Stopping email to Exchange5.5 site

[mike46]

One of our 5.5 sites is down and we are looking to stop email from being delivered there. I have not found anything on the X400 connector but wondered if I stopped directory replication to the site if this would hold the email until the server is back.

 

[zbnet]

Not really - DirRep itself uses email to share the directory. I guess eventually, aftre the objects at the remote site disappeared from your GAL, Exchange would stop sending to them(!), but I guess that isn't the effect you want.

I'm confused, though - if your remote site is down, then surely the messages destined for that site are already queueing on the MTA queue for that site on the connecting server?

 

[wizard5203]

This is the same problem I have. The server is dead (bad Mother board) the home directory for the users is on the dead server. Is there any way to stop from losing e-mail to that server?

 

[zbnet]

Other Exchange servers can't send email to a server that is down - it will always queue on the MTA of the sending server, until it is NDRed.

 

[wizard5203]

I can see the messages in the MTA. Is there anyway to setup thoses users on my mail server until I can get the dead server online? Since there home directory is on the dead server.

 

[zbnet]

Not really - the Directory still thinks it's on the down server, which is why it is routing via the MTA. You'd have to hack it out of the directory, then recreate it on the working server with all the same details (SMTP name, Display Name etc etc). Then undo it all when the dead server came back.

Better to have some proper DR plans to cope with the dead server...

 

[wizard5203]

Thanks for the help zbnet. I have DR plans for my location. But the Admin at the other location was very poor on documentation and he has since left the company. I'm working with the new admin and he sees the need for good documentation.