6.8.1 ORF Online Help
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ORF Transport Agent Troubleshooting


ORF Transport Agents are lightweight components that connect Microsoft® Exchange 2007 and newer versions to the ORF Service, the actual filtering component of ORF. Transport Agents are installed along with ORF. If these Agents get uninstalled or disabled, ORF will not be able to communicate with the underlying Exchange server and no filtering will be applied on incoming emails.

This article provides instructions to address such problems.

Transport Agents used by ORF

For Microsoft® Exchange 2019, Exchange 2016, Exchange 2010 and Exchange 2007

ORF installs three Transport Agents: the Vamsoft ORF SMTP Receive Agent (responsible for filtering), the Vamsoft ORF Routing Agent (responsible for collecting outbound email data for the Auto Sender Whitelist) and the Vamsoft ORF SMTP Inbound Signing Agent (responsible for adding the ARC Set to tested emails).

For Microsoft® Exchange 2013

Similarly to previous Exchange versions, ORF may install the Vamsoft ORF SMTP Receive Agent, the Vamsoft ORF Routing Agent and the Vamsoft ORF Inbound Signing Agent, but the local Exchange roles decide which agents are actually installed.

Edge Server installation

All three Vamsoft ORF agents are installed.

Client Access Server-only installation

Only the Vamsoft ORF SMTP Receive Agent is installed.

Mailbox Server-only installation

All three Vamsoft ORF agents are installed.

Single-server, mixed Client Access Server + Mailbox Server installation

The Vamsoft ORF SMTP Receive Agent is installed twice, once for the Front-End Transport Service of Exchange 2013 Client Access Server and once for the Hub Transport Service of Exchange 2013 Mailbox Server. The Vamsoft ORF Routing Agent and Vamsoft ORF Inbound Signing Agent are also installed.

Checking the status of Transport Agents

There are several ways to check the status of Transport Agents.

Using the Administration Tool

The Transport Agent status is displayed on the InformationStatus page of the Administration Tool.

For single-server, mixed Client Access Server + Mailbox Server Exchange 2013 installations, the status displayed for the Vamsoft ORF SMTP Receive Agent is a compound status, because the agent is installed twice. The status will be "healthy" only if both agent instances are installed and enabled.

Using the ORF Exchange Helper

Navigate to the ORF directory where the ORF Exchange Helper executable (orfmexhelper.exe) resides (\Program Files\ORF Fusion (32-bit systems) or \Program Files (x86)\ORF Fusion (64-bit systems) by default) and issue the following command (administrator privileges are required):

orfmexhelper -status

Similarly to the Administration Tool, the Exchange Helper will return a compound status for the ORF SMTP Receive Agent (see box above).

Using the Exchange Management Shell

Start the Exchange Management Shell and enter the following command:

Get-TransportAgent | Format-List

As of writing this, the Exchange Management Shell should not be used to manage Transport Agents on Client Access Server installations, but local PowerShell is required with the Exchange Windows PowerShell snapin loaded. See "TransportAgent cmdlets on Client Access servers require local Windows PowerShell" section in this Microsoft® TechNet article for details.

Installing ORF Transport Agents

If the ORF Transport Agents are not listed, try installing them using the ORF Exchange Helper tool using the following command (administrator privileges are required):

orfmexhelper -install

Enabling ORF Transport Agents

If the ORF Transport Agents are installed, but disabled, reinstall them using the ORF Exchange Helper tool using the following commands (administrator privileges are required):

orfmexhelper -uninstall
orfmexhelper -install
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