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The Inbound Message Transfer Process

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The Inbound Message Transfer Process

This content is no longer actively maintained. It is provided as is, for anyone who may still be using these technologies, with no warranties or claims of accuracy with regard to the most recent product version or service release.

The following steps describe the transfer of a message from a foreign system to a gateway, and finally to recipients on the Microsoft® Exchange system:

  1. The gateway receives a message from a foreign system. A common design strategy is to create an IN folder for the gateway that operates as a queue for incoming messages until they can be processed.
  2. The gateway translates the message, maps the foreign address format to the Exchange format, and places the message in its MTS-IN folder on the mailbox store.
  3. The store driver moves the mail to the message transfer agent (MTA). The MTA then puts the message in its SMTP queue.
  4. The store driver picks up the message from the MTA queue and puts it in the MTS-OUT queue of the SMTP Service. The MTS-OUT queue can be viewed under the node for X.400 queues of the server in the Exchange System Manager.
  5. The store driver gives the message to the Advanced Queuing component within the SMTP service on Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS). The Advanced Queuing component sends the message to a pre-categorization queue.
  6. The categorizer resolves both recipient and sender addresses using Microsoft Active Directory®, and expands any mail-enabled groups.
  7. For local addresses, the categorizer sends the message to the mailbox store for delivery. For remote addresses, the message is placed in a post-categorization queue where it is picked up by the routing engine.
  8. The routing engine places the message in an SMTP queue for delivery to the appropriate Exchange server or servers.
  9. The message is forwarded for delivery to recipients through the Routing Group connector, the SMTP connector, or both.

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Build: June 2007 (2007.618.1)

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