UPGRADING TO LOTUS NOTES 6 AND LOTUS DOMINO 6

Relay host changes
In Lotus Domino 6, relay host configuration is easier than in Lotus Domino 4.6. You can select to route all mail with destinations outside the local Internet domain to a relay host, or not to use a relay host at all. If you do not want to use SMTP for internal mail routing in your Internet domain, you can use a relay host instead. You may also use the relay host for spam filtering and virus checking.

To enable a relay host after upgrading to Lotus Domino 6, enter the host name or IP address of the relay host in the Server Configuration document for the upgraded server. In addition, you must enable "SMTP used when sending messages outside of the local Internet domain."

Note A smart host, like a relay host, routes messages. Configuration of the smart host is similar to the relay host setup. To configure a smart host, you specify either the hostname or IP address of the host in the Configuration Settings document. Relay hosts forward messages addressed to recipients outside of the current Internet domain to a responsible, SMTP-enabled server. The smart host forwards messages addressed to local Internet domain recipients, who are not found in the Domino Directory, to a SMTP-enabled server with an authoritative directory of these users. This configuration is most common in a mixed-product environment. For example, you can use a smart host in an environment in which SMTP inbound traffic for an Internet domain routes through a Domino server, but the domain uses two mail systems: Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange.

For more information about smart host, see the topic Setting up a smart host.

Using third-party relay hosts with Lotus Domino 6

If messages initially reach your system via a third-party product, you can still use Domino 6 functionality to improve performance. If your current path uses Domino 4.6 MTAs, you can replace them with Domino 6 mail servers through SMTP. Unless the gateway can query the Domino Directory to determine the correct mail server for a recipient, you use multiple Mail Exchanger (MX) records in the DNS with the same preference to spread the incoming load across the Domino 6 mail servers. While the percentage of messages that initially reach the correct destination server is small, it increases as the number of Domino 6 mail servers able to receive mail through SMTP increases. In addition, because the Domino 6 servers can access the Domino Directory to determine the correct mail server for each recipient, the destination server is generally only one hop away.

This method spreads the load of inbound Internet mail messages across all your Domino 6 servers. If one server is down, mail automatically redirects to the other available servers.

If there are only a few Domino 6 servers and many Domino 4.6 servers, these Domino 6 servers handle the load of receiving and converting Internet messages for all of the Domino 4.6 servers. However, as the number of Domino 6 servers increases, this load decreases.

If you replace the third-party gateway with a Domino 6 mail server that is able to access the Domino Directory through either Notes RPC or LDAP, the "gateway" server determines the correct destination server for each message and routes it appropriately.

See Also