Coexistence Manager for Notes 3.8.4 - User Guide

Step 2 (conditional): Configure DNS

NOTE: This step applies only if you will use MX priority ranking to distribute message traffic among multiple mail servers. You may skip this step if MX records will not be used.

Add MX records for both the Domino and Exchange servers to specify the mail servers responsible for handling emails. More than one MX record can be entered for a single domain name using more than one mail server, so the MX records can be prioritized to indicate the order in which the mail servers should be used.

For example:

If you intend to connect CMN with Microsoft’s Office 365:

Connection with a hosted Exchange environment also requires two slight changes within the Mail Connector Management Console, as explained in the field notes later in this chapter.

Step 3: Run the Mail Connector Management Console

CMN Mail Connector processing options are set within a configuration file, which may be opened, modified and saved as needed. The Mail Connector configuration file controls only the Mail Connector, not the Directory Connector or Free/Busy Connector.

CMN includes a Management Console to help you configure the CMN Mail Connector. The MC Management Console edits the component’s configuration file according to your entries in the GUI screens.

Most of the processing options for your Mail Connector can be configured in the Mail Connector Management Console. Other operational options can be set manually, by entering or changing settings in the active configuration file, as described below in the next step of this process.

The next major section (after these numbered steps) explains the basic operating principles of the Mail Connector Management Console and provides screen-by-screen field notes. Run the Management Console now, working through all the program screens, and then return here to continue at step 4.

Step 4 (optional): Review/update Other Mail Connector configuration options

Consider these options to fine-tune your Mail Connector configuration, performance and security. These are all optional, depending on your local circumstances, needs and preferences.

When coexisting with Office 365, additional measures may be necessary to secure the Mail Connector SMTP relay that may be exposed to the Internet. To secure the Mail Connector from connections from undesired SMTP servers on the Internet, you can place the Mail Connector behind a firewall and allow only traffic from Microsoft’s Office 365 environment. The address ranges used by Microsoft can be found in this TechNet article: Forefront Online Protection for Exchange Online IP Addresses.

DNS MX Resolution may be enabled, configured or disabled by manually editing the Mail Connector’s active .xml configuration file. The feature is off by default. To turn it on and/or set its cache-update interval:

The new settings will take effect the next time the CMN service is restarted.

By default, the Mail Connector waits up to 5 seconds for an available socket channel before opening a new one (if none are then available). This is a "throttling" feature to enforce a time interval for CMN to conclude its communications protocol with a channel before opening another. The actual delay, in seconds, is a "delay factor" (5 by default) x the ratio of the number of open channels to the maximum allowed number of channels. If you want to change the delay factor, you can manually edit the setting in CMN’s active configuration file:

The new settings will take effect the next time the CMN Mail Connector service is restarted.

The CMN Mail Connector can now pass to Exchange the information Exchange needs to accurately track Domino resource information when the resource site name has been manually restored to the resource name in Active Directory. This optional feature can be enabled or disabled by the <preserveresourcesites> boolean parameter within the Mail Connector's active .xml configuration file. The parameter is off (false) by default (and by omission), but can be enabled by setting the value to true:

CMN's Mail Connector can be configured to automatically include the UTC offset in displayed dates—for example: 12/3/2012 1:00 PM Central (UTC -600). This feature is enabled and disabled by a boolean parameter in the <root> node of the Mail Connector configuration file (Configuration.xml). To enable this feature:

The true setting enables the feature. The feature is disabled by default (<displayutcoffset>false</displayutcoffset>).

CMN's Mail Connector can be configured to insert its customized messages to users (notifications of conversion issues and suggestions for work-arounds) either before the body text of a message, or after. The option is set by a boolean parameter in the <root> node of the Mail Connector's configuration file (configuration.xml). To set this feature to append its messages to the message body text (add them at the end):

By default (<appendcustommessages>false</appendcustommessages>) the Mail Connector will prepend its messages to the message body (insert them before).

CMN’s <activemailenabled> parameter in the Mail Connector Configuration.xml file specifies the types of messages that CMN will detect and process as Notes active mail. The most common choices for this configuration setting are set in the Management Console, but some can be set only by manually editing the Mail Connector Configuration.xml file, where the default value appears as the single word Default, like this:

The Default parameter value is shorthand for a list of these six message types: EncryptedMail, Forms, HotSpots, NotesRichMarkup, MissingFormField, StripExtraAttachments. These are the six message types that most admins want CMN to process as active mail. You can remove one or more of these types from the list, and/or you can add others, to suit your own needs.

The most common adjustments to the default list are the removal of MissingFormField (documents with no form field) and the addition of Dropdowns (collapsible sections)—about which more below.

To remove one or more of the Default types to be interpreted as active mail (but keep the others), you must replace the word Default with the full list (the six types listed above), and then remove from that list the type(s) you want to exclude. To add another type, add the name of the type to the list. Multiple message types included in the list are separated by commas.

The MissingFormField type is one of the types represented in the Default parameter value, so that CMN treats such messages as active mail by default. If you do not want CMN to process MissingFormField messages as active mail, you can remove the MissingFormField type from the <activemailenabled> parameter in the Mail Connector Configuration.xml file. (This parameter cannot be added or removed in the Management Console.) For example, to keep the other types represented by Default and remove only the MissingFormField type, you would replace the word Default with the names of the default types, but exclude MissingFormField, like this:

The Dropdowns type is not one of the Default types, because most admins prefer that dropdown content not be processed as active mail. If you do want CMN to process Dropdowns as active mail, however, edit the Mail Connector Configuration.xml file to add it to the list, as in these examples:

(The Dropdowns parameter cannot be added or removed in the Management Console.)

If the Mail Connector server has an unsupported Notes client version: Ordinarily the Mail Connector processes Active Mail only for Notes client versions (on the CMN MC server) that are supported by CMN’s Mail Connector. (See the system requirements, documented in the RTM Release Notes, for a list of the supported Notes client versions.) However, you can force the Mail Connector to ignore the Notes client version. This is an option that cannot be set or changed in the Management Console, but can be set in the Mail Connector Configuration.xml file by adding a comma followed by the string IgnoreNotesClientVersion. For example:

CAUTION: Active Mail may be rendered incorrectly and may not function as expected when the Notes client on the Mail Connector server is an unsupported version. The IgnoreNotesClientVer­sion setting may result in unexpected behavior when running with an unsupported Notes client version. Quest therefore strongly recommends that you install a supported version of the Notes client rather than utilize this setting. If this is not feasible and the setting must be used, closely monitor the processed Active Mail and system behavior to verify the results are acceptable for your organization.

CMN’s Mail Connector can be configured to check all email addresses in MIME headers, and remove any "square" brackets ("[" and "]") found enclosing a non-IP address domain name. Enabling this feature also strips square brackets in ICAL data within messages sent from Notes to Exchange.

To enable this feature, edit the Mail Connector Configuration.xml file to set this boolean parameter value (in the <root> node) to true:

The feature is off (false) by default.

The Mail Connector can be configured to "hard"-bounce a message if it is unable to deliver its usual "friendly" bounce, rather than not notify the sender at all. The option is enabled or disabled by a boolean program parameter in the <root> node of the Mail Connector Configuration.xml file:

The true setting enables the feature. By default, the feature is disabled (false).

By default, CMN is installed with the log4net utility to generate log files of CMN components’ system activity. This information is critical to diagnosing any configuration issues that may arise. Logging is enabled by default for all CMN components.

The default configurations will be suitable for most organizations and circumstances, but you can customize logging features. The log4net utility may be configured to work a particular way with each CMN component. Configuration instructions are nearly identical for all components, so we present the instructions separately, in Appendix C of the CMN User Guide.

Step 5: Start the Mail Connector

Be sure to prepare the CMN Mail Connector configuration and verify your settings for CMN logging (optional) before starting the CMN Mail Connector.

IMPORTANT: The CMN Mail Connector uses port 25, so verify no other mail servers or virus scanners are using port 25 on the CMN server.

The CMN Mail Connector typically runs as a Windows service for long-term, continuous operation. However, it can also be run as a console application— usually for shorter-term uses, as in testing and diagnostics. In the event of a system reboot, the Mail Connector running as a Windows service would automatically restart. But when running as a console app, it will require a manual restart after a system reboot.

NOTE: The CMN Installer configures Windows to automatically start the Mail Connector Windows service upon Windows start-up.

Multiple instances of CMN’s Mail Connector cannot run concurrently on a single workstation, because they would both require the same port.

The Mail Connector can also be started and stopped (as a Windows service) in the CMN Directory Connector Management Console, in the Common | Services screen.

CMN offers an optional "pass-through" mode that disengages CMN’s message- processing features while CMN continues to pass mail between the servers. This feature is off by default, but can be enabled by setting the <DisableProcessing> boolean parameter value to true in the CMN configuration XML file. The parameter can only be set manually.

If left undefined, the pass-through feature defaults to false (the pass-through mode is disabled, so CMN processes messages normally).