Types of Receive Connectors in Exchange Server 2010

As we know, Exchange Server 2010 receives messages from Internet, internal users or from other e-mail servers. We can create and configure Receive Connectors to perform these tasks. By default, Exchange Server 2010 creates a Receive Connector automatically for internal mail flow when Hub Transport role is installed. Also, Receive Connector is automatically created for receiving messages from the Internet when we install Edge Transport role. We require manual configuration of Receive Connector when Hub Transport server is Internet facing or we have an unsubscribed Edge Transport server.

We can create 5 types of Receive Connectors in Exchange Server2010:-

· Custom is used to connect with systems that are not Exchange Servers. We can specify port/s and IP address/es from which the connector receives messages.

· Internal is used for receiving messages from another Transport server in the organization.

· Internet accepts connection from the internet and from anonymous users.

· Client receives connection from authenticated Exchange users, by default.

· Partner accepts connections authenticate with TLS by default. We cannot configure partner domains as smart hosts.