4.9. Onsite Microsoft Exchange deployment

Overview

Limitations

MetaDefender Email Gateway Security can only be installed on Hub or Edge role Exchange Servers (2013 or 2016).

For prerequisites and installation instructions see 3. Onboarding.

Exchange autodetect

Email Gateway Security autodetects when it is installed on a machine where Exchange server is present. In this case it will install in Exchange mode, no manual setup is needed.

Exchange Server message expiration timeout

The MessageExpirationTimeout parameter of Microsoft Exchange Server specifies the maximum time that a particular message can remain in a queue.

If a message remains in the queue for longer than the MessageExpirationTimeout period of time, the message is returned to the sender as a permanent failure.

As a consequence this parameter is likely to affect the delivery of emails released or forwarded from Quarantine (see 5.3. Quarantine) or emails retried from Audit > Email History (see 5.2. Email History).

The default value of MessageExpirationTimeout is 2 days. It means that if an email spends more than 2 days in Quarantine or in Audit > Email History then releasing or forwarding and retrying (accordingly) after 2 days will fail.

Extension

MessageExpirationTimeout can be extended to the maximum of 90 days.

Low values

If MessageExpirationTimeout is set to a very low value (the lowest accepted value is 5 seconds) then it can even affect the delivery of emails going through the normal workflow (not quarantined, not failing).

Reference and further reading

Microsoft Exchange Server 2013: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124238(v=exchg.150).aspx

Microsoft Exchange Server 2016: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124238(v=exchg.160).aspx

How To Verify

To verify that the Exchange Transport Agent has been installed successfully, open the Exchange Management Shell and enter Get-TransportAgent

Ensure that MetaDefender Email Security Smtp Agent and MetaDefender Email Security Routing Agent are listed and their Enabled statuses are True.

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-TransportAgent
Identity Enabled Priority
-------- ------- --------
Transport Rule Agent True 1
DLP Policy Agent True 2
Malware Agent False 3
Text Messaging Routing Agent True 4
Text Messaging Delivery Agent True 5
System Probe Drop Smtp Agent True 6
System Probe Drop Routing Agent True 7
Metadefender Email Security Smtp Agent True 8
Metadefender Email Security Routing Agent True 9