Sending mail from network devices through Office 365

You just completed a migration to Office 365 for all your users but now you need to relay mail from network devices like copiers and scanners. You will need to setup a relay connector in Office 365 to allow these simple SMTP devices to relay mail to you or other 3rd party email addresses.

Below is the basic instructions on how to allow mail from a known IP address to pass through your Office 365 Exchange service.

1. Obtain the public IP address  you’re using when mail goes out from scanner.
2. Log on to the Office 365 Portal.
3. Select Domains. Highlight one of your domains and use the wizard to obtain your MX record. The MX record will look similar to contoso.com.mail.protection.outlook.com. Make a note of the MX record for later.
4. In the upper right, select Admin and then select Exchange from the drop down.
5. In the Exchange Admin Center, select Mail Flow > Connectors.
6. If no inbound connector exists,  create one.
   1. Give the connector a name.
   2. Select On-Premises for the  Connector Type.
   3. Under Domains, add a single  asterisk (*). This will allow sending to any domain. Other values in this field will limit the domains that you can send mail to.
   4. In the IP Addresses section,   add the IP address from Step 1.
   5. Leave all the other fields with their default values and select Save.
7. In the DNS for your domain, I suggest that you modify your SPF record to include the IP address from Step 1. The finished string should look similar to this: v=spf1 ip4:10.1.2.3   include:spf.protection.outlook.com ~all   where 10.1.2.3 is your  public IP address.  Skipping this step could cause email to be sent to recipients’ junk mail folders.
8. In the device’s settings,  specify a Smart Host value equal to the MX record value you recorded in Step 3.
9. That’s it!

Enjoy

Cubert  😎