I have a basic grasp of the structure of Exchange 2003, but I'm having trouble with one simple concept. Can someone please explain below. I'm trying to setup a test lab in another office with our server, but don't want to screw up the mail server by having "two" identical servers on the internet. WE have Go Daddy for our domain name registration, web hosting and our IP is registered with a local provider. We have a 2003 Exchange server that obviously sends and receives email to and from the internet. We have a Sonicwall Email filter device. Question: How does exchange talk to the interenet and know that beyud@mydomain.com goes to my email server in the office. I've always worked on closed intranets that send and receive internally and not to the outside. A down and dirty explaination will do and I'll see if I can fill in the blanks. Thanks a bunch for the help.-Help?

Because mydomain.com is set as a recipient domain on the 2003 server and you have SMTP addresses for that set on mail-enabled accounts. Messages destined for any other addresses will be routed to the connector scoped for that address. A SMTP connector with the address space of * will be used for all external domains. Once the message is routed to that connector, Exchange will route based on DNS or smart host entry...