I’m having problems getting my outbound mail to be accepted/relayed through my PerfectMail server. None of my emails seem to get through. Am I missing something?

Outbound relaying requires two things:
 i) your PerfectMail server needs to have the IP address of the sending server listed as an outbound relay, and
 ii) your mail server must be configured to relay through PerfectMail.

When troubleshooting this sort of situation it is best to replace any host-names configured in the PerfectMail interface with IP addresses. PerfectMail primarily uses IP addresses to track servers, so this may help eliminate any DNS issues including local DNS resolution.

Relay Servers:

Each relay server needs to be configured in PerfectMail. When you add your mail server as a destination for a filtered domain (Domain Admin > Domains) it is automatically registered as a valid outbound relay host. However, in some cases the outgoing e-mail messages may appear to be arriving at the PerfectMail server from a different IP address. (This often happens when firewalls are configured to send and receive e-mail traffic using different IP addresses.) Also, you may have additional servers that send e-mail for your organization. Any IP address that should be accepted as a valid outgoing relay server, that is not listed as a destination in the Domain configuration page, needs to be added to the Relay Servers page (Domain Admin > Relay Servers).

Outgoing Relays - are hosts that will have their e-mail relayed to the Internet. These hosts receive no filtering.

Incoming Relays - are hosts that are permitted to relay e-mail inbound from the Internet. These hosts will not be directly checked against reputation databases, RBL services, etc. Listing your Incoming Relays allows PerfectMail to identify where the effective edge of your organization is. This allows PerfectMail to identify the "actual" sending mail host for testing against reputation databases.


Mail Server Relay Configuration:

Your mail server must be configured to relay through PerfectMail. Each mail server has a specific way of configuring this setting. The default relay host for a mail server is most often called a "Smart Relay Host", so look for that in your documentation.

Microsoft Exchange users can refer to the following KnowledgeBase article for more information: http://perfectmail.com/kb/100070


Troubleshooting Smart Relay Settings:

To troubleshoot your smart relay settings make the configuration changes mentioned above, then navigate to the PerfectMail Transmission Log (E-mail > Transmission Log). You can watch e-mail transmission activity using this page. Click the "Last Hour" button to watch see your mail transmissions. (To refresh the screen press the "Last Hour" button again.)

There may be many messages being transmitted through your mail server concurrently. The Message ID for each e-mail is displayed in blue on this page. You can click on the Message ID to display just the log entries for that particular message.

Any outgoing e-mail from your mail server should be displayed on this page. If you are not seeing e-mail from your mail server, then there is a problem with the smart host relay setting on your mail server.

If you are seeing outgoing e-mail from your mail server, check the status to see if the messages are indeed being sent. If not, note the IP address that the e-mail originated from and any error messages. This IP address must be listed as either a destination address in the Domain configuration page or as an Outgoing Relay.

Keywords: email, relay, smartrelay, Microsoft, exchange, configuration, infrastructure, troubleshooting