New Exchange Installation Questions 1

[SCLDTony]

We have been using Gordano's mail product and are about to begin an installation of Exchange Server 2003. We are not going to migrate any accounts (we only have 200 users) and basically are going to start from scratch.

The question we have has to do with keeping our mx record the same. Our current mail server is named mail1 and we hope to name our Exchange server mail1. During the set-up of the server however, we are going to call it mail2. When we are ready to go live, we are going to take the Gordano server offline and change the name of the Exchange server to mail1 and its IP address to that of the Gordano server. That way we hope to avoid any issues with the MX record and do not have to change NAT on the firewall. We are running Server 2003 with Active Directory and since Exchange 2003 is heavily integrated with AD we are wondering what the repurcussions will be (if any) by changing the name of the server and its ip address once we go live.

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

Tony LaSoya
Spokane County Library District

 

[snootalope]

Ok, i've done the same thing you're planning on doing. We Installed server 2003 and exchange 2003 and then renamed the machine. It was the biggest mistake I've ever made. If I was in your position I wouldn't do it if someone put a gun to my head, seriously. That mistake turned our 3 hour project into an expensive as hell 45 hour project and totally screwed my weekend (actually screwed the whole week)!!! It's a nightmare!!

Supposidly, SP1 has a tool that allows you to fix this problem:

http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/downloads/2003.asp

It's the Server Domain Rename Tool

I haven't used, and I don't know anyone who has. From one professional to another, I recommend you look at other methods, like taking the out the current mail server first or using a different name on the new one.

 

[SCLDTony]

Yikes! I didn't want to hear that! ) I figured Exchange was so tied with AD that it would be a mistake. The only other option for us is to install the server and have the mx record changed over a long weekend before we go live. The only problem with that is that we would have to touch all the clients once the change is replicated. Or can we use the web access feature right away? Thanks for your reply... you probably saved us alot of time and headaches!

 

[snootalope]

True, you could use OWA right away..

Setting up users in AD 2k3 and Exchange 2k3 is a walk in the park. Once you got Server 2k3, AD, and Exchange ready to go, setting up users in AD automatically creates their Exchange mailbox and associates the accounts.

You don't have to log in as the user or anything! You may want to create a test account to log in with just to make sure it works correctly..

Besides installing the software, the longest part of this your going to be faced with is setting up the 200 users. The rest is all done with the help of Bill Gates.. He's done some pretty stuipd stuff when it comes to his software, but the way AD and Exchange work together now is sweet!!

snooter

 

[SCLDTony]

What protocol are you using for mail? Have you set up OWA for use outside of your firewall? Did you do that with one server? We already have 2K3 running our domain, all the users are set up and THAT part of the process works great. we are moving to Exhange to take advantage of the OWA, shared calendar, etc that Gordano does not provide. Thanks again for your input, its greatly appreciated!

Tony

 

[snootalope]

We're using SMTP and POP3.. The only reason we're using POP3 is for some external virus and spam filtering.

OWA works great! We haven't opened it up through the firewall yet, we did for testing and it was awsome, but we're looking into securing the entire connection before it's permanent. I'm sure we'll end up doing VPN's if anything..

And yes, we have it all done on one server..

 

[SCLDTony]

Thanks for the info. What I am going to do is create a "test" AD domain and do a test install of the Exchange server. I usually botch it at least once, and I do not want to do it in our live environment ) The VPN idea is a good one and easy for us to manage. Only a few users will have a need to access email from offsite so that sounds like a good solution. I might pick your brain as I go through the process if thats alright. You have already helped quite a bit. Thank you!