Exchange 2003 ignoring SMTP smart host setting

[Alexengland1]

We recently rewired our network and added a new switch, no software changes were made. Everything works fine, except now when Exchange tries to send outbound mail, it tries to send it directly to the recipient and not to our SMTP Gateway, which it is set to do under SMTP server smart host options.

We can ping the Gateway, and we can telnet into it and send outbound mail from it. I have reset the SMTP smart host settings multiple times as well and restarting SMTP and all Exchange services to no avail. Is there anyway to force the conneciton to the Gateway? Any help with this would be greatly appreciated, I am at my wits end. Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[forbsy]

Well, with Exchange 2000 if you opened up the Exchange virtual server's properties - Delivery - Advanced you could enter a smart host there. You need to enclose the IP of the smart host with square brackets (ie [10.242.0.35]).
Underneath the smart host entry is a line that states, 'Attempt direct delivery before sending to smart host'. If you're running Exchange 2000 check to make sure that box is unchecked.
Under Exchange 2003 that line has been removed, so you cannot attempt direct delivery before sending to a smart host.
I personally use an smtp connector and configure it to send to a smart host (within the General tab).

Forbsy

 

[Alexengland1]

I had everything setup properly in Exchange 2003, it turns out our "Default SMTP Virtual Server" was corrupted. In order to fix this problem, I had to delete the old Virtual SMTP server and create a new one with the exact same settings, from there it worked like a champ. I am still researching to find out what in particular corrupted the SMTP setup.

Thanks anyway for your input.