Category: Technical

How to setup SMTP server to send email using Microsoft Office 365 Connector with Exchange Online

Posted on by Mark Pace

This article is for clients that have moved to the Microsoft Office 365 platform that needs to be able to SMTP from devices. Example of this is multi-function scanner/copier/printer device and using the scan-to-email capability.

The most common solution that is suggested by Microsoft and others is to use an internal Exchange Server to relay the mail or use an IIS server with SMTP service enabled to relay the mail. However because the client is going CLOUD, they would be decommissioning old servers. To install SMTP servers in the business is just another added cost.

The other option is to use the ISP SMTP server that the office is connected to.

The solution is described here will work with or without TLS encrypted connections and also supports either port 25 or port 587 and does not require any type of authentication.
In fact, no user accounts or additional licenses are required to make this work. This is good because many older devices/applications only support clear text across port 25.

The first step is to create a connector on the Exchange Server to allow for the connection by an unauthenticated user. This sounds like it is an open relay but we are going to take steps to allow this connection ONLY from known IP Addresses that should be allowed to use the connector. All other attempts will be denied as an unauthorized relay attempt.

Creating the Exchange Connector:

  • Log into the Microsoft Online Portal as a user that has Global Administrator access
  • Click on the Admin menu and then on Exchange to open the Exchange Admin Center.
  • Click on the Mail Flow category and click the Connectors sub menu.
  • Add an Inbound Connector
    • Give the connector a descriptive name
    • Set the Connector Type to On-premises
    • Set Connection Security to Opportunistic TLS
    • Set Domain Restrictions to Restrict domains by IP addresses
    • Add a single Sender domain and use an * wildcard character here to allow all.
    • Add the public IP addresses that you will allow to relay
    • Save the Connector
  • Enable the connector if it is not already.

The SMTP Server you use in your sending application/device is a little different but easy to locate. There are many ways to get this info, I am going to show you only one.

Finding the SMTP Server:

  • Go back to the O365 portal and click the Admin menu and click on Office 365
  • Click on the Domains category
  • Select your primary domain (or the domain you wish to use) and then click Manage DNS
  • Find the MX record and copy the Point To Address for that record.
    • The format will be in this format: -.mail.protection.outlook.com or I have also seen -.mail.eo.outlook.com. If your domain was “XXYYZZ.COM” then your MX record would look like this: XXYYZZ-COM.mail.protection.outlook.com as an example.

That value will be what you use as the SMTP Server when you define your outbound mail settings in the application/device you want to send relay email.

One additional setting you may want to enable on the Exchange Online Server which will prevent all of your relay email from going directly to the Junk Folder. This process will create a mail filtering rule which will bypass the filters altogether.

Creating Bypass Rule:

  • Go back to the Exchange Admin Console.
  • Click on the Mail Flow category and then the Rules sub menu.
  • Add a new Rule of type “Bypass Spam Filtering…”
    • Give the rule a good descriptive Name.
    • Set Apply this rule if… to “The sender is…” and add the email addresse(s) you will be using for sending relay email. Keep in mind this can be anything you want butit must match exactly, else this rule will not work.
    • Set Do the following… to “Set the spam confidence level (SCL to…” and then set the action to Bypass spam filtering.
    • The remaining options can be left as default.
    • Save the rule.
  • If you have multiple rules, you may want to adjust the order of this rule so it fires properly. I would suggest that you make it the first rule while you test things and then adjust all of your rules to accomdate the order in which you ultimately want to process the rules. Mail Flow in general is complex and I am not giving much detail in this walk through on how best to manipulate these features.

The final step of this process is to put it all together and make it work. Modify your SMTP settings for the Application/Device as follows:

  • SMTP Server: Set this to the MX data that we gathered from the above step “-.mail.protection.outlook.com”.
  • SMTP Port: 25 or 587
  • SMTP TLS: Enabled or Disabled (Enabled is recommended if it is an option)
  • SMTP Username: This can be anything you want as it is not used at all. Leave it blank if you can. If you do need to populate this info, use the email address of the FROM address you set in the Spam bypass filter above.
  • SMTP Password: This can be anything you want as it is not used at all. Leave it blank if you can.
  • SMTP TO: Set this email address of the recipient of the email message. Be aware, this does not have to be a user within the domain defined by the MX record or the SMTP Server above.
  • SMTP FROM: Use the email address you specified in the Bypass Spam Filtering rule. This MUST match exactly.

That should be all there is to make this work. Of course, the client side configuration will be different on every application/device you try to set up this way but I can say that I have made this work with a number of different MFP devices as well as Routers that send notifications. I have also made this work with Mozilla Thunderbird which is a good simple testing application. If you can make things work using Thunderbird, you should be able to translate the settings to any application/device and make it work as well.

WARNINGS:

  • The first thing you want to check for is to see if you can even use port 25 or not.
  • Not all applications/devices support anything but port 25. If you have one of these AND you have a port 25 port block ISP, you may need to take some fancier steps within the router to make this work. I have found that not all providers will turn off port 25 blocks and if they do, it is very common for the block to get turned back on randomly.
  • Microsoft frowns heavily on bulk email and will block your ability to send any email outbound if you use this to abuse their mail platform. Microsoft uses the phase” Reasonable Limits” when describing how many emails they will allow you to send using this technique so be reasonable… If the mail is being sent internally, you really should not have much issue but if you send a lot of email externally, then you might run into some limits problems.

 

 

Source : https://www.experts-exchange.com/Software/Server_Software/Email_Servers/Exchange/A_15699-SMB-Office-365-Exchange-Online-SMTP-Relay.html

Skype wont logout or showing online when you believe you are offline on other devices

Posted on by Mark Pace

Do people say you are online with Skype when in fact you are offline?
After some research, I have found some commands that will Log you out of all places and also Show you where you are logged in.

  1. Sign out on all devices. (that you know of)
  2. Log in on one device (PC in my case).
  3. Open a chat windows and type /showplaces to see if I’m still logged in on other devices\sessions.
  4. /remotelogout to close all sessions (I had none, but I did this anyway).
  5. Set Skype to not log in automatically (auto sign-in) on any device.

The final step of disabling the auto sign-in into Skype did the trick.  I signed off and wasn’t showing online anymore.

I did verify that my Skype account is not linked with my Microsoft account before starting this process.  I know some steps are redundant but better to be prudent with the current state of Skype.

I was able to recreate the ‘always-on’ issue when I re-enabled the auto sign-in on my PC.  As soon as I disabled it and signed out I was once again showing offline.

Enjoy

Mark Pace

Microsoft urges customers to uninstall ‘Blue Screen of Death’ update

Posted on by Mark Pace

One of last week’s security updates has bricked an unknown number of PCs

Microsoft on Friday quietly recommended that customers uninstall one of last week’s security updates after users reported that it crippled their computers with the infamous “Blue Screen of Death” (BSOD).

The update, identified as MS14-045 in Microsoft’s numbering, was one of nine released on “Patch Tuesday,” Aug. 12, was designed to fix three separate flaws, including one related to a font vulnerability and another in the Windows kernel, the heart of the operating system.

Within hours of its release, however, users reported that MS14-045 had generated a Stop 0x50 error on some systems, mostly on Windows 7 PCs running the 64-bit version of the OS.

“Installation went smoothly. After rebooting everything worked fine. But when I shut down my notebook and switched it on a little later it came up with a blue screen with a Stop 0x50 in Win32k.sys. I could not even boot into safe mode as Windows failed to start no matter which mode chose,” wrote a user identified as “xformer” to start a now-long thread on Microsoft’s support discussion forum.

As of Sunday, the thread contained nearly 380 messages and had been viewed almost 50,000 times. The latter is a large number even for Microsoft’s support forum, and hints at the scope of the problem.

Others on that same discussion thread pointed to different updates issued the same day that caused identical problems, including one meant to support the Russian ruble symbol.

Some customers were able to regain control of their PCs by using System Restore to return the machine to a previous date, but only after they’d booted the computer using original install media.

In the updated MS14-045 and other supporting documents, Microsoft said it had removed the patches from its Download Center. As of Saturday, however, the flawed update was still being pushed by Windows Update, Microsoft’s service for delivering patches to PCs.

“Microsoft is investigating behavior associated with the installation of this update, and will update this bulletin when more information becomes available,” the company said in the revised MS14-045’s Update FAQ. “Microsoft recommends that customers uninstall this update. As an added precaution, Microsoft has removed the download links to the 2982791 security update.”

Microsoft’s advice, however, may not be of any help to those already afflicted. It told users, for example, to boot using Safe Mode, which many on the support thread said didn’t work.

Not every PC that installed MS14-045 or the other suspect patches reported problems. Several IT administrators posted messages on Patchmanagement.org, a mailing list dedicated to the subject, that said they had successfully updated hundreds of client systems and servers.

Last week’s patch problem was not Microsoft’s first by any means.

In April 2013, Microsoft urged Windows 7 users to uninstall an update that had generated BSOD screens. And last August and September Microsoft had such a run of problems with updates for its Office suite that experts called it a “worrisome” sign of declining update quality.

In October 2013, Microsoft yanked a Windows 8.1 RT update from the Windows Store after some tablet owners reported their devices had been crippled.

VSS Warnings in the Application Event Log of SBS 2011 Standard – Event ID 8230

Posted on by Mark Pace

Collapse imageSYMPTOMS

On Small Business Server 2011 Standard, you may see warnings in the application event log similar to the following:

Log Name:      Application
Source:        VSS
Date:          4/11/2011 9:48:48 AM
Event ID:      8230
Task Category: None
Level:         Warning
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      CONTOSOSERVER.contoso.local
Description:
Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Failed resolving account spsearch with status 1376. Check connection to domain controller and VssAccessControl registry key.

The warnings may also reference the spfarm account.

Collapse imageCAUSE

SBS 2011 Standard Edition installs Sharepoint 2010 Foundation in SharePoint farm mode. The accounts SPfarm and SPsearch are used as service accounts for some of the Sharepoint services. In order to be able to utilize the VSS writers, the accounts must be granted access to VSS. The accounts are added by SBS to the vssaccesscontrol registry key but the VSS service fails to locate the accounts. As Microsoft knowledge base article 2483007 suggests you can ignore the warnings. The warnings don’t affect the operation of VSS. If you wish to remove the warnings, you can use the steps in the resolution section.

Collapse imageRESOLUTION

You can use the following steps to workaround the issue.

1. In Active Directory Users and Computers, create a Domain Local Security Group named VSSRegistryGroup

2. Add SPFARM and SPSEARCH accounts to the VSSRegistryGroup Group

3. Run regedit

Important This article contains information about how to modify the registry. Make sure that you back up the registry before you modify it. Make sure that you know how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up, restore, and modify the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

322756 How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

4. Go to hklm\system\currentcontrolset\services\vss\vssaccesscontrol

5. Add Dword value of DOMAIN\vssregistrygroup where domain is the netbios domainname (example: CONTOSO\vssregistrygroup Note: The Domain name must be in all caps) set the value to 1

6. Remove values for domain\spsearch and domain\spfarm

7. Go to hklm\system\currentcontrolset\services\vss\diag

8. Right click on diag and go permissions, click advanced and add VSSRegistrygroup group with Full Control.

9.  Remove spsearch and spfarm accounts from the list of permissions

10. Reboot the server

How to decrypt, unlock and restore Cryptolocker malware for free

Posted on by Mark Pace

Cryptolocker is a particularly nasty type of ransomware that criminals have used to encrypt files on a victim’s computer before demanding a ransom for the encryption key to unlock the files.  Without the key, the encryption renders the victim’s files useless so many people lost files or paid the ransom.

Two security firms, Fireeye and Fox IT have partnered to provide a solution which may help many people. The website Decrypt Cryptolocker can now be used to try and unlock files encrypted by the Cryptolocker malware.

Use of the Decrypt Cryptolocker service is free and simply requires you to upload a sample encrypted file to the website.  If the website is able to decrypt your files, you can then download its recovery program and receive the unlocking master key by email.

Please note that this tool may not be able to decrypt some affected files.

Synology® Continues to Encourage Users to Update – Synolocker attack on NAS

Posted on by Mark Pace

We’d like to provide a brief update regarding the recent ransomware called “SynoLocker,” which is currently affecting certain Synology NAS servers.

We are fully dedicated to investigating this issue and possible solutions. Based on our current observations, this issue only affects Synology NAS servers running some older versions of DSM (DSM 4.3-3810 or earlier), by exploiting a security vulnerability that was fixed and patched in December, 2013. Furthermore, to prevent spread of the issue we have only enabled QuickConnect and Synology DDNS service to secure versions of DSM. At present, we have not observed this vulnerability in DSM 5.0.

For Synology NAS servers running DSM 4.3-3810 or earlier, and if users encounter any of the below symptoms, we recommend they shutdown their system and contact our technical support team here: https://myds.synology.com/support/support_form.php

When attempting to log in to DSM, a screen appears informing users that data has been encrypted and a fee is required to unlock data.

  • A process called “synosync” is running in Resource Monitor.
  • DSM 4.3-3810 or earlier is installed, but the system says the latest version is installed at Control Panel > DSM Update.

For users who have not encountered any of the symptoms stated above, we highly recommend downloading and installing DSM 5.0, or any version below:

  • For DSM 4.3, please install DSM 4.3-3827 or later
  • For DSM 4.1 or DSM 4.2, please install DSM 4.2-3243 or later
  • For DSM 4.0, please install DSM 4.0-2259 or later
  • DSM can be updated by going to Control Panel > DSM Update. Users can also manually download and install the latest version from our Download Center here: https://www.synology.com/support/download.
  • If users notice any strange behavior or suspect their Synology NAS server has been affected by the above issue, we encourage them to contact us at security@synology.com.
  • We sincerely apologize for any problems or inconvenience this issue has caused our users. We will keep you updated with the latest information as we address this issue.