What is the difference between a regular mail server and a mail relay server? From what I understand on mail relay server, a mail relay server is another regular mail sever between sender's mail server and the receiver's mail server, except that both sender's and receiver's email will go through it and both sender's and receiver's mail server won't have direct contact. If I have an exchange server and a mail relay server in the same network, is this setup a waste? Do I need a different domain name for the mail relay server? Any thought/advice is appreciated! Hi, everyone ^_^

A mail server is said to "relay" if it has the ability to deliver messages to domains other than the one it hosts. I'm sure there are servers out there that stricly act as hosting machines and will not do outbound relay. However, mostly all mail servers have the capability to relay. bob@foo.com sends a message to sue@foobar.com. bob's e-mail server just performed a relay. sue responds to bob. sue's e-mail server just performed a relay. bob@foo.com sends a message to matt@foo.com. the message was delivered to matt, but it is not technically considered a relay. the message delivery was internal.

I see, thanks for the help Hi, everyone ^_^