How does Exchange 2007 decide which receive connector to use if there is a possible conflict?
Background as to why I'm asking:
- Four receive connectors at customer site on a hub transport server
- Two of them are the default connectors, unchanged
- Third connector is configured for anonymous port 25 relay from three specific IPs for a specific device/service.
- Fourth connector is configured for anonymous port 25 relay from two other specific IPs for a different device/service.
When the source IP targeting the third connector connects, everything is good. When the source IP targeting the fourth connector connects, then one of the default connectors is used instead of the specific IP connector. If we move the IPs from the fourth connector to the third connector, everything works. So it's either something wrong on the fourth connector, or it's something with how Exchange is deciding which connector applies. A comparison of the third and fourth connectors doesn't show any differences.
So how does Exchange decide which connector - more importantly I guess for now, is there a way to troubleshoot/trace its logic on which connector to use?
OK, it looks like Exchange was just very confused. Once we restarted the Transport service, everything sorted out as expected. Not sure how we would figure that out, but it's moot now.