Using the Direct Send Method to Deliver Outbound Emails
Organizations using Microsoft Exchange Online as their primary email server often need to send emails generated by multifunction devices and applications from within their LAN. Microsoft offers multiple methods for doing this, and this page discusses the Direct Send method, as mentioned here.
When using this method, you will essentially authorize your public IP address to send emails for your domain. Therefore, having a static public IP address is required if you choose this option.
Prerequisites
- A static public IP address
Requirements
You must perform the following three steps in order to make your public IP address and authorized IP address for your domain:
- Requirement #1 - Add your public IP address to your SPF record. Check this page for details.
- Requirement #2 - Add a DKIM signature to your DNS Server. Check this page for details.
- Requirement #3 - Ensure your public IP address has a PTR record in the DNS server. PTR records do NOT go in your DNS; they go in your ISP's DNS and are used to perform a reverse lookup of your IP address. In other words, if your public IP address is 50.60.70.80, a PTR record would resolve to something like relay.yourcompany.com.
Once both SPF and DKIM signatures have been updated in your DNS server, and you have a PTR record, you will be ready to send outbound emails.
Confirming Your Configuration is Correctly Set Up
Click Tools > Diagnostic Check - Outbound from within the Xeams web interface and run a test on your domain.
How This Works
- Devices and applications on your LAN send emails to Xeams
- Xeams then performs an MX lookup on the recipient's domain. These recipients can either belong to your domain or to a foreign domain, such as @gmail.com or @yahoo.com.
- After an MX is performed, Xeams will deliver the message to the SMTP server responsible for receiving it.
- The receiving server will perform an SPF lookup and will verify the DKIM signature to confirm the message is authorized.