In this scenario you may encounter an issue where the emails that end users receive show the SMTP address of the sender instead of the more friendly display name configured on the user mailbox that has that SMTP address.

For example an email from a scanner device will appear like this.

This will occur if the Receive Connector on the Hub Transport server is accepting anonymous email. Receive Connectors are not configured this way by default but many Exchange administrators enable it because it is the simplest way to allow applications or devices to send emails to internal recipients.

To enable Exchange Server 2010 to resolve the anonymous emails you need to configure the Authentication settings for the Receive Connector to enable the Externally Secured option.

However this is not possible for the Default Receive Connector due to the other Authentication settings that are already enabled.

Instead what you can do is create a relay connector for Exchange Server 2010 following the instructions here. Whether you restrict it to certain sender IP’s or allow your entire private network to use the relay connector is up to you.

Emails sent from devices using the new Receive Connector will resolve the name correctly from the GAL now.

Related posts:

• How to Migrate a Relay Connector from Exchange Server 2007 to 2010
• How to Configure a Relay Connector for Exchange Server 2010
• The Case of the Hub Transport Server Load Imbalance
• Generate SMTP Error Statistics using Log Parser and Exchange Server 2010 Protocol Logs
• Report Top Sender IP’s on Exchange Server 2010 using Log Parser

This article Resolving Anonymous Mail to the GAL with Exchange Server 2010 is © 2011 ExchangeServerPro.com

Get more Exchange Server tips at ExchangeServerPro.com

((Alias -ne $null) -and (((((((((((ObjectClass -eq 'user') -or (ObjectClass -eq 'contact
'))) -or (ObjectClass -eq 'msExchSystemMailbox'))) -or (ObjectClass -eq 'msExchDynamicDi
stributionList'))) -or (ObjectClass -eq 'group'))) -or (ObjectClass -eq 'publicFolder'))
))

You can see that the following object classes are included:

• User
• Contact
• System Mailbox
• Dynamic Distribution Group
• Group
• Public Folder

In some environments it may be desirable to exclude Mail Users.  Mail Users are similar to Contacts in that they do not have a mailbox in the local Exchange organization, however unlike Contacts they do have a user account in Active Directory.

In other words, Mail Users are mail-enabled user objects that use an external email service.

Mail Users are displayed in the same area of the Exchange Management Console as regular Contacts, which may lead you to think that excluding them from the Global Address List is as simple as removing this part of the recipient filter:

-or ObjectClass -eq ‘Contact’

However that is not correct, and will not remove Mail Users from the Global Address List.  To understand how to actually do this take a closer look at the attributes of a Mailbox User and a Mail User.

[PS] C:\>get-mailbox "John Smith" | fl objectclass, recipienttype

ObjectClass   : {top, person, organizationalPerson, user}
RecipientType : UserMailbox

[PS] C:\>get-mailuser "Peter Banes" | fl objectclass, recipienttype

ObjectClass   : {top, person, organizationalPerson, user}
RecipientType : MailUser

Notice that both are the same ObjectClass of ‘user’, which would still be included in the recipient filter if you were to simply remove the ‘Contact’ object class.

Instead, to remove Mail Users from the Global Address List you should exclude them by Recipient Type. You can do this by including the following condition in your recipient filter:

RecipientType -ne ‘MailUser’

For example:

Set-GlobalAddressList "Default Global Address List" -RecipientFilter {(Alias -ne $null -and RecipientType -ne 'MailUser' -and (ObjectClass -eq 'user' -or ObjectClass -eq 'Contact' -or ObjectClass -eq 'msExchSystemMailbox' -or ObjectClass -eq 'msExchDynamicDistributionList' -or ObjectClass -eq 'group' -or ObjectClass -eq 'publicFolder'))}

If you’re making this change to the default Global Address List see my previous post with the solution to the error that occurs when modifying the default Global Address List.

Related posts:

• Unable to Modify Default Global Address List
• PowerShell Script: Check Exchange 2010 Database Backups
• Using Test-ServiceHealth for Exchange Server Health Checks
• PowerShell Tip: Search for Commands by Keyword
• How to Migrate a Relay Connector from Exchange Server 2007 to 2010

This article How to Remove Mail Users from the Global Address List is © 2010 ExchangeServerPro.com

Get more Exchange Server tips at ExchangeServerPro.com

You can’t peform this operation on default global address list “Default Global Address List”.

The recipient filter of the default Global Address List can be modified once during conversion from Exchange 2003 but not after that.  If you want to change the default Global Address List recipient filter after that you must either:

• Create a new Global Address List with the desired recipient filter
• Temporarily modify the Global Address List so that it isn’t the default

For the second option you can refer back to my earlier post on fixing  the issue where there is no default Global Address List in the organization.  This is determined by the msExchRecipientFilterFlags attribute of the object.

Simply use ADSIEdit.msc to modify the attribute from 3 to 0, apply the change to the Global Address List recipient filter, then return to ADSIEdit.msc and set the flag back to 3.  For more detailed instructions check out my previous post.

Related posts:

• How to Remove Mail Users from the Global Address List
• PowerShell Script: Check Exchange 2010 Database Backups
• Using Test-ServiceHealth for Exchange Server Health Checks
• PowerShell Tip: Search for Commands by Keyword
• How to Migrate a Relay Connector from Exchange Server 2007 to 2010

This article Unable to Modify Default Global Address List is © 2010 ExchangeServerPro.com

Get more Exchange Server tips at ExchangeServerPro.com