HTTP. As I expect you'll want Exchange providing most mail services, you'll need to move those services to different ports too. Change the settings in Mercury.

If users connect into their mailboxes from the internet (in contrast to having mail forwarded to them because they are on a mailing list), you may have to review how you do this with the new set up. With Exchange, it is probably best to use the Web client. If previously users used POP3, you may need to change the configuration on the router (to close port 110, and forward 80 to the mail server).

You can set up forwarding rules in a number of ways. The simplest is probably to set up a mailbox for the mailing list mail (list@domain.com for example), and then set a rule in the mailbox properties (forward to localhost:2525 for example - where 2525 is the port you've set Mercury to listen on). However, if there are a lot of mailing list address you may want a more general rule set which I think you can set in the SMTP connector.

Outgoing mail is not a problem. A mail server acts as a client when it sends mail. It will use a Port > 1024 as the sending port, so port assignment for outgoing mail is dynamic. Mail will be sent from mymailserver.com:1044 to destinationmailserver.com:25 for example.

The more I think about this, the more I think the easiest option is to install Mercury on another PC (specification can be pretty low - a three year old desktop PC with a reasonable amount of RAM (256Mb) would do. A great way of recycling an older PC!). Migrate the existing settings over to that PC. Test. Uninstall Mecury from the server. Install Exchange. Set up the Mailing list forwarding to the IP address of the PC hosting Mercury. With this set up you would leave all ports in the default set up. Mail feeds will be differentiated by IP address rather than port number.

 

Thanks so much Reggie, great and detailed reply.

Very grateful,
Jeff