Setting Up Microsoft Exchange to Send and receive emails from the SMA (4323401)

General

Purpose

The purpose of this document is to help you send and receive emails from your SMA using your Microsoft Exchange Server.

For a simpler method of sending mail to your SMA appliance using only DNS you may want to read this first and then come back "Sending Email to Your SMA Helpdesk"

Principles

The SMA has a built-in SMTP server that you can use to both send mail IN to the SMA and OUT of the SMA. It does NOT have a POP server.

The way that it accepts mail in is by having its own domain that other SMTP servers deliver the mail to. Since the SMA domain is usually only an internal domain it will be your SMTP servers delivering mail to it. In the case of this document those mail servers are Exchange.

The way that it sends mail out is either of two methods. It can use an external SMTP server, or use DNS to deliver mail, but not both.

Usage of Email in SMA

Mail can be used in any of the following areas. These topics are covered in other articles or the documentation

• Helpdesk Ticket creation and updates (inbound email creates tickets, outbound emails contain ticket updates)
• Email alerts and notifications (outbound only)
• Administrator notifications (outbound only)

Steps to setup:

1. Configure the SMA to accept mail.
2. Create a mailbox that your employees can address via Active Directory.
3. Create a contact that represents your SMA.
4. Create a Transport Rule to redirect mail to the SMA.
5. Create a receive connector so messages from the SMA will be delivered.
6. Create a send connector to route Exchange contact email to the SMA.

1. Configure SMA to Accept Mail

The SMA Exim server is always running in this mode by default. The only thing needed here is to configure the email addresses that will be accepted.

Setup a queue, each queue is going to require its own email address:

1. In the Web UI of the SMA go to “Service Desk” > “Configuration” > “Queues”.
2. To create a queue select “Choose Action” and then “New”.
3. Confirm that the domain suffix for the email address column is correct (ie. Kbox.mycompany.com) (red).
4. Type in the name of the Queue (green).
5. Type in the email address for the queue (orange).
6. Type in an alternate email address which will modify the “From” of email sent from the SMA (blue). This is the email address that your end users will use.

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2. Create a mailbox that your employees can address via Active Directory

In Active Directory (or via the Exchange Management console) you should create a mailbox with the address that you want your end users to address.

3. Create a contact that represents the SMA

In Active Directory (or via the Exchange Management console) you should create a contact (not a mailbox) with the address of your SMA.

This contact will be used to facilitate email flow to the SMA.  It is pretty much the same idea as creating a new mailbox, but without an associated user account.

4. Create a Transport Rule to redirect mail to the SMA

Getting all messages to flow from the kbox mailbox (addressable by domain.com users) to the kbox-contact contact is the goal of the next step. 

Continue by specifying the following conditions, adjusting recipients to match your own environment:

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5. Create a receive connector so messages from the SMA will be delivered

In order to get messages from the SMA delivered to users within the Exchange 2013/2016 domain, a scoped receive connector needs to be created. 

After the receive connector has been created, all that remains is to tweak its permissions. 

Select security from the item’s menu; enable the Anonymous users option under the Permission groups section and click the save button to apply.  This option will allow SMA email to reach the Exchange 2013 server without authentication.

The emails from the SMA will now reach users within your company (assuming they have email addresses defined on the SMA).

Note that while it is possible to enable the Anonymous users option for the Default Frontend connector to enable mail flow from the SMA, this is usually not recommended as it allows any connection to anonymously utilize the receive connector and might be a security risk.

6. Create a send connector to route Exchange contact email to the SMA

Create the send connector which will take messages ultimately destined for the help@kbox.domain.com contact and send them on to the SMA.  One thing to note is that if multiple SMA queues are employed, only one send connector is necessary – additional mailbox/contact/rule sets will use the send connector configured here to route messages, as long as the contact’s email address specifies kbox.domain.com.

Below you will find the complete guide with detailed instructions about Setting Up Microsoft Exchange to Send and receive emails from the SMA.