The Exchange Server 2010 protocol logs can reveal some interesting information to you about the number of SMTP errors that are occurring for connections to or from your server.

This information is useful for scenarios such as checking whether your outbound mail may experiencing a high rate of failure, or discovering whether someone is continually trying to relay through your email server (in which case you could then look at the top sender IP addresses to investigate further).

Remember that protocol logging is not enabled by default on Exchange 2010, and must be enabled on a per-connector basis if you want to use it.

For SMTP error statistics we can use Log Parser to check the protocol logs for instances of SMTP status codes starting with “5” (which are permanent failures). The Log Parser query for this is as follows:

SELECT data as [Status Code],
	Count(*) as Hits
FROM *.log
WHERE data LIKE '5%'
GROUP BY data
ORDER BY Hits DESC

When run from the folder containing the protocol logs it will be as follows:

"C:Program Files (x86)Log Parser 2.2logparser.exe" "SELECT data as [Status Code],Count(*) as Hits FROM *.log WHERE data LIKE '5%' GROUP BY data ORDER BY Hits DESC" -i:CSV -nSkipLines:4 -rtp:-1

This will give you output similar to this:

Status Code                                       Hits
------------------------------------------------- ----
500 5.3.3 Unrecognized command                    3632
501 5.1.3 Invalid address                         1411
501 5.1.7 Invalid address                         200
554 5.4.6 Hop count exceeded - possible mail loop 100
503 5.5.2 Send hello first                        20
503 5.5.2 Sender already specified                4
501 5.5.4 Unrecognized parameter                  2
504 5.7.4 Unrecognized authentication type        1

Statistics:
-----------
Elements processed: 13113294
Elements output:    8
Execution time:     150.15 seconds (00:02:30.15)

You can also report on the number of SMTP errors occurring each day to get a baseline, which will help when you need to identify whether a sudden spike in SMTP errors has occurred. This Log Parser query will be as follows:

SELECT TO_LOCALTIME(TO_TIMESTAMP(EXTRACT_PREFIX(TO_STRING([#Fields: date-time]),0,'T'), 'yyyy-MM-dd')) AS Date,
	COUNT(*) AS Hits
FROM *.log
WHERE (data LIKE '5%')
GROUP BY Date
ORDER BY Date ASC

When run from the protocol log directory it will be as follows:

"C:Program Files (x86)Log Parser 2.2logparser.exe" "SELECT TO_LOCALTIME(TO_TIMESTAMP(EXTRACT_PREFIX(TO_STRING([#Fields: date-time]),0,'T'), 'yyyy-MM-dd')) AS Date, COUNT(*) AS Hits from *.log where (data LIKE '5%') GROUP BY Date ORDER BY Date ASC" -i:CSV -nSkipLines:4 -rtp:-1

And of course, provided you have the Office Web Components installed, you can generate a graph of this same data.

"C:Program Files (x86)Log Parser 2.2logparser.exe" "SELECT TO_LOCALTIME(TO_TIMESTAMP(EXTRACT_PREFIX(TO_STRING([#Fields: date-time]),0,'T'), 'yyyy-MM-dd')) AS Date, COUNT(*) AS [SMTP Errors] INTO DailySMTPErrors.gif from *.log where (data LIKE '5%') GROUP BY Date ORDER BY Date ASC" -i:CSV -nSkipLines:4 -chartType:Column3D

Which will give you a graph similar to this:

Generate SMTP Error Statistics using Log Parser and Exchange Server 2010 Protocol Logs

About the Author

Paul Cunningham

Paul is a former Microsoft MVP for Office Apps and Services. He works as a consultant, writer, and trainer specializing in Office 365 and Exchange Server. Paul no longer writes for Practical365.com.

Comments

  1. Luca Capelli

    Hi Paul,
    I would like to extract all anonymous access from smtp logs.
    I have a receive connector with anonynous users enabled in permission groups tab.
    Do you know if there is a way to do it ?

    Thank you very much.
    Best regards.

    Luca Capelli

      1. Luca Capelli

        Thank’s Paul,
        I can find only some “autheticated” connection between all log rows.
        What is the exactly value I have to search inside logs to find anonymous authentications ?
        Thank’s a lot.

  2. Stephen Carey

    How can I fix a ‘5.1.3 Invalid address’ error? My outbound email are not being sent.
    Thanks,
    Stephen

  3. Ed Steele

    Just some feedback on the tagged content – it is so annoying that one cannot select the text beyond the horizontal scroll!!! It is maddening. You have to use notepad to piece together the pieces that are visible until you get the whole string. IE 11.

    Unless I am missing something, I have been absolutely unable to select the entire text of the items in one shot.

    For example: “C:Program Files (x86)Log Parser 2.2logparser.exe” “SELECT TO_LOCALTIME(TO_TIMESTAMP(EXTRACT

    and that is as good as it gets.

      1. Ed Steele

        Thanks Paul. After a few retries I was actually able to get it to select all. It must have been something wrong with the operator valve. Thanks again. Ed

  4. mano

    Hi

    Can you please let me how i get the TLS email traffic from Exchange 2010 edge server SMTP protocol send log.

    Logparser or Powershell… Please sugget and share some example.

  5. Muzi

    thanks for the awesome post Paul… like always :), is it possible to fetch the failed count for specific time, e.g. for past one day or one hour,

    thanks in advance.

  6. Mike

    I think it’s picking up on lines such as these:

    2012-08-28T13:28:25.935Z,To_Internet,08CF52B5572C1755,14,192.168.84.3:49949,REMOTE_IP:25,*,563579,sending message
    2012-08-28T13:28:30.185Z,To_Internet,08CF52B5572C1757,34,192.168.84.3:49950,REMOTE_IP:25,*,563581,sending message
    2012-08-28T13:30:57.064Z,To_Internet,08CF52B5572C1780,34,192.168.84.3:49976,REMOTE_IP:25,*,563595,sending message

      1. Mike

        In my examples, the bad lines are all 6 digit codes or longer that start with 5. Is there a way to tell logparser to only pick up codes that start with 5 and are 3 digits long?

  7. Mike

    Hi Paul- thanks for the great write-up. I have one question. My output has some odd things in it, I think it’s picking up numbers in the data column that are not indicative of SMTP errors, many of them are 6 digits. My output is below. Am I misunderstanding or is logparser picking up 5’s that are not SMTP errors?

    Status Code Hits
    —————————————————————————— —-
    550003 803
    547710 753
    554271 620
    556009 557
    556436 404
    552224 217
    550725 128
    559783 57
    519658271A49FFA3E619EE416620EF524552103F 47
    51F7900806F0783F09D45D5017A89322AFEB3FC3 39
    558912 23
    555756 23
    550 5.1.1 Host 63.250.236.234 error: B1.1.1 20
    556487 13
    559347 12
    559342 11
    556250 9
    557094 8
    554 rejected due to spam content 8
    559324 8
    559246 8
    550 5.7.1 Recipients have complained about included content (B-URL) 7
    564148 6
    559625 6
    559433 6
    557062 6
    562798 6
    559628 6
    557161 6
    557431 6
    534E5E0F2AE22351F9A6D5D12931B5081D60FD47 6
    563211 6
    563217 5
    550 No Such User Here 5
    550 #5.1.0 Address rejected. 5
    556914 5
    550 5.1.1 User unknown 5
    561213 5
    561798 5
    503 need MAIL FROM first 5
    559114 5
    559746 5
    559328 5
    558814 4
    559758 4
    556824 4
    556868 4
    500 5.3.3 Unrecognized command 4
    550-5.1.1 The email account that you tried to reach does 4
    550-5.1.1 unnecessary spaces. Learn more at 4

    Statistics:
    ———–
    Elements processed: 140056
    Elements output: 50
    Execution time: 0.17 seconds

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