The Exchange 2013 Edge Server version of this Screencast is available here.

While Exchange 2010 Anti-Spam functionality is enabled by default on Edge Transport servers, it is not enabled on Hub Transport Servers. It’s good to have an Edge server and avoid exposing the internal Exchange Servers to the Internet, but that is not a required Exchange Server role. Many small organizations – typically the single Exchange 2010 server scenario, do not have that luxury or they are planning to implement an Edge server at a later stage.

If your organization doesn’t use Edge Transport servers and has only Hub Transport servers, you should install and enable the anti-spam features on Hub Transport servers that receive messages from the internet. In this Step-by-Step Screencast we will demonstrate how to install, configure and test Anti-Spam functionality on Exchange 2010 Hub Transport Server.

A very efficient Anti-Spam feature is the use of IP Block List providers. In our demo we will show you how to configure and test SpamHAUS as a DNSBL – DNS-based Block List (or Blackhole, black list) provider. We will be using the combined and most powerful ZEN list – zen.spamhaus.org, and you will see different approaches to test your configuration.

One of the overlooked steps, when configuring Exchange 2010 anti-spam functionality is specifying the internal SMTP servers in the InternalSMTPServers parameter. This will be reflected in your logs as event ID 1022 (MSExchangeTransport) – Anti-spam agents are enabled, but the list of internal SMTP servers is empty.

In some cases your Exchange Servers may have another e-mail server (like Linux/Unix servers running Sendmail or Postfix) or Anti-Spam/Anti-Virus device that receives Internet e-mail first, or you might be using the Anti-spam/Anti-virus services of an external company. The connection filter Anti-Spam agent must parse correctly the email message headers, to determine the IP address of the original source. Even in the single server scenario – as is in our demo, you must have an entry in the InternalSMTPServers, and that is the Hub Transport Server itself.

Configuring and checking the Anti-Spam updates is also a very important task for the Exchange administrator. We compare the two update modes – manual and automatic, and the corresponding Standard and Enterprise Anti-Spam updates provided by Microsoft. You will see that even though the name of the update mode is manual, you can have your Standard Anti-Spam updates downloaded and installed automatically, and we will show you how to switch between manual and automatic Exchange 2010 Anti-Spam updates mode.

For your convenience, we have published the text file with commands, which we are using in the Screencast here .

Step 1 We start by installing and enabling Anti-Spam agents on Exchange 2010 Hub Transport Server. Then we take a closer look at the Anti-Spam controls in Exchange Management Console at the Organizational and Server level. We will also check the current Anti-Spam updates status.

Step 2 This step is dedicated to configuring and managing Anti-Spam updates in Exchange Server 2010. We will compare the default, manual mode which provides Standard AS updates, and the automatic mode – providing Enterprise AS updates and requiring ECALS. You will see that the manual mode can also be configured to download and install automatically updates, and how to switch between the manual and automatic modes in EMC.

Step 3 Finally, we configure the SpamHaus as an IP block list provider. We are using the combined ZEN list – zen.spamhaus.org, and we will be performing a series of local and remote tests of our configuration.