Exchange

Exchange Powershell

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In recent months both myself and powershell are becoming best buds. I love the way how it makes my life so much easier. I’ve been asked by plenty of customers for a comprehensive list of mailboxes on their IT systems, you can find out by entering the following powershell command on Microsoft Exchange 2007, 2010 and 2013 servers:

get-mailbox –resultsize unlimited | get-mailboxstatistics | select-object DisplayName,TotalItemSize,LastLogonTime | Sort-Object DisplayName

The above command will display a list of mailboxes sorted by the DisplayName field, the size of mailbox and when they last logged on.

If you would like to output this to a text file to send to someone you can use:

get-mailbox –resultsize unlimited | get-mailboxstatistics | select-object DisplayName,TotalItemSize,LastLogonTime | Sort-Object DisplayName > C:\list-of-mailboxes.txt

Enjoy

Exchange 2003 – iPhone / iPad remote email

Hello all

We have recently had to setup Exchange 2003 to enable access for iPhones and iPads. The server had already been setup for Outlook Web Access, however when attempting to connect an Apple device for email access we received the following error:

Event Source: Server ActiveSync

Event ID: 3029

The mailbox server [exchange.x.com] has its [exchange] virtual directory set to require SSL. Exchange ActiveSync cannot access the server if SSL is set to be required. For information about how to correctly configure Exchange virtual directory settings, see Microsoft Knowledge Base article 817379, “Exchange ActiveSync and Outlook Mobile Access errors occur when SSL or forms-based authentication is required for Exchange Server 2003”.

To resolve this we had configure an additional Exchange Virtual Directory in IIS which didn’t require SSL.

You must use Internet IIS Manager to create this virtual directory for Exchange ActiveSync and Outlook Mobile Access to work.

Locate the Exchange virtual directory. The default location is as follows:
Web Sites\Default Web Site\Exchange

Right-click the Exchange virtual directory, click All Tasks, and then click Save Configuration to a File.
In the File name box, type a name. For example, type ExchangeVDir. Click OK.

Right-click the root of this Web site. Typically, this is Default Web Site. Click New, and then click Virtual Directory (from file).

In the Import Configuration dialog box, click Browse, locate the file that you created in step 4, click Open, and then click Read File.

Under Select a configuration to import , click Exchange, and then click OK.

A dialog box will appear that states that the “virtual directory already exists.”
Select the Create a new virtual directory option. In the Alias box, type a name for the new virtual directory that you want Exchange ActiveSync and Outlook Mobile Access to use. For example, type exchange-oma.

Click OK.

Right-click the new virtual directory. In this example, click exchange-oma. Click Properties.
Click the Directory Security tab.

Under Authentication and access control, click Edit.

Make sure that only the following authentication methods are enabled, and then click OK:

  • Integrated Windows authentication
  • Basic authentication

On the Directory Security tab, under IP address and domain name restrictions, click Edit.
Click the option for Denied access, click Add, click Single computer and type the IP address of the server that you are configuring, and then click OK twice.

Under Secure communications, click Edit. Make sure that Require secure channel (SSL) is not enabled, and then click OK.

Click OK, and then close the IIS Manager.
Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.

Locate the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MasSync\Parameters

Right-click Parameters, click to New, and then click String Value.
Type ExchangeVDir, and then press ENTER. Right-click ExchangeVDir, and then click Modify.

NoteExchangeVDir is case-sensitive. If you do not type ExchangeVDir exactly as it appears in this article, ActiveSync does not find the key when it locates the exchange-oma folder.

  • In the Value data box, type the name of the new virtual directory that you created in step 8. For example, type /exchange-oma. Click OK.
  • Quit Registry Editor.

Restart the IIS Admin service. To do this, follow these steps:

  • Click Start, click Run, type services.msc, and then click OK.
  • In the list of services, right-click IIS Admin service, and then click Restart.

If you want to reuse Forms-based Authentication on the Exchange server, follow these steps to re-enable Forms-based Authentication on the /Exchange virtual directory in Exchange System Manager.

  • Open Exchange Manager.
  • Expand Administrative Groups, expand the first administrative group, and then expand Servers.
  • Expand the server container for the Exchange Server 2003 server that you will be configuring, expand Protocols, and then expand HTTP.
  • Under the HTTP container, right-click the Exchange Virtual Server container, and then click Properties.
  • Click the Settings tab, click to select the Enable Forms Based Authentication check box, and then click OK.
  • Close Exchange Manager.
  • Click Start, click Run, type IISRESET/NOFORCE, and then press ENTER to restart Internet Information Services (IIS).

#BESMigration for Exchange from BES 4.1 to BES 5 #Blackberry

Hello all

I have recently had to perform a migration for one of our customers from Blackberry Enterprise Server 4.1 (4.1.7.17) for Exchange with integrated MSDE to Blackberry Enterprise Server 5 (5.0.3.31) for Exchange with a dedicated SQL 2005 Server. Thankfully RIM produced a handy tool called the BES Enterprise Transporter which is part of the Resource Kit.

First of all make sure you have completed all of the perquisites for the BES 5 installation, theses consists of the following at time of writing (for an official guide please click here):

Configure Windows permissions for the Blackberry Service Account

  • Add user to local administrators group on the BES 5 Server (Computer Management);
  • Enable log on locally (Local Security Policy);
  • Enable log on as a service (Local Security Policy);
  • The Blackberry Service Account already had the Send As / Receive As permission assigned to it on the domain level;

Configure SQL Server:

  • Logon to the SQL Server and create a new database for the BES Configuration (I called mine BESMgmt);
  • Assign the Blackberry Service Account the following server roles, Server Administrators and Database Creators, then assign the account with the db_owner database role.

When performing the BES 5 installation, I installed it under the Blackberry Service Account and followed the on screen instructions. I then completed the basic settings such as licensing, IT Policy, etc.

Blackberry Enterprise Transporter Tool

We then want to start the fun part where we migrate users from one server to another. You can download and install the BES Enterprise Transporter tool from here. Open the Transporter Tool and complete the following steps:

  • Create a user manifest file, this is an XML file which stores the information about the source / destination Blackberry domain;
  • Setup the two database connections, these settings will be cache for future;
  • Click details, and then click find users. You will then be able to search and select the users you wish to migrate, I recommend performing this on a test account if you have the ability to do so first. Select the destination IT Policy you wish to apply to the user and click done. You can the preview the task which will display the expected results, if this completes successfully you can continue to migrate the user by clicking migrate.

The migration of a user took a couple of minutes, however this may vary depending on your environment. The great thing about this process is that it’s completely transparent and the user doesn’t lose any emails as redirection is disabled on the original BES until the new BES is ready to take over.

Thanks for reading, I hope you found this useful.