Enabling the MRSProxy Service on Exchange 2010 RTM & SP1 (pre-SP2)

Jan 24th, 12 / 0 Comments

The MRSProxy is a component of Microsoft Exchange 2010 that facilitates cross-forest mailbox moves.

Microsoft improved the management of the Exchange 2010 MRSProxy with SP2.  There are new cmdlets available to allow for easier management of the MRSProxy component, however, Microsoft did not maintain the TechNet documentation that describes how to do this on systems that do not have SP2 installed.  The TechNet article, Start the MRSProxy Service on a Remote Client Access Server, has been updated to only show the SP2 approach.

As a reference, here is how you enable the MRSPRoxy fon Exchange servers prior to SP2.

To enable the MRSProxy service, you need to edit the EWS “web.config” file that is located (Default Install Dir) in “C:\Program Files\Exchange Server\V14\Client Access\exchweb\ews”.  The parameter to edit is “IsEnabled” that is located in the section that starts with “<!– Mailbox Replication Proxy Server configuration –>”

Update the web.config line that reads IsEnabled=”false” to IsEnabled=”true”.

I’m not sure if it is required, but I usually restart the Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Replication service after this change is complete.  Keep im mind this service is responsible for transaction log shipping, so you may want to shuffle around your active database copies if you are using a DAG or perform this change during a maintenance window.

Restart-Service MSExchangeMailboxReplication

For more information about cross-forest mailbox moves check out the TechNet article titled, Understanding Move Requests.

Preparing to Rebuild an Entire Exchange 2010 Organization

Aug 15th, 11 / 0 Comments

With the release of Exchange 2010 there has been some great advancement with high availability and site resiliency.  The traditional methods of disaster recovery are fading away.  Modern day high availability capabilities are introducing backup-less strategies.  Does that mean we don’t need to know how to get our messaging systems up and running in the event of a large scale major disaster….I think not?!

This thought process all got started when I was working to a recent effort to bring up a lab environment.  We didn’t have a lab in any way, but some systems were hosted on VMware’s hypervisor.  This included a couple Domain Controllers, but not any Exchange servers (mix of E2K7 & E2K10).  Creating a lab that mirrored production from scratch would be quite the undertaking, I mean, we were talking about some 14+ Exchange servers….not fun.  Well, to me, that scenario felt a lot like a disaster recovery situation and it got my wheels turning.  The use of Exchange’s recovery feature (setup.exe /m:RecoverServer) would allow me to leverage the directory (AD) that could be quickly cloned (thank you virtualization) to the lab.  After all, most Exchange configuration information is stored in Active Directory.  After building a few virtual machines for Exchange and I should be up and running.  I should mention that in this case, I don’t really care about the data, so the only material I really need is a Domain Controller and the Exchange installation media.

Read More

Field Notes: Exchange 2010 Coexistence and URL Redirection Mayhem

Mar 30th, 11 / 7 Comments

During a recent deployment of Exchange 2010 I ran into a rather challenging issue. This deployment involved maintaining a solid coexistence with a legacy Exchange 2003 deployment. After updating DNS records to route traffic to the Exchange 2010 CAS server(s) and configuring URL redirection using the method described in the MS TechNet article Simplifying the Outlook Web App URL (modified date: 2010-04-19) connections to the <CASArrayURL>\Exchange were receiving an IIS error (see Symptoms).

The project required that we maintain this URL functionality because users were both familiar with this URL and many had shortcuts that referenced this location.

Read More

Checking Exchange 2010 for Open Relay Configuration

Mar 7th, 11 / 0 Comments

There is plenty of information on the web that instructs us how to configure Exchange 2010 (or 2007) to allow for relay of SMTP to external recipients (Open Relay). For example, Microsoft has posted these instructions.

However, I couldn’t easily find any information about how to check if this was already configured. This could be handy in verifying that a recent configuration was successful or with troubleshooting an open relay issue. The following PowerShell command checks all Receive Connectors on all Exchange servers (2007 & 2010) and returns any Receive Connectors that have been granted the ability to relay to external recipients.

Get-ReceiveConnector | get-ADPermission -User "NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON" | Where {$_.ExtendedRights -like "Ms-Exch-SMTP-Accept-Any-Recipient"}

Send-SMTP PowerShell Script

Sep 10th, 10 / 1 Comment

I’ve been creating scripts to automate administrative tasks for myself and clients. PowerShell scripts are a very nice way of accomplishing the needed automation when working with Exchange 2010.

One such task often involves gathering information for monitoring purposes. To facilitate the sharing of information it is always helpful to be able to send email.

I have been using this script for a while now that allows for just that. The code is below or you can download the .ps1 file: Send-SMTP.ps1. Enjoy!

<#
.SYNOPSIS
    Sends Email Message
.DESCRIPTION
    Allows the generation and submission of a SMTP message to an MTA (email server).

.NOTES
    Version      : 1.0 - 04/26/2010 - initial version
    Rights Req'd : Local Server Admin
    Sch Task Req : No
    Author       : Robert Durkin
    Email        : rdurkin (at) ehloworld.net
    Blog         : http://ehloworld.net
    Disclaimer   : Don't blame me if this breaks your stuff.  Please don't Spam!
    References   :
.LINK
	Online Version: http://ehloworld.net/?p=60
.EXAMPLE
	.\Send-SMTP.ps1 -From "sender@domain.net" -To "recipient@domain.net" -Subject "Blog Post" -Body "Ehlo World!" -Server mailer.domain.com
.INPUTS

#>

#Requires -Version 2.0

PARAM(
	[Parameter(Mandatory = $True,valueFromPipeline=$True)][string] $From,
	[Parameter(Mandatory = $True,valueFromPipeline=$True)][string] $To,
	[Parameter(Mandatory = $True,valueFromPipeline=$True)][string] $Subject,
	[Parameter(Mandatory = $True,valueFromPipeline=$True)][string] $Body,
	[Parameter(Mandatory = $True,valueFromPipeline=$True)][string] $Server,
	[Parameter(Mandatory = $false,valueFromPipeline=$True)] $File
) #end param

#Create Mailer Object and assign values
$MTA = New-Object Net.Mail.SMTPclient($Server)
$Msg = New-Object Net.Mail.MailMessage

$Msg.From = $From
$Msg.To.Add($To)
$Msg.Subject = $Subject
$Msg.Body = $Body

#Attach File, if applicable
IF ($File -ne $Null)
{
	$File = New-Object Net.Mail.Attachment($File)
	$Msg.Attachments.Add($File)
}

$MTA.send($Msg)

Exchange 2010 SP1 is Released! Sweet!

Aug 26th, 10 / 0 Comments

Microsoft released Exchange 2010 Service Pack one today.  You can download it here.  There many things that come with SP1 that I have been waiting for.  I have been keeping tabs on the progress and reading about the new features, here are some of the Exchange Team Blog articles relating to SP1 that I found valuable:

Enjoy!

My WordPress Blog Setup Experience

May 21st, 10 / 0 Comments

I’ve been meaning to blog for a while now and have finally decided to take the time and set something up. I’ve decided to use WordPress (http://wordpress.org) and host the site on my long time hosting provider, Omnis (http://omnis.com).

The setup was fairly straight forward. My hosting provider actually had WordPress listed as an installable package. After a few clicks I was in business, thank you Omnis.

I spent about an hour poking around the admin control panel, setting various settings. I also wanted to be able to upload content from a client, rather than being required to post from a browser. I thought that would come in handy when trying to document thoughts even if I wasn’t “plugged in”.

I was pleased to discover that Microsoft Word 2007 was a supported client has some built in publishing features, and they support the use of publishing to WordPress using XML-RPC. Here are the sites I used for reference.

http://codex.wordpress.org/Weblog_Client

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/ha101640211033.aspx

I am using the Word 2010 Beta, so I decided to give that a try. There is a Share option on the File menu that included Publish as Blog Post, the wizard walked me through the setup. I did get an error my first try, because I did not enable XML-RPC via the WordPress control panel. I found that disabled by default. Once I enabled that the wizard completed successfully. Everything is looking good and I’m testing Word 2010 with this very post.

Here goes nothing…

Subnetting slash notation cheat sheet

Sep 21st, 07 / 0 Comments

The following table lists the variable length subnets from 1 to 32, the CIDR [3] representation form (/xx) and the Decmial equivalents. (M = Million, K=Thousand, A,B,C= traditional class values)

Mask value: # of
Hex CIDR Decimal addresses Classfull
80.00.00.00 /1 128.0.0.0 2048 M 128 A
C0.00.00.00 /2 192.0.0.0 1024 M 64 A
E0.00.00.00 /3 224.0.0.0 512 M 32 A
F0.00.00.00 /4 240.0.0.0 256 M 16 A
F8.00.00.00 /5 248.0.0.0 128 M 8 A
FC.00.00.00 /6 252.0.0.0 64 M 4 A
FE.00.00.00 /7 254.0.0.0 32 M 2 A
FF.00.00.00 /8 255.0.0.0 16 M 1 A
FF.80.00.00 /9 255.128.0.0 8 M 128 B
FF.C0.00.00 /10 255.192.0.0 4 M 64 B
FF.E0.00.00 /11 255.224.0.0 2 M 32 B
FF.F0.00.00 /12 255.240.0.0 1024 K 16 B
FF.F8.00.00 /13 255.248.0.0 512 K 8 B
FF.FC.00.00 /14 255.252.0.0 256 K 4 B
FF.FE.00.00 /15 255.254.0.0 128 K 2 B
FF.FF.00.00 /16 255.255.0.0 64 K 1 B
FF.FF.80.00 /17 255.255.128.0 32 K 128 C
FF.FF.C0.00 /18 255.255.192.0 16 K 64 C
FF.FF.E0.00 /19 255.255.224.0 8 K 32 C
FF.FF.F0.00 /20 255.255.240.0 4 K 16 C
FF.FF.F8.00 /21 255.255.248.0 2 K 8 C
FF.FF.FC.00 /22 255.255.252.0 1 K 4 C
FF.FF.FE.00 /23 255.255.254.0 512 2 C
FF.FF.FF.00 /24 255.255.255.0 256 1 C
FF.FF.FF.80 /25 255.255.255.128 128 1/2 C
FF.FF.FF.C0 /26 255.255.255.192 64 1/4 C
FF.FF.FF.E0 /27 255.255.255.224 32 1/8 C
FF.FF.FF.F0 /28 255.255.255.240 16 1/16 C
FF.FF.FF.F8 /29 255.255.255.248 8 1/32 C
FF.FF.FF.FC /30 255.255.255.252 4 1/64 C
FF.FF.FF.FE /31 255.255.255.254 2 1/128 C
FF.FF.FF.FF /32 255.255.255.255 This is a single host route

Limit MAPI client access to Exchange by version

Jun 25th, 07 / 0 Comments
This article describes a feature that you can use to disable MAPI client access to a computer that is running Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, or Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server based on the version number of the Emsmdb32 file. This feature was introduced in Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server Service Pack 1 (SP1).

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/288894

The below information was obtained from Microsoft TechNet website. This is not the complete article, that can be found at the following URL:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998081.aspx

Build numbers and corresponding MAPI version numbers for relevant versions of Outlook

Version Build number MAPI number
Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2000 6.1.0–6.9999.0 6.x
Outlook 2003 11.0.5604.0 11.5604
Outlook 2002 SP3 10.0.6515.0 10.0.6515
Outlook 2002 10.0.2627.1 10.0.2627
Outlook 2000 SP3 5.5.3165.0 5.3165.0
Outlook 2000 SR1a 5.5.3121.0 5.3121.0
Outlook 98, with security update installed 5.5.2652.57 5.2652.57
Outlook 98 5.5.2178.0 5.2178.0

To help protect against all outdated versions of Outlook (Outlook 98 with no security update installed, and earlier versions), disallow all versions of Outlook with build numbers equal to or less than 5.5.2178.0 from connecting to Exchange. The value data as specified in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article 288894 are the following:

Value name: Disable MAPI ClientsValue type: REG_SZValue data: -5.2178.0

If you are blocking ranges of Outlook clients, be sure to leave the 6.0 range open for Exchange administration. Specifically, do not block any values from 6.1.0 to 6.9999.0. All versions of Exchange 2000 and later use a 6.0.0 range for administration. The following table shows the registry key value to enter to block specific ranges of Outlook clients against computers running Exchange 2000 or later.

Registry key values to block ranges of
Outlook clients

To allow Set the registry key to
Only Outlook 2003 -6.0.0;10.0.0-11.5603.0
Outlook 2002 SP3 and later -6.0.0;10.0.0-10.0.6514;11.0.0-11.5603.0
Outlook 2000 SP3 and later -5.3164.0;10.0.0-10.0.6514;11.0.0-11.5603.0
Outlook 98 with security update installed and later -5.2652.56;5.3000.0-5.3164.0;10.0.0-10.0.6514;11.0.0-11.5603.0

Microsoft Product Support Services does not support Outlook clients that are earlier than Outlook 2000 SP3. Outlook 2000 SP3 contains the Outlook 2000 security update. Exchange 2000 servers require that the store process be restarted after a change is made to this registry value. However, in the original released version of Exchange 2003 and later versions, implementation of this parameter is dynamically applied within 15 minutes of the change.

Best practices for configuring the Microsoft Windows pagefile

May 15th, 07 / 0 Comments
Best practices for configuring the Windows pagefile for the following operating systems:



  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition (32-bit x86)
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition (32-bit x86)
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition (32-bit x86)
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
  • Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Enterprise Edition
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition
  • Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.51
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.51

Refer to this URL: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=197379



Best practices for configuring the Windows pagefile for the following operating systems:



  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition for Itanium-Based Systems
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition for Itanium-based Systems
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard x64 Edition
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Datacenter x64 Edition
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise x64 Edition
  • Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
  • Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

Refer to this URL: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/889654