I am having getting inquiries about some puzzling email delivery/reception problems. "Message Tracking" only tells me What happened and When. I would like to know Why, How and Who as well. Can anyone point me to any docs or tracking and monitoring applications that would help me get inside the SMTP conversations and try to get a handle on what's happening. For instance, Some email (mainly with attachments) aren't making it through to a certain destination, and I don't know if their Barracuda is eating it. we are timing out or they are? Thanks for any suggestions Jim Helfer WTW Architects Pittsburgh PA
When I start having mysteries with inbound or outbound SMTP mail, I enable protocol logging on the SMTP virtual server responsible for inbound / outbound mail delivery. It will record log files that may be helpful in diagnosing what is going on. http://mostlyexchange.blogspot.com/2007/12/enabling-smtp-protocol-logging-for.html If that does not do the trick, I recommend you install Microsoft's NetMon. There is a new version that is pretty spiffy and helpful. http://blogs.technet.com/netmon/archive/2006/11/22/network-monitor-3-0-has-released.aspx It is not exactly the easiest tool to use, but it will reveal everything you wanted to know about an SMTP conversation between a client and a server! -- Jim McBee Blog - http://mostlyexchange.blogspot.com Directory Update - http://www.directory-update.com "Jim Helfer" <JimHelfer@newsgroup.nospam> wrote in message news:OXEbtbUWHHA.896@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl... >I am having getting inquiries about some puzzling email delivery/reception >problems. "Message Tracking" only tells me What happened and When. I >would like to know Why, How and Who as well. > > Can anyone point me to any docs or tracking and monitoring applications > that would help me get inside the SMTP conversations and try to get a > handle on what's happening. > > For instance, Some email (mainly with attachments) aren't making it > through to a certain destination, and I don't know if their Barracuda is > eating it. we are timing out or they are? > > Thanks for any suggestions > Jim Helfer > WTW Architects > Pittsburgh PA
Jim McBee (MVP - Exchange) wrote: > When I start having mysteries with inbound or outbound SMTP mail, I enable > protocol logging on the SMTP virtual server responsible for inbound / > outbound mail delivery. It will record log files that may be helpful in > diagnosing what is going on. > http://mostlyexchange.blogspot.com/2007/12/enabling-smtp-protocol-logging-for.html > > If that does not do the trick, I recommend you install Microsoft's NetMon. > There is a new version that is pretty spiffy and helpful. > http://blogs.technet.com/netmon/archive/2006/11/22/network-monitor-3-0-has-released.aspx > It is not exactly the easiest tool to use, but it will reveal everything you > wanted to know about an SMTP conversation between a client and a server! > Tanks for the information. I did have SMTP logging on, but I did not know what the useful things to track were. Now, that I know the info is in there, now all I need to do is to figure out how to interpret the log files! The specific instance of problem turned out to be caused by a mis-configuration at the sender's end this time, but I hope to assemble some tools and methods to be ready for the next mystery! Jim
