Exchange - MCPblog

28.10.2009

Active Directory Lightweight Services (ADAM) and ADSIEDIT ports

As you may know or may not know Exchange's EDGE role requires operating server that is not member of active directory. So how EDGE server knows info about recipient, configuration, and schema? One of the requirements before installing EDGE role is to install ADAM (on Windows Server 2003) or Active Directory LightWeight Directory Service Role (on Windows Server 2008). Btw, ADAM is short for Active Directory Application Mode and its kind a special mode of Active Directory service designed to store information for directory-based applications. Yes, the one that can read and speak LDAP.

After you're done with installation you have ADSIEDIT utility to examine data stored in partitions of this special AD. With regular AD you have data in "NTDS.DIT", here data is stored in "<EXCHANGE LOCATION>\TransportRoles\data\Adam\ADAMNTDS.DIT".

Open ADSIEDIT (from administrative tools or from MMC) and as a port number type 50389. You can choose between following partitions:

Configuration
Domain
Schema

Posted at 14:29 by Bojan Buhač | Category: Exchange | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

18.11.2008

How to create Anonymous Receive (Relay) Connector Exchange Server 2007

Here is step-by-step how to create anonymous recipient relay connector

Create a new Receive Connector with the Custom Usage Group
For Remote Network Settings default values are 0.0.0.0 -255.255.255.255, where you can add IP address range (for example if you have clients who are talking with exchange on port 25), or/and specific IP Address of the remote server that requires relaying permissions.
Once the new Custom Receive Connector is created, go into the properties of this connector
Go to the Permission Groups Tab > check Anonymous Users
1. To activate Anonymous users to use this connector for relaying, you must issue the following command using PowerShell :

Get- ReceiveConnector "Receive Connector Name "| Add-ADPermission - User "NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON "- ExtendedRights "Ms- Exch-SMTP-Accept-Any- Recipient "

This command is actually adding permission into Active Directory for the Anonymous Logon group, and assign the Ms- Exch -SMTP -Accept -Any- Recipient permission for that group on that connector.

Posted at 14:41 by Nikola Simonović | Category: Exchange | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

30.4.2008

How to remove disconnected mailboxes in Exchange Server 2007

If you are lookin for a way how to purge disconnected mailbox from Exchange 2007 from Exchange
Management Console you in for a big surprise because only way to do it is by using shell. Exchange Server 2007 doesn't allow you to purge the disconnected mailbox and in order to remove single or multiple disconnected mailboxes you can do following:

Get all disconnected mailboxes

Get-MailboxStatistics | where-object { $_.DisconnectDate -ne $null } | Select DisplayName,MailboxGuid

Remove a single disconnected mailbox

Remove-Mailbox -Database <Database-Name> -StoreMailboxIdentity <MailboxGuid> -confirm:$false

Remove all disconnected mailboxes

$users = Get-MailboxStatistics | where-object { $_.DisconnectDate -ne $null } | Select DisplayName,MailboxGuid,Database

Now, all disconnected mailboxes are in a variable and you need to run following cmdlet to remove all of them:

$users | ForEach { Remove-Mailbox -Database $_.Database -StoreMailboxIdentity $_.MailboxGuid -confirm:$false }

Posted at 9:17 by Bojan Buhač | Category: Exchange | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

29.4.2008

Am I having problems with Exchange 2003 and LCS 2005 on the same box?

To test this, try to add a database to the Recovery Storage Group, and if the Exchange System Manager program crashes then the answer to this post title is YES, Specifically, this symptom occurs when the Microsoft Office Live Communications Server (LCS) 2005 Administrator tools and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 are installed on a same computer.

Also, you can try to preview the users of Default Global Address List (Exchange System Manager > Recipients >All Global Address Lists > Right Click Default Global Address List > Click Preview) and if it fails with Active Directory Extension failed (check for maildsmx.dll and Lcdsuiex.dll in event log) you could resolve this by following solutions:

Read this KB article and contact MS support http://support.microsoft.com/kb/900253/en-us
Read second KB article, download and apply the LCS 2005 SP1 hotfix http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=911996

Btw, second one solved my problem, eventhough I got the hotfix from Microsoft support.

Posted at 14:01 by Bojan Buhač | Category: Exchange | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Exchange Server 2007 Component Architecture poster

Very popular Exchange Server 2007 TechNet magazine poster is available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=FDCDF6E5-DE47-4B58-8086-282101BCDDE9&displaylang=en.

This poster highlights the feature set of Exchange Server 2007. Sections include:

Management and Monitoring
High Availability
Client Access, Edge Transport, Hub Transport, Mailbox, and Unified Messaging server roles

Posted at 14:01 by Bojan Buhač | Category: Exchange | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

SP1 for Exchange 2007 is Final

Finally Exchange 2007 SP1 (Final) is here. As I wrote in first article there is a list of many new features that are implemented in SP1. Download it at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=44C66AD6-F185-4A1D-A9AB-473C1188954C&displaylang=en

Improvements in Exchange Server 2007 SP1 include:

Anywhere Access

Integrated Exchange Unified Messaging functionality with Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007.
Outlook Web Access additions, including public folder access, S/MIME support, personal distribution lists, and mailbox rules editor.
Webready document viewer supports Microsoft Office 2007 documents in addition to Microsoft Office 2003 documents.
Extended language support in Outlook Web Access with Arabic and Korean spell checking.

Operational Efficiency

Support for Windows Server 2008 deployments, including benefits in flexible clustering, advanced networking, and simplified management.
Additional tools in the Exchange Management Console, including public folder management and configuration options for clustering and POP/IMAP access.
Improvements to the Exchange Management Shell syntax and import-export PST in the move-mailbox command.
Wider variety of web services for application development, including public folder access, delegate management, and folder level permissions.

Built-in Protection

Addition of Standby Continuous Replication (SCR) for site resilient high availability deployments.
Extended Exchange ActiveSync policies for mobile policy enforcement.
Information rights management pre-licensing by the Hub Transport role.
Secure Real Time Protocol (SRTP) support in the Unified Messaging role.
Support for IPv6 when using Windows Server 2008.

Posted at 14:00 by Bojan Buhač | Category: Exchange | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Installing Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008 problem

Recently I stumbled upon problem while instaling Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008, that resulted in delayed start of Microsoft Exchange Transport Service. After several minutes of retrying to start this service, setup failed and Error 2114 was logged in application log

Process MSEXCHANGEADTOPOLOGYSERVICE.EXE (PID=1712). Topology discovery failed, error 0x80040a02 (DSC_E_NO_SUITABLE_CDC). Look up the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) error code specified in the event description. To do this, use Microsoft Knowledge Base article 218185, "Microsoft LDAP Error Codes." Use the information in that article to learn more about the cause and resolution to this error. Use the Ping or PathPing command-line tools to test network connectivity to local domain controllers.

After browsing for solution I have figured it out. Problem was with disabled IPv6 on the network adapter. This seems to prevent the correct topology resolution. By simply enabling IPv6 on the adapter all services were able to start.

After that all you need to do is re-run the Exchange Setup again in Maintainance mode and add missing fetures.

Posted at 13:59 by Bojan Buhač | Category: Exchange | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Exchange 2007 demo

If you want to try fully functional Exchange server for 5 days with Unified Messaging, you can create a temporary account at: https://signmeup.exchange2007demo.com/exchange2007demo/

Your account will be pre-populated with sample messages, calendar appointments and a voice message to help you have a rich experience. You will be able to send and receive mail, schedule meetings, and adjust your options. You can access your account via Outlook Web Access, Outlook, or an Exchange Active-Sync compatible application.

Posted at 13:52 by Bojan Buhač | Category: Exchange | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Change Exchange 2007 sending and receiving message size

For those users who are used to Exchange 2003 GUI and now find that some features are missing from Exchange 2007 GUI it's hard to figure out all commands of power shell.

Today I had a couple of hours of deep diving into Exchange 2007 KB to solve simple problem of increasing Exchange's sending and receiveing size.

The power shell command is quite simple but results are confusing:

Set-TransportConfig -MaxReceiveSize 10MB -MaxSendSize 10MB -MaxRecipientEnvelopeLimit 5000

and to verify settings just type:

Get-TransportConfig

After that restart Microsoft Exchange Transport Service and the size should be changed. I have tried restarting all services (during work time) but no results. Even tried to change these values per user, but no effect.

After few hours i managed to get open window to restart server, and after that everything worked like charm.

If you are using Exchange 2003 and 2007 together try to match sending and receiving size on both.

Posted at 13:51 by Bojan Buhač | Category: Exchange | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Unable to create mailbox on Exchange 2007

Couple of customers have reported the following error when they try to create mailbox on Exchange 2007 server.

The error message goes like this:

An Exchange 2007 server on which an address list service is active cannot be found.

Management Shell command attempted:
Enable-Mailbox -Identity:'MAILAB.COM/Users/Mike' -Alias:'Mike -Database:'CN=Mailbox Database,CN=First Storage Group,CN=InformationStore,CN=TEST-EXC2007,CN=Servers,CN=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDFYEHF56SPDLT),CN=Administrative Groups,CN=Temp,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=MAILAB,DC=COM'

Elapsed Time: 00:00:01

In most cases the problem is that Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service has stopped.

A work around for this is to set a "Recovery" option to the Exchange System Attendant service. Set the service to restart after the 1st failure.

Currently, we are investigating why did this service went to stopped state on its own.

Posted at 13:51 by Bojan Buhač | Category: Exchange | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

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