How to Configure Relay in Exchange Server 2007

By default, Exchange Server 2007 does not allow any user to relay. This can be confirmed by doing telnet to the Exchange SMTP address and port. Since relay is disabled, so user will get an error message "Unable to relay".

But sometimes, we need to open the relay for specific domains or from specific address. This can be done from the Exchange Management Console.

1. Click on Start > Programs and then Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.
2. Click on the Exchange Management Console (EMC).
3. Expand Organization Configuration, and click on Hub Transport option.
4. Click on Accepted Domains and right click on white space to select the New Accepted Domain...

5. In New Accepted Domain window, enter any name and Accepted Domain name. Click on New after entering these details. (In the above telnet example, user was unable to relay to yahoo.com domain, so we will now configure Exchange to relay to yahoo.com domain)

6. Once Accepted domain is configured, Confirmation window will appear.

Â

7. You can see newly created Accepted Domain in the EMC as below.

8. To test if Exchange is relaying to the yahoo.com domain, telnet the Exchange server SMTP port and send an email to the yahoo.com domain.

This time same user can send the email to yahoo.com domain.