Exchange and IIS - Why these two should be sent in either direction.

So i had an issue with Mail not senging out after i removed an ISA server from the network.  Oh, i thought to myself i havent removed the SMARTHOST from the SMTP Connector.  Sure enough they it was...so removed it and selected DNS to send email.

Waited.....and waited.....and waited....and...... well the email was still not sending...GRRRRRRR

Checked all avenues the email wasnt even trying to send through the new firewall it didnt even know it existed yet there was alot of traffic hitting the firewall but none of it SMTP.   hmmmmm

I increase the Diganostic logging level on the MSExchangeTransport and found that my email server was still trying to send to the SMARTHOST, but WTF the smarthost is nowhere to be found in the system....or IS IT!!!!.

Ladies and gentlemen we have a problem with Exchange updating the IIS Metabase.

Using the Matabase Explorer found in the IIS 6.0 Resrouce Kit i was able to find the the SMTPSVC/1/DOMAIN had a few references in it that included the Default SMTP * also domains that were hosted by the Exchange server AND the bloody SMARTHOST was still listed in here.



Checking the data of the SMARTHOST entry i noticed that the routeaction value of the * domain was 2 and the routeaction of the SMARTHOST was 0, changing the SMARTHOST to 2 amd changing the * to 0 and deleting the content to the routeactionstring from the * domain freed the email to be sent over the internet rather than to a smarthost.

Although this is just a workaround the REAL problem lies with Exchange not able to update the metabase, stay turned i hope to have an answer for this soon.  If not Uninstall IIS reinstall IIS and the reinstall exchange.....OHDEAR!

-Fr33ze