Exchange 2007 unable to mount database

Recently we had a power failure which caused an improper shutdown to our exchange servers. After recovered from power failure we restarted all servers and fixed some cluster issues but there is one database which is showing failed in cluster manager. I had tried to mount the database but it was not successful and showing that there are some log files missing due to which database cannot mount.

For checking what log files are missing I ran following commands against the database which was not mounting. For running this command we have to go to the log drive of the database first and then run this command.

eseutil /mh

The output of this command is showing that the database is in dirty shutdown state and also showing that what log files are missing. I have checked these log files and luckily I have all log files present in the log drives folder.

Now recovery is easy, I have just renamed the check point file to any other name and try to mount it again and this time it mounts successfully without any issues and new checkpoint file is created.

Renewing Edge Synchronization

If you have added any domain on HUB server and you are not able to see this domain on Edge server then might be your synchronization between your hub and edge servers are not working. To test this you can run following command;

Test-EdgeSynchronization

If the connection result is showing failed then you need to do edge subscription again for this edge server. Following are the steps for this

1. On the edge server which is not synchronizing run following command;

New-EdgeSubscription -filename "C:\temp\edgesub.xml"

now copy this .xml file to hub server and run following command

New-EdgeSubscription -filename "C:\temp\edgesub.xml" –site London

Please note the site parameter is required to bind this edge server to a specific AD site.

Now run following command

Start-EdgeSynchronization

You will notice that now the edge server is synchronizing data with HUB server.

For verification you can run test command again and this time it should show you the success message

Test-EdgeSynchronization

Enabling SCR on WAN

SCR is an Exchange 2007 DR solution available from Exchange 2007 SP1 onwards.  You can enable SCR on LAN and also on high latency networks. SCR also gives you benefit to recover from a Datacenter failover scenario. Since last month i was working to enable SCR between our DCs connected via MPLS. After a thorough analysis and lots of try and error i have compiled following results;

SCR Enabling Steps:

1. Seeding of .Edb File.

2. Enable Replication.

3. Monitor Replication

 

Step 1: Seeding:

Seeding is a prerequisite for enabling SCR, we can enable seeding by automatic way and manual way, because i have to seed .edb file on MPLS which is a high latency network i have to go for manual procedure. Following steps i have followed for manual seeding.

1. Take a snapshot of storage group on which i want to enable SCR (we are using snapshot based backup solution) you can also take the normal backup of the storage group. This will also truncate all the committed logs and we have less log files to copy from source to destination after enabling replication.

2. Run  below Command

Enable-StorageGroupCopy -Identity StorageGroup1 -StandbyMachine London1 -ReplayLagTime 0.1:0:0 –SeedingPostponed

The above command will enable SCR on storage group “StorageGroup1”. Standby machine (destination server) used is London and the replay lag time i have mentioned is 1 minute. seeding postponed is used because i don't want to enable seeding automatically i want to copy .edb file manually to destination server.

After running the above command, log files for this storage group will not truncate unless until we enable replication. This means that the drive space of log files folder should also be carefully planned because if the latency is high and the .edb file is taking days to copy then the log file drive space might going to be fill which will affect the production environment.

3. Take a snapshot on the storage group again or take a normal storage group backup again.

4. Ask the backup team to provide the .edb file from the last snapshot.

5. Use TeraCopy to copy .edb file from source to destination server. make sure the drive letters for log and data drive are same on standby server because it is one of the prerequisites of SCR.

2. Enabling Replication:

Replication will copy all logs files from source to destination. Replication is an ongoing process and whenever a log file is created on source it has to be shipped to destination for making both source and destination mailbox databases in same state.

Following is the command for enabling replication

Resume-StorageGroupCopy -Identity StorageGroup1 -StandbyMachine London1

after running the above command you will see that the log files started to copy from source to destination server. Standby server will replay these log files after 50 logs files has been copied. The first log file after you enable SCR should be present on destination otherwise replication will fail.

3. Monitoring Replication:

It is very important to check the status of storage group copy. The below command will show us the health of SCR and how many files in copy queue and replay queue.

get-storagegroupcopystatus StorageGroup1 -standbymachine London1

If you are seeing failed  in the summarycopystatus field then there is a possibility that the database you have seeded and the logs files copied are not at the same state (LSN number mismatch) or might be you don't have the first log file available to replay on the destination.

If you are seeing large number of files in copy queue length then bandwidth might be the possible cause.

You can also run following command on standby server for checking replication status;

Test-ReplicationHealth

Exchange 2007 unable to view deleted mailbox

In exchange 2007 if you delete any mailbox or any AD user, the mailbox will be there for 30 days in disconnected mailbox view and you can reconnect it again within 30 days if you want to restore the mailbox to its original state. After 30 days the mailbox will be permanently deleted and you can then only restore it from the backup.

Recently i faced a strange issue, one of the mailbox user was deleted by mistake and i am unable to see this user in disconnected mailbox view. The mailbox was deleted 2 days back which is under 30 days threshold but still the mailbox was not visible. After done some research and some help from one of my friend i figured out that i have to run following command in order to make this mailbox visible in disconnected mailbox view

Clean-mailboxdatabase –identity Databasename

As per Microsoft,

“use the Clean-MailboxDatabase cmdlet to scan the Active Directory directory service for disconnected mailboxes that are not yet marked as disconnected in the Microsoft Exchange store and update the status of those mailboxes in the Exchange store. This cmdlet is not able to update the Exchange store unless the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service is running and the database is mounted.

A connected mailbox has two parts: the mailbox object in the Exchange store, and the user object with Exchange properties in Active Directory. A disconnected mailbox is the mailbox object in the Exchange store, but it is not connected to a user object in Active Directory

Under normal circumstances, it is not necessary to run Clean-MailboxDatabase because a mailbox is marked as disconnected immediately after the Disable-Mailbox or Remove-Mailbox command completes. If you used the Disable-Mailbox cmdlet or the Remove-Mailbox cmdlet while the Exchange Information Store service was stopped, or if a mailbox was disabled by an external means other than the Disable-Mailbox cmdlet or Remove-Mailbox cmdlet, you may want to use the Clean-MailboxDatabase cmdlet to scan for disconnected mailboxes.”

Exchange 2007- Mapi session exceeded the maximum of 32 objects of type "session"

Two days back i faced a strange issue from one of the user that he is not able to open his outlook. Although he can open his OWA but whenever he open his outlook he is getting following error

“Unable to open your default e-mail folders. You must connect to your Microsoft Exchange Server computer with the current profile before you can synchronize your folders with the offline folder file”

After further investigation i found that there is an event logged in the application events of the mailbox server for the same user

Event Type:      Error
Event Source:      MSExchangeIS
Event Category:      General
Event ID:      9646
Date:            XXXXX
Time:           XXXXX
User:            N/A
Computer:      XXXXX
Description:
Mapi session "/o=firstorganisation=XXXX/cn=Recipients/cn=username" exceeded the maximum of 32 objects of type "session".

After researching i found following KB on the same issue

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/842022

As per this KB this issue may occur if the following conditions are true:

• You have installed Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) on the Exchange Server computer.
• A program that is running on a client computer opens many MAPI sessions to the Exchange Server computer. The number of MAPI sessions is larger than the permitted limit.
• You are using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, and you add a large additional mailbox to your profile. For example, this issue may occur if the additional mailbox contains more than one thousand folders.

I am unable to found any of the above condition in my case. Also fixes mentioned in this article is not relevant to my case except the last registry change which i don't want to apply for one user.

Then i decided to view the connections on the mailbox server. I downloaded TCP view utility from sysinternals (one of the best sites for troubleshooting tools). After running TCP view i have seen lots of connections coming to mailbox server but the user name which i was searching was not visible in the list of connections, then i ran following command on exchange management shell for finding out the source IP of the user having problem

Get-logonstatistics username | FT ClientIPAddress

After viewing the IP Address i searched the IP address in the TCP View and was able to found lots of connections coming from the same IP, i killed these sessions by using Kill option in TCP view and then again tried to open the outlook and the issue gone !!!!  I have also informed the user to have a look on his PC for checking if there is any third party software or any other MAPI program which is causing this issue for having a permanent fix for this.

Publishing Exchange 2007 OWA via ISA 2006 Reverse Proxy

The best way to publish OWA is to publish via ISA reverse proxy deployment. In this blog i will discuss the process for publishing OWA via ISA reverse proxy. The process will be like this;

1. Generate CSR for Exchange 2007 CAS server(s).

I have discussed CSR generation in my previous blogs (http://khurramullah.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/exchange-2007-certificate-request-generator/ and http://khurramullah.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/command-for-generating-csr-for-exchange-servers/) if you have more than one CAS servers then you have to repeat the steps for all of them.

Make sure you have included all Subject Alternative  Names (SANs) in your certificate requests such as for webmail, auto discover services etc.

2. Submit this request to online Certificate Authorities such as VeriSign, Thwate or Entrust for purchasing UCC (Unified communication certificate). (Exchange 2007 only supports UCC type certificates, UCC=multiple SANs).

3. Now we have to import these certificates to Exchange CAS servers.( I have discussed these steps in my previous blog http://khurramullah.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/importing-certificates-to-exchange-servers/)

4. Now we have to deploy this certificate to ISA servers. In order to do this you have to first Export certificate from CAS server in .PFX format and then imports it to the ISA servers. Following is the process for doing this;

1. Open Certificate MMC Snap in on the CAS server for local computer.
2. Go to personal container and locate the certificate which you want to Deploy on ISA Server.
3. Export this certificate with private key in .PFX format.
4. Copy this certificate on ISA Server.
5. Open Certificate MMC Snap in on the ISA server for local computer.
6. Import the copied certificate.
7. Repeat steps 4 to 7 if you have more than one ISA Servers.

5. Forms-based authentication can be configured on the Client Access server when not using ISA Server to publish Exchange Web client access. When ISA Server is being used to publish Exchange Web client access, forms-based authentication should only be configured on the ISA Server computer following are the steps for validating this;

1. Start the Exchange Management Console.
2. In the Exchange Management Console, expand Server Configuration, and then click Client Access.
3. Select a Client Access server and then select owa (Default Web Site) on the Outlook Web Access page.
4. In the action pane, click Properties under owa (Default Web Site).
5. Select the Authentication page, and confirm that the following are selected: Use one or more of the following standard authentication methods and Integrated + Basic authentication (password is sent in clear text).
6. Click OK.
7. Review the Microsoft Exchange Warning dialog box and click OK.
8. Restart IIS by running following command: "iisreset /noforce".
9. Perform this procedure for every Exchange Client Access server.

6. On the CAS server please make sure that “Forms based authentication” is not configured on the Exchange Client Access Activesync folder. By default it is configured for basic authentication.This folder is configured to Basic authentication by default.

7. On the enabling page for Outlook Anywhere, we will use Basic authentication (default).

Note: The external host name used here should match the common name or FQDN used in the server certificate installed on the ISA Server computer

8. Now we need to publish a Rule for OWA on ISA but before doing this we need to configure web Listener for OWA which will be responsible for  listening OWA requests, following are the steps for configuring web listener for OWA

1. In the console tree of ISA Server Management, click Firewall Policy:
2. For ISA Server 2006 Standard Edition, expand Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006, expand Server_Name, and then click Firewall Policy.
3. For ISA Server 2006 Enterprise Edition, expand Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006, expand Arrays, expand Array_Name, and then click Firewall Policy.
4. On the Toolbox tab, click Network Objects, click New, and then select Web Listener. Use the wizard to create the Web listener as outlined in the following table

Page	Field or property	Setting
Welcome	Web listener name	Type a name for the Web listener. For example, type Exchange Web Listener.
Client Connection Security	Select what type of connections this Web listener will establish with clients	Select Require SSL secured connections with clients.
Web Listener IP Addresses	Listen for incoming Web requests on these networks ISA Server will compress content	Select the External and Internal networks. Check box should be selected (default). Click Select IP Addresses
External Network Listener IP Selection	Listen for requests on Available IP Addresses	Select Specified IP addresses on the ISA Server computer in the selected network. Select the correct IP address and click Add.   Notes For ISA Server Enterprise Edition with an NLB-enabled array, you should select a virtual IP address.
Listener SSL Certificates	Select a certificate for each IP address, or specify a single certificate for this Web listener	Select Assign a certificate for each IP address. Select the IP address you just selected and click Select Certificate. Choose the certificate corresponding to the url mapped to this IP in the public DNS/NAT configuration Example: External 192.168.1.101 for abcmail; .102 for xyzmail and .103 for autodiscover Internal: 192.168.12.101 for abcmail; .102 for xyzmail (autodiscover is resolved differently in intranet)
Authentication Settings	Select how clients will provide credentials to ISA Server Select how ISA Server will validate client credentials	Select HTML Form Authentication for forms-based authentication and select the appropriate method that ISA Server will use to validate the client's credentials.
Single Sign On Settings	Enable SSO for Web sites published with this Web listener SSO domain name	Leave the default setting to enable SSO. To enable SSO between two published sites, such as abcmail.Contoso.com and autodiscover.Constoso.com, type .Contoso.com (with the dot)
Completing the New Web Listener Wizard	Completing the New Web Listener Wizard	Review the selected settings and click Back to make changes or Finish to complete the wizard.

 

9.  Now after creating web Listener we need to publish a rule for OWA, following are the steps for this process;

1. In the console tree of ISA Server Management, click Firewall Policy:
2. For ISA Server 2006 Enterprise Edition, expand Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006, expand Arrays, expand Array_Name, and then click Firewall Policy.
3. On the Tasks tab, click Exchange Web Client Access Publishing rule.
4. Use the wizard to create the rule as outlined in the following tables. For a single Web server, use the table in New Exchange Publishing Rule wizard for a single Web site. If you are using a server farm, use the table in New Exchange Publishing Rule wizard for a server farm.

   Page	Field or property	Setting
   Welcome	Exchange Publishing rule name	Type a name for the rule. For example Constoso OWA Publishing Rule
   Select Services	Exchange version Web client mail services	Select Exchange Server 2007. Select the desired access method – begin with OWA, then Outlook Anywhere (Select to publish additional folders) and finally choose ActiveSync
   Publishing Type	Select if this rule will publish a single Web site or external load balancer, a Web server farm, or multiple Web sites	Select Publish a single Web site or load balancer.
   Server Connection Security	Choose the type of connections ISA Server will establish with the published Web server or server farm	Select Use SSL to connect to the published Web server or server farm.   Note A server certificate must be installed on the published Exchange Client Access server, and the root CA certificate of the CA that issued the server certificate on the Exchange Client Access server must be installed on the ISA Server computer.
   Internal Publishing Details	Internal site name	Type abc.contoso.com or whatever you like   Important The internal site name must match the name of the server certificate that is installed on the internal Exchange Client Access server.
   Public Name Details	Accept requests for Public name	This domain name (type below) Type the domain name that you want ISA Server to accept the connection for. For example, type abc.contoso.com. This must match the FQDN of the certificate selected when creating the Web listener.
   Select Web Listener	Web listener	Select the Web listener you created previously, Exchange Web Listener
   Authentication Delegation	Select the method used by ISA Server to authenticate to the published Web server	For Outlook Web Access, select Basic Authentication. For Exchange ActiveSync, select Basic Authentication For Outlook Anywhere, select Basic Authentication
   User Sets	This rule applies to requests from the following user sets	Select the user set approved to access this rule. Replace the default All Authenticated users with All Users Pass the warning
   Completing the New Exchange Publishing Rule Wizard	Completing the New Exchange Publishing Wizard.	Review the selected settings, click Back to make changes or Finish to complete the wizard.

   Note: When publishing Outlook Web Access, after you click Finish, review the Remaining Exchange Publishing Tasks dialog box, and then click OK.

5. In the path tab (properties of the OWA rule), add the path “/” in order to be able to access OWA without typing /owa at the end of the url

 

Microsoft Antigen for Exchange

If you wan to try Microsoft Antigen for Exchange before purchasing it then here is your link

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=866b63bf-6207-4197-9c5d-511b7212e40c

You can download this trial version and test it for free.

Importing Certificates to Exchange 2007 servers

In my previous blogs (http://khurramullah.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/command-for-generating-csr-for-exchange-servers/ and http://khurramullah.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/exchange-2007-certificate-request-generator/) i have discussed how we can generate CSR for different exchange roles. Here i will discuss how we can import certificates to different exchange roles. Following is the command for importing certificates;

Import-ExchangeCertificate -Path “c:\path\generated SAN certif_name.cer” –friendlyname “<Certificate Friendly Name>”

After running this command successfully you should be seeing the thumbprint of the new certificate. Copy the full thumbprint value because you will required this in the next commands.

Now you have to enable your certificate for specific services for example for SMTP and Web services.

For enabling CAS server certificates run this command:

Get-exchangecertificate <Thumbprint>| enable-exchangecertificate -services "IIS”

 

For enabling Edge server certificates run this command

Get-exchangecertificate <Thumbprint>| enable-exchangecertificate -services "SMTP”

After running above command run Get-exchangecertificate again for verifying if services are enabled or not.

You can also combine the above 2 commands like this;

Import-ExchangeCertificate -Path “c:\path\generated SAN certif_name.cer” –friendlyname “<Certificate Friendly Name>” | enable-exchangecertificate -services "IIS”

Following are the possible values for services parameter;

• IMAP
• POP
• UM
• IIS
• SMTP
• None

Do not import exchange certificate by normal certificate importing methods (import from certificate MMC Snap in) otherwise certificate will not going to work. Also make sure you have Trusted root CA and Intermediate CA certificates installed in their relevant stores otherwise certificate will have issues.

In case you want to import or apply the same certificate to another Edge or CAS server then you need to perform following addition steps;

1. Open Certificate MMC Snap in on the server for local computer.

2. Go to personal container and locate the certificate which you had just imported.

3. Export this certificate with private key.

5. Copy this certificate on the server where you want to configure this certificate.

6. Run following command on the second server which you want to configure from the same certificate;

Import-ExchangeCertificate -Path c:\path\<certificate file>.pfx –Password:(Get-Credential).password

The Get-Credential cmdlet in the above command pops up a standard username\password dialog box. This is little bit confusing because we don't need a username to get to the keys, just put whatever you want for the username, but put the password that you used when you ran the Export certificate wizard the Certificate Manager snap-in in MMC.

7. Run command Get-ExchangeCertificate to get the thumbprint of this certificate.

8. Run command EnableCertificate –thumbprint <copy the thumbprint> -services “IIS”

9. After running above command run Get-exchangecertificate again for verifying if services are enabled or not.

Command for Generating CSR for Exchange servers

During Edge server configuration, you are required to bind a certificate to edge server for securing edge server communication. For this you have to run a powershell command which will generate a required CSR for you ( I have discussed a tool for CSR generation in my previous blog http://khurramullah.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/exchange-2007-certificate-request-generator/). Here in this blog i will discuss the powershell command for CSR generation. A typical command will be like this

New-ExchangeCertificate -GenerateRequest -Path c:\Server1_Contoso_com.csr -KeySize 1024 -SubjectName "c=SG, s=, l=Singapore, o=Fictious Enterprise, ou=Information Technology, cn=Server1.Contoso.com"  -PrivateKeyExportable $True

 

There are some important parameters in this command which i will discuss below

Path: The path where the CSR file will save.

KeySize: possible values are 1024, 2048.

Subject Name: Subject name consists of different parameters which are;

c=Country, c=State, I=City, o= organization, ou=organization unit or department, cn=common name (for example the public name of your website)

 

PrivateKeyExportable: This will mark the key as exportable so you can backup it and deploy it to another server if required.

Exchange 2007 Certificate Request Generator

Generating CSR for any exchange 2007 role is little bit tricky and required a quite long Powershell command to run. For making it lot simpler a company named as digicert has published a free tool on internet which is accepting different parameters and provide us a powershell command which we can run and generate CSR for any server role, Following is the link of this tool;

DigiCert's Exchange 2007 CSR generation Tool

https://www.digicert.com/easy-csr/exchange2007.htm

Disabling Message Subject Logging

Message Subject logging is by default enabled in Message Tracking Logging. You might need to disable Message subject logging as part of compliance and Security requirements, in order to achieve this you have to run following command

Note: Before you enable or disable message subject logging, make sure that you verify your organization's policy about revealing subject line information.

Set-TransportServer <ServerName> -MessageTrackingLogSubjectLoggingEnabled $false

Changing Exchange server Queues and Logs directory Location

When you install Exchange 2007 Edge or Hub Transport Role, by default Exchange setup configures Queues, Replay, Pickup and Transport logs directory on C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server Folder. In an enterprise environment where you have high volume of emails coming in and out it is good to have separate drive for these folders . Following are the steps for changing the these folders default location

Old Queues, Replay, Pickup and Transport logs directory: C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server

New Queues, Replay, Pickup and Transport logs directory: F:\Exchange

 

Configuration steps for Queue Directory:

1. Create the following directory: F:\Exchange\Queue

Permissions Required for the Directory:

Administrator: Full Control

System: Full Control

Network Service: Full Control

 

2.  Open the following file by using Notepad:

 C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Bin\EdgeTransport.exe.config

 

3. .Modify the following line in the <appSettings> section:

<add key="QueueDatabasePath" value=" F:\Exchange\Queue " />

And

<add key="QueueDatabaseLoggingPath" value=" F:\Exchange\Queue " />

4. Save and close the EdgeTransport.exe.config file.

5.Restart the Microsoft Exchange Transport service.

(Make sure you have also added the same set of accounts with the same permissions on F:\Exchange folder otherwise Microsoft exchange Transport service will not start.)

 

Configuration steps for Pickup Directory:

1. Open Exchange Management Shell.

2. Run following commands
Set-TransportServer <ServerName> –PickupDirectoryPath "F:\Exchange\Pickup"

Permissions Required for Pickup Directory

Administrator: Full Control

System: Full Control

Network Service: Read, Write, and Delete Subfolders and File

Configuration steps for Replay Directory:

1. Open Exchange Management Shell.

2. Run following commands
Set-TransportServer <ServerName> -ReplayDirectoryPath "F:\Exchange\Replay”

Permissions Required for Replay Directory

Administrator: Full Control

System: Full Control

Network Service: Read, Write, and Delete Subfolders and File

 

Configuration steps for Transport Logs-Connectivity Logs Directory:

1. To change the location of connectivity logs run following commands
Set-TransportServer <ServerName> -ConnectivityLogPath "F:\Exchange\Logs\Connectivity"

Permissions Required for Directory

Administrator: Full Control

System: Full Control

Network Service: Read, Write, and Delete Subfolders and File

Configuration steps for Transport Logs-Protocol Logs Directory:

1. To change the location of Send Protocol Logs run following commands
Set-TransportServer <ServerName> -SendProtocolLogPath "F:\Exchange\Logs\ProtocolLog\SmtpSend"

2. To change the location of Receive Protocol Logs run following commands
Set-TransportServer <ServerName> -ReceiveProtocolLogPath "F:\Exchange\Logs\ProtocolLog\SmtpReceive"

Permissions Required for Directory

Administrator: Full Control

System: Full Control

Network Service: Read, Write, and Delete Subfolders and File

 

Configuration steps for Transport Logs-Routing Table Logs Directory:

1. To change the location of Routing Table Logs run following commands
Set-TransportServer <server name> -RoutingTableLogPath "F:\Exchange\Logs\Routing"

Permissions Required for Directory

Administrator: Full Control

System: Full Control

Network Service: Read, Write, and Delete Subfolders and File

 

Configuration steps for Transport Logs-Message Tracking Directory:

1. To change the location of Messaging Tracking Logs run following commands
Set-TransportServer <ServerName> -MessageTrackingLogPath " F:\Exchange \logs\MessageTracking"

Note: You might need to disable Message subject logging as part of compliance requirement, in order to achieve this you have to run following command

Set-TransportServer <ServerName> -MessageTrackingLogSubjectLoggingEnabled $false

Permissions Required for Directory

Administrator: Full Control

System: Full Control

Network Service: Read, Write, and Delete Subfolders and File

PowerShell Script for getting list of users having no Default Quota Set

In a big exchange environment having more than 5000 users, it is hard to control Mailbox quota limit, you continuously gets pressure from the executive and top management for increasing their Mailbox quota and it is very hard to control that who has the default quota limit and who has not. Following commands can help in these type of situations by simplifying reporting and giving a list of users having no default quota set. The results from this command can be used for identifying the possible users who no longer need customized quota and should be configured back to default quota for ease of maintenance

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize unlimited -Database <Mailbox Server\Database Name>  | where {  (  $_.UseDatabaseQuotaDefaults -eq $false) }

Exchange 2007 DR Training

Last week i have attended 3 day Exchange 2007 DR training. It was level 300 training and was delivered by one of MS Exchange PFE Pelin Taldilal (i think i misspelled her last name). This course was designed after getting feedbacks and inputs from lots of MS PFEs all around the world. This is a new course and as per my information its was first time delivered in ME Region. The course contains lots of excellent information on Exchange DR configuration such as CCR,SCR and SCC. This course was offered as part of Microsoft premier customer agreement. I will post some blogs on exchange DR in the future covering information which i learned from this training.

Exchange Mailbox Movement – BlackBerry issue

Last week i faced a strange issue, we are facing some space issue on one volume so i draft a strategy to move selective mailboxes from one database to another database located in another storage group, on the weekend i ran one batch of users and moved them to another database. All goes fine. Next day was a working day and i got some complains that users are not able to sync and use their blackberry devices. Initially i thought that it is some other issue but after investigation i found that these are the same users which i have moved on weekend. After some search i found that Blackberry has some problem when we move mailboxes between storage groups in different databases on same server. It seems that blackberry services are not aware or are not updating itself for reflecting the database change. Although as per some articles the mailbox movements between servers is not an issues only within the same server has but i haven't tested it.  By following the instructions on Blackberry support site i have restarted the Blackberry Enterprise service and the result was as per the expectation the problem goes away. I think Blackberry has to work on this glitch and should fix it in the next release or in the next service pack.

Edge server Configured as Regional or Remote Site Mail relay server

I have one of the requirements from my regional Admins to allow mail relay for their regions. Mostly they want mail relay for;

1.local exchange or SMTP servers.

2. Printers and scanners wants to send emails

3. Devices and Application servers wants to send alert notifications.

4. Some of the devices and servers only support Anonymous permissions settings.

In order to provide this functionality, i can create a site specific receive connector on HUB and allow only their specific server IPs to allow relay emails, but there is a problem, i don't have any control on their site and server security and allowing relay directly to HUB server means their communication is directly terminating to our Enterprise/Business zone which is a high security risk. I thought why shouldn’t i use my edge servers sitting in DMZ zone and allow relay from them? .  I have checked connectivity of these sites from DMZ and found that i can reach them. I was researching on it and had also discussed it with one of my friends (Nicolas Blank, an expert in exchange configuration and migration) he also agreed on my idea and had guided me to following article

http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2007/security-message-hygiene/using-exchange-2007-edge-server-mail-relay-exchange-2003-organization-part1.html

After reading this article i am now more confident about this configuration, I think that in a scenario where we don't have any control on remote site security and we have a demand to open anonymous security then its better to open relay on edge servers rather then on HUB servers.

Exchange Public Folder information

I was researching on some public folder stuff and luckily found a very good Microsoft TechNet article on same. check out the link;

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124684(EXCHG.65).aspx

Sending Emails from external ids to Exchange Public folder

If you want to enable external emails (hotmail, yahoo etc) to public folders then you have to make sure that anonymous permissions on PF is set to contributor. vice versa if you want to disable external emails to any PF then you have to set anonymous permissions on any PF to none.

Outlook Troubleshooting

Most of the time we face lot of complains that users are not able to access their emails on outlook or exchange is not responding, in most of the cases client's outlook has some problem and users don't realize it. Following are some of the steps which will be handy in troubleshooting these types of issues and also narrow downing the problem scope;

Test 1 : Testing OWA:

1. Get the troubled user user id and password and test from OWA or ask him to open his mailbox via OWA.

2 . or create a test Mail account and Access OWA from it to verify that Exchange is working fine and user is able to access their emails.

If OWA is working fine then we have to concentrate on Client side troubleshooting else we have to look at the server side and check CAS servers and ISA severs (If reverse proxy is in use) (i will discuss server side troubleshooting in my next blog).

Test 2: Deleting Addins Registry Keys:

1. Logon to a troubled user machine.

2. Navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Extensions (If it exists)
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Extensions (If it exists)

3. Export the keys (for backup purpose), right click each subkey and click Delete.

 

Test 3: Configure Selected Startup:

1. Go to Run and type msconfig.

2. Select Selective Startup in General Tab.

3. Click to clear Process SYSTEM.INI file, Process WIN.INI File and Load Startup Items.

4. Click tab Services and select option Hide All Microsoft Services, and click button Disable All and click OK

5. Restart computer.

Test 4: Check if issue is occurring in Cached Mode:

Create a Outlook profile with Exchange cached mode and then test.

Test 5 : Check if issue is occurring in Online Mode:

Change Outlook profile in online mode, and open Outlook again and then test.

Test 6: Configure outlook profile for using RPC over HTTP:

1. Open outlook profile configuration and select Connections Tab

2. In the outlook Anywhere selection check connect to Ms exchange using HTTP.

3. Enter OWA address in exchange URL text box.

4. Assuming that user is sitting in a LAN environment, select “On Slow networks, Connect using HTTP first, then connect using TCP/IP.

5. Select Proxy server authentication settings based on your exchange server configuration.

6. Click OK.

7. Close Outlook completely. verify that there is no outlook.exe process visible in task manager.

8. Launch outlook again.

9. Hold control and press right click on outlook icon in system tray.

10. Click on connection status and verify that all connections are established by using HTTPS protocol not TCP/IP protocol.

Test outlook by sending and receiving emails. If this works then it means there might be some TCP/IP (RPC) communication problem between your client and server. You have to involve your network team and verify that if there is any network device causing issue or playing with the TCP/IP settings or TCP/IP packets.

Powershell Command for public folder permissions

 

If you want to replicate all permissions which parent public folder have to all child PFs, then you need to run following powershell script

adduserstopfrecursive.ps1 -toppublicfolder "<Parent Public Folder Name" -user "<User or group name>" -permissions –<permissions>

for example:

adduserstopfrecursive.ps1 -toppublicfolder "\SALES" -user "PFOwners" -permissions owner