XADM: Exchange 2000 Monitoring Does Not Send E-Mail Notifications (327706)

SYMPTOMS

After you configure Exchange 2000 Server to send an e-mail notification when a server or connector enters a warning or critical state, you may experience one or more of the following symptoms:

E-mail messages are not sent from the monitoring server when a server or connector enters a warning or critical state.
No errors that are related to the notification failure are recorded in the Event Viewer Application Log.
The following entry or one that is similar to it is recorded in the Wbemess.log file:
SMTP command "VRFY user name@domain name.com" returned 550
The Wbemess.log file is located in the %SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem\Logs folder.

CAUSE

This behavior occurs because the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) virtual server is not configured correctly. If the relay restriction settings for the SMTP virtual server are not configured correctly, the monitoring feature of Exchange 2000 Server cannot create and send e-mail notifications.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this behavior, configure the correct relay restriction settings for the SMTP virtual server:

Click Start, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Exchange, and then click System Manager.
Expand Servers, expand server name, and then expand SMTP.
Right-click the appropriate SMTP virtual server, and then click Properties. For example, you might right-click Default SMTP Virtual Server, and then click Properties.
Click the Access tab, and then click Relay in the Relay restrictions box.
Either click Only the list below, or click All except the list below.
Click Add.
Click the option that you want to use, and then click OK to add the computers, group of computers, or domain that you want to specify. This is based on the access option that you selected in step 5.
Click OK, click OK, and then quit Exchange System Manager.

MORE INFORMATION

The Exchange System Attendant relies on Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), and WMI then uses SMTP to deliver e-mail notifications.

Before the e-mail notification is sent, the vrfy SMTP command is run. This command is run against port 25 of the server that runs the notification. This process makes sure that the target recipient of the notification is verified before delivery of the message begins. The vrfy command looks similar to this:

vrfy user name@domain name.com

The symptom that is listed earlier in this article occurs if the vrfy command does not work.

For additional information about how to troubleshoot Exchange 2000 Monitoring and Status, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

310315 XADM: Troubleshooting Exchange 2000 Monitoring and Status

For additional information about how to configure an SMTP virtual server, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

266686 XCON: How to Configure an SMTP Virtual Server Part 1

268163 XCON: How to Configure an SMTP Virtual Server Part 2