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Exchange send connector logging

How to enable SMTP logging in Exchange Server 2013/2016/2019? We want to check the send connector logging, but where do we find the logging path location? In this article, you will learn more about Exchange send connector logging.

Introduction

Protocol logging records the SMTP conversations between messaging servers and between Exchange services in the transport pipeline as part of message delivery.

In the previous article, we discussed the Exchange receive connector logging. This time we will look into the Exchange send connector logging.

Get Exchange send connector

Sign in to Exchange admin center and navigate to mail flow > send connectors.

Note: When you create a send connector, it will be available for the whole Exchange organization. That’s why you don’t see the select Exchange Server option.

We have two send connectors on the Exchange Server:

Exchange send connector logging ecp

Get the information in a better view. Run Exchange Management Shell as administrator. Use the Get-SendConnector cmdlet.

[PS] C:\>Get-SendConnector | ft Identity,Enabled,Protocol*

Identity                                                      Enabled ProtocolLoggingLevel
--------                                                      ------- --------------------
Internet email                                                   True                 None
Outbound to Office 365 - 5af53ad5-4ce1-4406-bf3f-b8c796cf17b8    True                 None

Enable Exchange send connector logging

Click on the send connector in the list view. In this example, we will select the Exchange Internet email send connector. Click in the details pane on the On link to enable SMTP logging.

Exchange send connector logging off

The details pane will show Logging – On.

Exchange send connector logging on

Enable the send connector logging in Exchange Management Shell.

[PS] C:\>Get-SendConnector "Internet email" | Set-SendConnector -ProtocolLogging Verbose

Enable all Exchange send connector logs on Exchange Server.

[PS] C:\>Get-SendConnector | Set-SendConnector -ProtocolLogging Verbose

Exchange send connector log location

We can find Exchange send connector location and the maximum days to store the logs only with Exchange Management Shell. It’s not possible to find the send logs path in Exchange admin center.

Run Get-TransportService cmdlet to find the send connector log location path. In our example, we see two Exchange Servers as output because two Exchange Servers are running in the organization.

[PS] C:\>Get-TransportService | fl Identity,Send*


Identity                        : EX01-2016
SendProtocolLogMaxAge           : 30.00:00:00
SendProtocolLogMaxDirectorySize : 250 MB (262,144,000 bytes)
SendProtocolLogMaxFileSize      : 10 MB (10,485,760 bytes)
SendProtocolLogPath             : C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\TransportRoles\Logs\Hub\ProtocolLog\SmtpSend

Identity                        : EX02-2016
SendProtocolLogMaxAge           : 30.00:00:00
SendProtocolLogMaxDirectorySize : 250 MB (262,144,000 bytes)
SendProtocolLogMaxFileSize      : 10 MB (10,485,760 bytes)
SendProtocolLogPath             : C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\TransportRoles\Logs\Hub\ProtocolLog\SmtpSend

Check Exchange send connector logs

Copy the SendProtocolLogPath in the above output and paste it in Windows Explorer.

Note: If you have more than one Exchange Server added as source server for high availability, you need to check the path on all these Exchange Servers.

In this example, the SMTP send protocol logs are shown only on Exchange Server EX02-2016. The same log path is empty on Exchange Server EX01-2016 because we did enable logging just yet, and no mail flow is sent through that Exchange Server yet.

Exchange send connector logging hub logs

Open the log file, and you can verify the send messages. In this example, Amanda Morgan sent an email from the EXOIP organization to John Doe which is an external Gmail address.

Exchange send connector logging SMTP send protocol log

Disable send connector logging

Disable send connector logs on the Internet email send connector.

[PS] C:\>Get-SendConnector -Identity "Internet email" | Set-SendConnector -ProtocolLogging None

Disable all Exchange send connector logs on Exchange Server.

[PS] C:\>Get-SendConnector | Set-SendConnector -ProtocolLogging None

That’s it!

Read more: Search message tracking logs in Exchange »

Conclusion

In this article, you learned about Exchange send connector logging. Enable the logging for all the Exchange send connectors. It’s great when you want to troubleshoot mail flow and message tracking. By default, the directory will not take more than 250MB in size, and you can always expand the logging size.

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ALI TAJRAN

ALI TAJRAN

ALI TAJRAN is a passionate IT Architect, IT Consultant, and Microsoft Certified Trainer. He started Information Technology at a very young age, and his goal is to teach and inspire others. Read more »

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