XCON: MTA: Address Space Replication with LOCAL Address Spaces

• Microsoft Exchange Server, version 4.0

SYMPTOMS

The MTA routes messages to sites that cannot directly handle these messages, and must route them back to the original site to be rerouted.

Also, in the case of multiple Internet Mail Connectors (IMCs) in different sites, the MTA routes messages to a different site to be handled by that IMC, instead of routing it to the local IMC in its own site.

CAUSE

This problem is caused by the replication of address spaces to other sites. Once these addresses have been replicated, each site knows all the routes that another site can take to deliver a message.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Exchange Server version 4.0. This problem was corrected in the latest Microsoft Exchange 4.0 U.S. Service Pack. For information on obtaining the service pack, query on the following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces):

   S E R V P A C K

MORE INFORMATION

To keep these address spaces from being replicated to other sites, you must mark the address space as 'LOCAL' on its originating site.

To mark an address space as LOCAL, perform the following steps:

1. Click the Address Space tab of the property page of the connector you want to mark as LOCAL.

2. Create a New General Address Space.

3. In the Type field, enter 'LOCAL' (without the quotation marks).

4. In the Address field, type the Address type and the qualifying address definition.

   NOTE: When creating an X.400 type address, you must use commas (,) as the delimiter between the fields, as in the following example:

         X400:c=country,a=service provider,p=organization,
   

5. Repeat steps 2-4 for as many address spaces as are on this connector.

6. Delete the other address spaces on this connector.

It is possible to override this local address space on other sites. To do this, create an address space on the connector going to the site that contains the address space you want to use. However, if the connector is a site connector, you will have to mark it as LOCAL again to override the information replicated by the other site (otherwise, the address space is ignored). On X.400 connectors or IMC connectors, you do not have to mark the address space as LOCAL to override it. However, you may want to mark these address spaces as LOCAL to keep them from replicating out again.

For example, suppose there are three sites, SiteA, SiteB, and SiteC. SiteA and SiteB are connected by a site connector, and SiteC is connected by a X.400 connector to both SiteA and SiteB. SiteA has the Internet Mail Connector that you have marked the SMTP address space as LOCAL, so it is not replicated to the other sites. If you chose to allow SiteB to use this IMC, you would have to add an SMTP address space to the site connector to allow Internet Mail to go across it from SiteB. However, because this is a site connector, you have to mark this new address space as LOCAL to override the replication coming in from SiteA.