A. Aside from the native Exchange Connector, the X.400 connector is the most common Exchange connector, allowing Exchange to connector to non-Exchange systems. While X.400 suffers a 20% drop in performance in comparison to the native Exchange connector it is still impressive.
X.400 is a common standard and Exchanges implementation is based on the 1988 standard. X.400 operates on the MTA stack and has to be installed before installing a X.400 connector. MTA stacks are available for TCP/IP, X.25 and TP4. It is available for RAS as well but that stack does not support X.400. In this walkthrough we will look at implementing X.400 over TCP/IP.
Only Exchange Enterprise edition has the X.400 connector and not the standard edition (also Enterprise has the SNADS and OV/VM(PROFS) connectors which standard does not have). If you only have standard edition and require X.400 connector you will need to upgrade or purchase the X.400 connector as a separate product from Microsoft.
The first step is to install the MTA transport stack
- Start the Exchange Administrator program
- Select 'New Other' - 'MTA Transport Stack' from the File menu
- Select "TCP/IP MTA Transport Stack" from the list and the local server and click OK
- A dialog for the configuration of MTA will be shown. You can leave the OSI information blank. Under the Connectors tab leave blank. Make sure you enter a display and directory name. Click OK
If you find you don't have a number of MTA stacks check you installed the X.400 connector at installation time. Re-run setup and click Add/Remove. Select Exchange Server and click Change Options. Check the "X.400 Connector" box and click OK. Click Continue. You will now be able to install the TCP/IP MTA stack.
Now the MTA stack is installed you can install the actual X.400 connector and configure it accordingly.
- Start the Exchange Administrator program
- Select the Connections container of the required site to add the connection too
- Select 'New Other' - 'X.400 Connector' from the File menu
- Accept the default "TCP/IP X.400 Connector" and click OK
- The X.400 configuration dialog will be displayed. Under the General tab enter a display and directory name (this can be any string of text). You should enter the remote MTA name (and a password if required) which is used to identify the Message Transfer Agent on the other host/site.
- Click the Schedule tab to configure replication settings
- Select the Stack tab to enter the IP address of name of the system to connect to. Again you can leave the OSI information blank.
- Use the Override tab to specify a different local MTA name/password
- Connected sites is only used when connecting Exchange sites via X.400.
- If you don't enter anything under Connected Sites you must configure an address space under the "Address Space" tab
- Delivery Restrictions and Advanced all along other non-essential settings to be set
- Once all information is entered click OK
You now have a functionality one-way X.400 link. You would now need to repeat the above for the opposite directory.
