A cloud engineer deployed an email server in a public cloud. Users can access the email server, but the emails they send cannot reach their destinations. Which of the following should the cloud…

The primary reason outbound emails fail to reach destinations, while internal access works, is often an incorrect server configuration, such as misconfigured SMTP settings, DNS records, or firewall rules blocking outbound mail ports. Confirming these configurations is the logical first step to identify and resolve the issue; if configuration seems correct, a software reinstallation might be needed to ensure no corruption.

An invalid security certificate primarily affects secure client connections (IMAP/POP3 over SSL/TLS) or server-to-server TLS, not necessarily the ability of emails to reach their destination if the core SMTP transport is misconfigured.

Email encryption service affects the confidentiality of emails, not their basic ability to be sent and delivered.

While a cloud vendor's anti-spam policy could potentially block some outgoing emails, checking internal server configuration, including DNS and SMTP settings, is a more fundamental and primary troubleshooting step before suspecting external blocks.