Foreign Connector In Exchange 2010

Foreign connector is a type of connector used in Exchange 2010 to communicate with systems that doesn’t use SMTP. A typical example is a fax gateway server.

These connectors use a folder on the Hub or remote server known as “Drop directory”. Exchange drops the messages into this folder and they are being picked up by the foreign gateway servers (for example fax servers). Like any other connector, foreign connector has an address space, cost and source servers associated with it.

Run the following command in the Shell to create a foreign connector.

New-ForeignConnector –Name “Connector Name” –AddressSpaces “type:space;cost” –SourceTransportServers “server1”, ”server2”

Create foreign connector

The drop directory doesn’t get created automatically. Hence, the folder has to be created with the following rights.

  • Network Service: Full Control
  • System: Full Control
  • Administrators: Full Control

Run Set-ForeignConnector “name” –DropDirectory “full path” to update the drop directory location.

Set drop directory for foreign connector

You can use the same set cmdlet to configure parameters like add more source servers, set maximum message size, set the connector to be scoped etc.

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