Emails between 2010 & 2013 exchange servers

[FN-GM]

Hi,

 

I have setup a new Exchange 2013 server. The idea is to migrate everyone onto this new server. I have most people currently on 2010 and a test account on 2013. I cannot send messages to users on the other server. I get the attached from delivery reports.

 

Do i need to setup a send connector? I have done that and it didn't seem to help.

 

I have 1 x 2010 box and 1 x 2013 box

 

Thanks

[FN-GM]

Also users cant email between each other on the Exchange 2013 box. They get stuck in the drafts. I do a delivery report on Exchange 2013 and its empty. Any thoughts please?

[mrbios]

Going to look over my setup and see if i can help with this, I installed Exchange 2013 today and i've got pretty much an identical scenario to what you currently have, will edit this in a few minutes with some screenshots of the various settings i had to configure once i installed exchange 2013 (still working my way around it though, incredibly just how different it is!)

 

EDIT: Ok might be easier to type out rather than screenshots as i think i know which bit fixes your problem....

 

Mail flow:

This may be the bit that fixes your problem... send connector, edit it and go to scoping and add your new server to the list of source servers. Shouldn't be anything else to change here.

 

These are the only other things i had to configure so far...

Check DNS and transport settings are all the same as your old setup

Configure outlook anywhere to the same as previous, if you didn't previously use this then i've read it's worth configuring anyway as it may effect something else now too.

Then i installed a certificate from my CA after doing a certificates request

Next go through virtual directories with all servers shown, and i pretty much just cloned the settings of my old server to match my new one

 

EDIT2: i just can't remember if i changed anything on the receive connector...

 

EDIT3: I lie actually mine isn't working properly, essentially this is how far I've got:

Exchange 2010 users can email exchange 2010 users

Exchange 2010 users can email exchange 2013 users

Exchange 2013 users can email exchange 2013 users

...but exchange 2013 users can't email exchange 2010 users o_O

 

EDIT4: I must admit, I'm currently very confused by the receive connectors. On 2010 i just had a "Client EXCHANGE1" and then a couple of custom SMTP connectors but on 2013 there's like 5 precreated connectors..

Edited July 26, 2013 by mrbios

[adamf]

I've got the same setup, just nearing the end of a migration and I didn't make any changes to the receive connectors on 2013, I only have one send connector which is to our RBC smart host for relaying mail to the outside world.

 

I'd be looking at DNS - I also found this: Exchange 2013: Stuck messages in OWA’s Drafts folder and DNS | Thoughtsofanidlemind's Blog

[FN-GM]

DNS was the issue. Weird thing is i did set this at one point. It must have been on the first installation i did before the final. Thanks for the help

[FN-GM]

Right got the same problem as @mrbios but the other way around. The Exchange 2013 can email the 2010 box but the 2013 cant email the 2010 box.

[mrbios]

...and i've got another problem now. I didn't realise the amount of space transaction logs were taking up, overnight the storage filled and got stuck on migration. Upon resolving this i now have a load of mail boxes where the status on move request is showing up as "Relinquished" :| balls!

 

Tried completely removing my move requests, failed requests etc. and starting again, but some still show as relinquished.

[adamf]

Right got the same problem as @mrbios but the other way around. The Exchange 2013 can email the 2010 box but the 2013 cant email the 2010 box.

 

Which way round is it? You said the exchange 2013 can and can't email the 2010 box!

[mrbios]

Which way round is it? You said the exchange 2013 can and can't email the 2010 box!

 

If his is the opposite to mine then i expect his 2010 can't email the 2013 box, whereas i have the problem of the 2013 box not being able to email 2010. No doubt the same issue just in reverse

[FN-GM]

If his is the opposite to mine then i expect his 2010 can't email the 2013 box, whereas i have the problem of the 2013 box not being able to email 2010. No doubt the same issue just in reverse

 

Yep thats correct. It used to be both ways its just one way now. The issue is DNS i can see that in the queue viewer. But both servers are set the same settings. Might give the server a reset.

 

I forgot about the transition log thing, how did you resolve this?

[FN-GM]

Just looked at some notes i did on a Exchange 2010 course, did you enable circular logging to stop the logs getting large?

[mrbios]

Just looked at some notes i did on a Exchange 2010 course, did you enable circular logging to stop the logs getting large?

 

Yea I've enabled that for the time being, then i'll turn it off again once the migration is done probably (I'm not that clued up on the impact it has though?). All the fixes i was reading advised me to run an exchange aware backup, but i couldn't do that because the backup always failed complaining about not enough space So enabling circular logging appeared to be the only thing that would solve it.

 

Yep thats correct. It used to be both ways its just one way now. The issue is DNS i can see that in the queue viewer. But both servers are set the same settings. Might give the server a reset.

 

I forgot about the transition log thing, how did you resolve this?

 

What DNS issues were you having? As far as i can tell I haven't had to do anything with DNS yet, maybe that's why mine isn't working (I can't remember doing anything with DNS when i went from 2003 > 2010, albeit that was a few years ago lol)

 

EDIT: With my problem of status showing as "Relinquished" If i do "Get-MoveRequest|Get-MoveRequestStatistics" It says Relinquished on about 5-6 mailboxes, but if i do "Get-MoveRequest -Identity 'user'" for the user showing as relinquished, this time it says queued which is what i'd expect......confused. Maybe i'll just let it run through all the current mailboxes that are working fine and then work on those at the end instead of trying to resolve that now, should only account for about 10 users total i think.

Edited July 28, 2013 by mrbios

[FN-GM]

If you enable circular logging it means the log will overwrite itself when it gets to 1mb (i think) instead of create a new log file. If you have a disaster and you need to replay the log files into the database they have been overwritten so you get loss of data, so will be a problem if you keep it enabled. Your exchange disk will also get full if you don't backup your server. The logs will keep creating and they won't get replayed.

 

Can you run an NSlookup from your exchange 2013 server to the 2010 server? and the reverse?

[mrbios]

If you enable circular logging it means the log will overwrite itself when it gets to 1mb (i think) instead of create a new log file. If you have a disaster and you need to replay the log files into the database they have been overwritten so you get loss of data, so will be a problem if you keep it enabled. Your exchange disk will also get full if you don't backup your server. The logs will keep creating and they won't get replayed.

 

Can you run an NSlookup from your exchange 2013 server to the 2010 server? and the reverse?

 

Ah thanks for the explanation. Will turn it off once this migration is done then, and setup the backups to point to the new server at the same time.

 

I can indeed nslookup to and from both servers.

[FN-GM]

If you go into the queue viewer can you see your messages stuck in there?

[mrbios]

If you go into the queue viewer can you see your messages stuck in there?

 

Well, i could until my test account migrated across :x

 

I can see 53 messages stuck in there at the moment but they're all from external coming in, and i know why they're stuck there (because those mailboxes are still in 2010, yet to migrate and the emails coming from external can't get to the 2010 server due to the IP having changed on my smart host to point to 2013) I'm happy with external > 2010 not working, because i understand why it doesn't work, just can't work out why mail from 2013 to 2010 won't work, and I've only just realised i've ballsed up my only way of testing that!

[FN-GM]

Are your reverse lookup records populated? Googling this, it looks like these are important for exchange.

[mrbios]

Are your reverse lookup records populated? Googling this, it looks like these are important for exchange.

 

Yep populated and correct.

[FN-GM]

Getting closer with my issue, I can telnet using port 25 into my exchange 2010 box but not the 2013 box.

[Roberto]

Yea I've enabled that for the time being, then i'll turn it off again once the migration is done probably (I'm not that clued up on the impact it has though?). All the fixes i was reading advised me to run an exchange aware backup, but i couldn't do that because the backup always failed complaining about not enough space So enabling circular logging appeared to be the only thing that would solve it.

 

Just be aware that this "solves" backups failing being a problem in the same way that closing your eyes and thinking about something else "solves" having one of your major arteries servered.

 

It might be a sensible approach during the mailbox moves, but I'd turn it off straight away afterwards. And I'd still say that a more sensible move would be to stop worrying about mailbox moves until backups were sorted.

 

As for the problems with mail going between the two sets of servers, is there a receive connector on the e2010 box that's (a) listening to the correct internal IP address for the internal FQDN of the e2010 box, and is that set to allow exchange servers to auth?

Edited July 28, 2013 by Roberto

[mrbios]

Just be aware that this "solves" backups failing being a problem in the same way that closing your eyes and thinking about something else "solves" having one of your major arteries servered.

 

It might be a sensible approach during the mailbox moves, but I'd turn it off straight away afterwards. And I'd still say that a more sensible move would be to stop worrying about mailbox moves until backups were sorted.

 

As for the problems with mail going between the two sets of servers, is there a receive connector on the e2010 box that's (a) listening to the correct internal IP address for the internal FQDN of the e2010 box, and is that set to allow exchange servers to auth?

 

The backups were failing due to no space being available where the logs were held (3mb free on the disk!!) there's nothing wrong with the backup system itself, they work fine, but until i removed the log files by enabling circular logging the backups couldn't do a VSS on the volume to backup anything as it wanted to store that on the same disk.

 

I'll happily turn it off again once the migration has completed, and naturally i have full backups of everything prior to migration

 

Will check my receive connectors again later, for now....there's a 3 year old to attend to lol

[FN-GM]

Fixed mine it was the FrontEnd connector. I decided to disable it and merge it into another connector.

 

How exactly should the receive connectors be configured?

[FN-GM]

@mrbios how are you going about replacing your Exchange 2010 box? I dont want to change my URLS. We have all sort of MFP mobile devices etc pointing to the exchange 2010 URL. Currently i have exchange 2013 on ex13.school.com and 2010 on mail.school.com. The plan is to change the URL of 2013 to mail.school.com then 2010 to ex10.school.com. I will then migrate the mailboxes over.

 

What are your thoughts?

[Roberto]

Fixed mine it was the FrontEnd connector. I decided to disable it and merge it into another connector.

 

How exactly should the receive connectors be configured?

 

In a co-existence scenario with 2007 or 2010 and 2013, there needs to be a connector on the 2010/07 Hub/CAS that is listening on the "correct" internal IP address for the server (e.g. if DNS shows that 'my.internal.cas.local' is at 10.10.1.10 then the connector should be listening to that IP address). It should be configured to allow 'Exchange Server authentication' and, I think, TLS.

Edited July 28, 2013 by Roberto

[mrbios]

@mrbios how are you going about replacing your Exchange 2010 box? I dont want to change my URLS. We have all sort of MFP mobile devices etc pointing to the exchange 2010 URL. Currently i have exchange 2013 on ex13.school.com and 2010 on mail.school.com. The plan is to change the URL of 2013 to mail.school.com then 2010 to ex10.school.com. I will then migrate the mailboxes over.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

Well i cheated by only making one server available externally at a time. All I've had to do is swap the internal IPs of 2010 and 2013 around (or changed the IPs on my smart host + ISA server, but that was more of a faff than swapping internal IPs. Depends on your network setup though really, I was lucky in that this scenario doesn't work for everyone) URLs are all the same as i never bothered creating a second one. Only 4 people who needed email urgently in the summer so I've just ensured they were moved first and the swap was done at the same time.