Exchange Public IP

[karldenton]

Hi,

 

Quick question about you do your on-site Exchange public IP address.

 

At present we have a virgin superhub and it has a DMZ, which points to the IP address of our exchange gateway (firewall server). This is just the 192.168.0.xx address. -- Don't ask, I have inherited this bad setup.

 

We are having problems with virgin at the moment and they have offered us 150Mb service but you can't have a static IP address on the router. Newbie question but do you need static IP for mail? Can i put static IP on the external card of the server instead?

 

Many thanks

 

Karl

[Michael]

You would need a public IP. I can't see how else this would work otherwise.

[ZeroHour]

As Michael says, you need a static ip otherwise mail can't flow in. There are a few ways to kinda get around the static ip but I would not advise them as they could result in erratic email.

[karldenton]

Thanks, just don't understand it.

 

On godaddy, mail.domainname.org points to the public IP that we have.

 

Can't see anywhere else that the public IP is set as the router is set to dynamic with the DMZ

[Oaktech]

You really need a static IP from somewhere.

 

You could potentially use a service like DYDNS which updates a central point on a short TTL time every time your dynamically assigned IP changes, but I wouldn't recommend it for something that needs to be pretty high availability. The times i've seen it perform best it's still left gaps of hours between change of IP and updates going live.

 

If you can get a static IP you could use VidaHost as they do free DNS management for schools on a 99year account - i.e.. it's free and doesn't require renewal for 99years. But you'll still need someone to sell you a static IP.

 

If you really can't get a static IP I would suggest that trying to run exchange on site is pretty futile and you'd better serve your user base moving to o365 and auto dirsync.

Edited January 26, 2015 by Oaktech

[karldenton]

Static IP isn't a problem if I stick with the 50mb connection. Just wondering how other people do it too -- do they put the public ip on the external card of the mail server?

[Oaktech]

Ok, so, the way I would do it...

 

Find out who holds your DNS records.

Have them update your MX records to reflect your public IP.

Create a bidirectional static route in your router to pipe the public IP address you are using as your MX address through to the internal IP of your mail server.

[djm968]

Ask you ISP or LA if they can provide a public IP address for you. Your MX record can then be updated with the new IP address and mail routed through your firewall to your exchange server. You should never need to configure a public IP address directly on an exchange server NIC.

[JackCPickup]

He has a public IP address but it isn't static. This is a problem with 152MB Virgin lines, they're saying it will be possible come Autumn I think.

[win]

Your local exchange server should not have a public IP address, only your firewall. This firewall will have a link to your exchange server (192.168xx) and send relevant traffic there.

 

firewall (123.123.public.ip) <==> exchange (192.168.LAN.IP)