access mail outside of network

dunworth1

ok quick question my mailserver is mailbox.****.local

i want to connect to this outside of my network.

i am thinking i will need an ip address instead of .local but how do i find that?

thanks in advance
brian

ressem

If you only have one IP assigned to your router by your ISP, and your internet is working, then you can find the IP by going to a website like
http://www.whatismyip.com/

If you are currently recieving external mail, do you not already have a domain record pointing to the mail server (an A record with the name and MX pointing to the relevent A record)?

dunworth1

no i'm not receiving external mail.

i had a look there and there i a ip address for the mail server it something like 192.168.*.*** would this be the one that i use

kdouglas

192.168.*.* is your internal ip, which will only work within your network.

What you need is to set up your router/gateway to forward incoming connections to the internal mail server's ip for the ports you want (e.g. 143/993 for imap/s, 110 for pop etc..)

ressem

Ok you're going to need to go into more detail.

You're setting up a mail server from scratch? What mail server in particular, exchange 2007, sendmail, mdaemon?
Is this mail server supposed to handle mail arriving from outside via SMTP port 25 or rpop? Or is it just for viewing internal mails, for a test server or the like?

Do you want to be able to view your mailbox through a web interface; through a program like Outlook/ Entourage or Thunderbird; through an iphone or blackberry?

You're saying that you went to an external site www.whatismyip.com and the top line said 'Your ip address is: 192.168.x.x'? 'Cause that's not right. Or did you just look at network settings/ ipv4 or ipconfig and that's the address you saw?

There's a lot of security checks you should make on your mail server before opening it to the internet. Any accounts/passwords that can be accessed remotely need to be complex enough to avoid being brute forced by spammers. The server needs to be fully patched and secured to ensure that it's not an open relay used to spam, or has bugs enabling it to compromise your network.

dunworth1

the mail server is already setup fully.
its running on exchange.

i just want to know how to send and receive email from outside the network.

i dont really know much about servers.
i'm a inside computers kind of guy.

basically

my address is like [email]name@****.ie[/email]

the mail server address from outlook is mailbox.****.local
this is what i know.
i believe all i need to do is change the local to the ip address.
is this right if so is it the ip address that i get when i go to www.whatismyip.com (i am unsure if its a static ip or not)
but i know that the mail can be accessed externally for a fact because some else is able to do it but they are away and i would like to be able to do this.

can you help

if you need more info i can try and get it for you.

thanks

ressem

if your user account is permitted to access the server from outside, and Outlook Web Access is enabled both on the server and through the firewall, then you should be able to access the server using
https://yourexternalipaddress/owa or
https://yourexternalipaddress/exchange

You will be prompted with a few security warnings as the ip address will not be the same as the mail server name. If you are sure that the ip is correct you can choose to bypass the warning messages.

If the small business has only one ip address, then it should be the one you see running whatismyip while inside the company.

Jumpy

First things first, its Exchange, so would require OWA. The OWA and its ports need to be open to your edge firewall, you say someone can already do this however so I suspect the underlying rules are already configured. Judging from your posts so far, you were not the person who set this up, so it might be your best option to discuss this with them or your IT Dept.
Your mailbox on exchange will need to be enabled for OWA access, so just because someone else can do it, doesnt mean your account has been configured for it. Also your external IP is not neccesarily the access point.
Again, talk to your IT guys.

dunworth1

just to update on this

i manged to get it working i asked the guy who looks afteer the server.
and he gave the details ye said to get

thanks for all the help