Managing Transport Agents

This help section describes the process of managing ORF Transport Agents.

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 Before Arrival filtering and On Arrival filtering), the Vamsoft ORF Routing Agent (responsible for collecting outbound email data for the Auto Sender Whitelist) and the Vamsoft ORF 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 Transport 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.

For diagnostic purposes, you may want to temporarily disable these agents. This can be done using the Exchange PowerShell console.

Disabling ORF Transport Agents

Exchange 2019/2016

Edge Transport Server installation

On Exchange 2019/2016 Edge Transport servers, start the Exchange Management Shell console and run the

commands, then restart the MSExchangeTransport service to apply the changes:

Mailbox Server installation

On Exchange 2019/2016 Mailbox servers, start the Exchange Management Shell console and run the

commands, then restart the MSExchangeFrontEndTransport and MSExchangeTransport services to apply the changes:

Exchange 2013

Edge Transport Server installation

On Exchange 2013 Edge Transport servers, start the Exchange Management Shell console and run the

commands, then restart the MSExchangeTransport service to apply the changes:

Client Access Server-only installation

If the Client Access server and Mailbox server roles are installed on separate servers, the *-TransportAgent commands issued from the Exchange Management Shell on a Client Access server will always run on the Mailbox server. To manage the Transport Agents of the CAS, you should start a regular PowerShell prompt and install an additional snap-in in order to run the *-TransportAgent commands on the local server. For more information, please consult this article ("TransportAgent cmdlets on Client Access servers require local Windows PowerShell" section).

To disable the Transport agent, run the

command, then restart the MSExchangeFrontEndTransport service to apply the changes:

Mailbox Server-only installation

Start the Exchange Management Shell console and run the

commands, then restart the MSExchangeTransport service to apply the changes:

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

When both roles (Client Access server and Mailbox) are installed on the same server, Transport Agent PowerShell commands require an additional TransportService parameter to specify which role the command should run on (FrontEnd = CAS, Hub = Mailbox).

To disable ORF Transport Agents, start the Exchange PowerShell console and run the

commands respectively. Note that these changes will take effect only after restarting the related Exchange transport service(s):

Exchange 2010/2007

Start the Exchange Management Shell console and run the

commands. Note that these changes will take effect only after restarting the MSExchangeTransport service:

Enabling ORF Transport Agents

Exchange 2019/2016

Edge Transport Server installation

On Exchange 2019/2016 Edge Transport servers, start the Exchange Management Shell console and run the

commands, then restart the MSExchangeTransport service to apply the changes:

Mailbox Server installation

On Exchange 2019/2016 Mailbox servers, start the Exchange Management Shell console and run the

commands, then restart the MSExchangeFrontEndTransport and MSExchangeTransport services to apply the changes:

Exchange 2013

The simplest way to enable ORF Transport Agents if they get disabled is uninstalling and reinstalling them using the Exchange Helper tool — see the related Help topic for detailed instructions.

Alternatively, you can use Exchange Management Shell commands (see the instructions under Disabling an ORF Transport Agent above: simply use the Enable-TransportAgent command instead of Disable-TransportAgent).

Exchange 2010/2007

Start the Exchange Management Shell console and run the

commands. Note that these changes will take effect only after restarting the MSExchangeTransport service:

Installing Transport Agents

If, for any reason, the ORF Transport Agents get uninstalled, follow the instructions described in the related Help topic to install them.

Changing the Agent Priority

We recommend assigning the highest priority (1) to the Vamsoft ORF SMTP Receive Agent and Vamsoft ORF Routing Agent, and the lowest priority to the Vamsoft ORF Inbound Signing Agent.

Exchange 2019/2016

Edge Transport Server installation

On Exchange 2019/2016 Edge Transport servers, start the Exchange Management Shell console and run the

commands, where X is the new priority. The highest priority is 1. Note that priority values are not absolute—if you have 4 transport agents and you change the priority of an agent from 4 to 3, the agent that previously had priority 3 will have priority 4.

Finally restart the MSExchangeTransport service to apply the changes:

Mailbox Server installation

On Exchange 2019/2016 Mailbox servers, start the Exchange Management Shell console and run the

commands, where X is the new priority. The highest priority is 1. Note that priority values are not absolute—if you have 4 transport agents and you change the priority of an agent from 4 to 3, the agent that previously had priority 3 will have priority 4.

Finally restart the MSExchangeTransport service to apply the changes:

Exchange 2013

Edge Transport Server installation

On Exchange 2013 Edge Transport servers, start the Exchange Management Shell console and run the

commands, where X is the new priority. The highest priority is 1. Note that priority values are not absolute—if you have 4 transport agents and you change the priority of an agent from 4 to 3, the agent that previously had priority 3 will have priority 4.

Finally restart the MSExchangeTransport service to apply the changes:

Client Access Server-only installation

If the Client Access server and Mailbox server roles are installed on separate servers, the *-TransportAgent commands issued from the Exchange Management Shell on a Client Access server will always run on the Mailbox server. To manage the Transport Agents of the CAS, you should start a regular PowerShell prompt and install an additional snap-in in order to run the *-TransportAgent commands on the local server. For more information, please consult this article ("TransportAgent cmdlets on Client Access servers require local Windows PowerShell" section).

To change the priority of the ORF Transport agent, run the

command, then restart the MSExchangeFrontEndTransport service to apply the changes:

Mailbox Server-only installation

Start the Exchange Management Shell console and run the

commands, then restart the MSExchangeTransport service to apply the changes:

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

When both roles (Client Access server and Mailbox) are installed on the same server, Transport Agent PowerShell commands require an additional TransportService parameter to specify which role the command should run on (FrontEnd = CAS, Hub = Mailbox).

To change the priorities, start the Exchange PowerShell console and run the

commands respectively. Note that these changes will take effect only after restarting the related Exchange transport service(s):

Exchange 2010/2007

Start the Exchange Management Shell console and run the

command to get the list of transport agents installed on your system. To change the priority of the ORF Transport Agents, run the

commands, where X is the new priority. The highest priority is 1. Note that priority values are not absolute—if you have 4 transport agents and you change the priority of an agent from 4 to 3, the agent that previously had priority 3 will have priority 4.

Note that these changes will take effect only after restarting the MSExchangeTransport service: