How to check logs of the Exchange Server for SMTP connection

Question

Since we need to connect for SMTP functionality but the connection failed and the vendor said the packet has been sent but there is no response from the Exchange server, we want to check the Exchange server logs and fix this issue.

Answer 1

You can use the ping command to test connectivity: ping 10.58.252.11. With that you can check if the server hosting the SMTP service (10.58.252.11) is reachable from your Exchange Server.

You can also confirm that the SMTP service is running on the server with IP 10.58.252.11. You can use telnet to check if the SMTP port (25) is open: telnet 10.58.252.11 25.

Other than that, to check Exchange logs, you can refer to the article below- Configure logging- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/mail-flow/transport-logs/configure-connectivity-logging?view=exchserver-2019
Log structure and fields- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/mail-flow/transport-logs/connectivity-logging?view=exchserver-2019

So enable the logging, locate them and analyze them. The log files are in CSV format and can be opened with any text editor or spreadsheet application. Each log entry includes details such as the date and time, session ID, source and destination IP addresses, and the SMTP commands exchanged.