How to Install and Configure Exchange 2013 Edge Server

It's been long time I wrote any articles, but it's good to be back. In this article we will learn how to install and configure Exchange Server 2013 Edge Transport Role.
LAB environment:

2 Windows Server 2008 R2 Domain Controller
1 Exchange Server 2013 CU5 with Mailbox and CAS Server Role on Windows Server 2012 R2
1 Exchange Server 2013 CU5 Edge Server Role on Windows Server 2012 R2
2 NIC Card, 1 Internal and 1 External

The Edge Transport Server is not an Active Directory domain joined server, but it should have a normal FQDN which should be resolvable from the Internet. In the lab I am using exch03.exchangeranger.net for the server FQDN.

After installing the Windows Server 2012 R2 rename the server as per your requirement and add the Suffix, in my case it's exchangeranger.net

As the Edge Transport server is using the internal DNS servers for name resolution this should not be a problem on the Edge Transport Server, but on the internal network you have to add the Edge Transport server manually to the internal DNS servers. Create Host record in DNS for Edge Server.

First we will have to install prerequisites for Exchange 2013 Edge Transport Server by running the below commands:

Install-WindowsFeature RSAT-ADDS

Install-WindowsFeature ADLDS

Start the installation of Edge Transport Server 2013.

Next part is to make sure that Edge Server is able to ping the Mailbox Server and vise versa.

When I pinged the Mailbox Server from Edge Server it failed.

Make sure you disable the Windows Firewall on both Mailbox and Edge Server.

After disabling the Firewall you can ping the server both way.

Now the next part is to create the Edge Subscription.

To create the Edge Subscription file open the Exchange Management Shell and enter the following command:

New-EdgeSubscription –FileName C:\EdgeSubscription\Edge01.xml

Copy the XML file from Edge Transport to Mailbox Server to a location on the local disk in my case it's C:\EdgeSubscription drive of the Exchange 2013 Mailbox server. To import the XML file open the Exchange Management Shell and enter the following command:

New-EdgeSubscription -FileData ([byte[]]$(Get-Content -Path “C:\EdgeSubscription\Edge01.xml” -Encoding Byte -ReadCount 0)) -Site “Default-First-Site-Name”

Once you are done with Importing XML file on Mailbox Server successfully you need to start the Edge Synchronization, to start it we need run Start-EdgeSynchronization on Mailbox Server.

In the output above you see Result: CouldNotConnect and FailureDetails: The LDAP server is unavailable, don't panic give this process sometime and you will see Result: Success and FailureType: None as shown in below image.

Now it's time to get this newly installed Edge Server to work specifying it in a Smart Host on existing Send Connector on Mailbox Server or creating the new Send Connector all together. We are going to create new Send Connector named Internet.