Exchange Server 2003's sender filtering is a helpful feature that lets you specify who can and can't send email from within your organization. It does have some limitations though -- it only stores about 800 addresses and can't be easily imported or exported from Exchange Server.
If you've ever wanted to export a copy of your Exchange Server's sender filters and reuse them somewhere else, or just have a copy on hand for reference, these limitations can be frustrating.
Exchange Server guru Brian Desmond has come with a way to import and export a list of filtered sender domains in Exchange 2003. I've reprinted his techniques here in detail with his permission.
To export:
From a command prompt or batch file, run the following command:
For this to work in your organization, you'll need to replace dc=yourdomain with your own domain's address. For instance, if your domain for this Exchange server is utena.ohtori.org, you'd render this as dc=utena,dc=ohtori,dc=org. For a local address like myserver.local, use dc=myserver,dc=local.
The results will be exported to a file named senderfilter.ldf, which can be read in any text file.
To import:
If you're importing this list into a new domain, edit the senderfilter.ldf file and replace each dc=domain instance with the proper domain description as outlined above. Then use this command to import the file:
If you're using this to copy lists to many domains, you can replace the domain references in the file with dc=x and use the command:
The enumeration for the domain name you're copying to is dc=targetdomain,dc=local, which allows you to keep the file in one consistent format and only make the changes needed when supplying the import command.
Note that if you import a list of filtered senders to an Exchange server that already has such a list, the result
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s will be merged and not replaced. In other words, any existing filtered senders will be kept, and the ones listed in the file will be added.
About the author: Serdar Yegulalp is editor of Windows Insight.
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Exporting senderfilter isn't a problem, but importing is.
I use this command for export:
Now I get a senderfilter.ldf file. I can modify it and would like to import this on the same server.
I use this command for import:
However, this is not working.
I didn't modify the *.ldf file because it's the same server.
Can you tell me what's going wrong?
—Addy L.
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From what I can tell, the import command you're using is not in the right format. To import you just need to say:
The other options aren't needed.
—Serdar Yegulalp, tip author
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When I use ldifde -i -f senderfilter.ldf, I get the following messages:
Connecting to "server.domain.com"
Logging in as current user using SSPI
Importing directory from file "senderfilter.ldf"
Loading entries
There is a syntax error in the input file. Failed on line 1. The last token starts with '"'.
0 entries modified successfully. An error has occurred in the program
No log files were written. In order to generate a log file, please specify the log file path via the -j option.
Any help would be great.
—Ryan J.
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It's possible that the exported file was edited and then saved, but its codepage (UTF-8 vs. ASCII) was not retained when it was saved. Perhaps you should try using a different text editor and see if that helps.
—Serdar Yegulalp, tip author
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