No DNS to setup mail

[Ian Hunt_3]

We're not currently using internal DNS at our site and it seems that the E-mail SMTP Host entry will only work with a full DNS entry e.g. mail.ourdomain.com, so I can't get notifications to an e-mail address. I've tried using the IP of our SMTP server but no joy there, and have even tried using a hosts file entry for the mailserver, but again no mail gets through. Any ideas?

[Georg Tresselt]

Some further details about your environment might help helping you. Is it a UNIX or Windows environment? What mail server are you using?

[Ian Hunt_3]

It's a windows environment - install is on XP, but servers are mixture of NT4, Win2000 and Win2003. Mail system is Exchange 5.5.

[Chris Turnbull]

Why are you not using DNS - is there a reason why you can't/don't install it? I assume you are using WINS for your internal name resolution then?

[Ian Hunt_3]

Explaining the lack of foresight of our business is beyond the scope of this post, suffice it to say we are still functioning in a hybrid system with NT4 dominant, and no AD implemented, hence no DNS needed yet, and WINS doing name resolution.

[Georg Tresselt]

Well, then the other question is why do you need SMTP ? Original Microsoft mail systems make do completely without it. Do you have to integrate a particular application, such as CiscoWorks or something ?

[Ian Hunt_3]

The SMTP reference is to the SMTP caching/filtering gateway that sits between Exchange and the internet. I have also tried pointing Insight Manager directly at the Exchange box (hostname or IP), again with no result.