Thanks AT&T

I thought I would test my knowledge at Exchange Server by setting it up on my home network and seeing if I could get it to send and receive over the internet.

After a few visits to Microsoft's Technet I had everything installed without any problems. BTW, I'm using 2003 Server and Exchange 2003. Anyhoo, I setup a MX record through DynDNS, configure my router for POP3 and SMTP, and then configure a connector in Exchange and bam, I'm getting emails in no time at all via POP3. Web interface is working and looking sweet with Outlook 2003 and then I decide to check SMTP. Nothing going out. Troubleshoot till the wee morning and decide to get some sleep. Decide to work on it again after turkey dinner and what do I see in my inbox? Returned emails saying my IP is blacklisted by AT&T.

Did some research and found out that AT&T is blacklisting everyone that is using Comcast (except for the main Comcast mail servers). They just went and blacklisted entire IP ranges without any justification what-so-ever. Well... I can see part of the justification, Comcast is the largest source of zombie PC's spewing spam email, but they should at least offer some sort of method of resolution for those that want to set up legitimate servers. Check this article out and you will see what I mean... http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1537408,00.asp

At least I know I set everything up correctly. In less than 2 hours, I was able to setup a server running exchange behind a firewall, using NAT, and using a dynamic IP. Score one for Microsoft for finally making things easier.

Next project... ISA Server 2004! Whoohoo!