How to install Exchange Server 2003

Before reading this please read the how to prepare the Exchange Server installation on my previous post
Step by step procedure
1. Open the exchange installation folder, double click setup file, a new window will open like this. This page shows the option of exchange deployment tools. Click the Exchange Deployment Tools


2. Exchange Deployment tools are a collection of tools and a predefined process for installing Exchange. Using the Deployment Tools you can:

• Deploy the first Exchange 2003 server
• Install Exchange 2003 on an additional server
• Perform post-installation setup
• Install Exchange System Management Tools only

Click Deploy the first Exchange 2003 Server


3. In this window we can choose 4 below mentioned options, we are going to install new exchange server. So select New Exchange 2003 Installation



4. It will show you the pre requisite steps to do, check all the 7 steps have been completed and select Run Setup now to start the Exchange installation



5. On the welcome page click Next



6. Read the license agreement and select I agree and click next



7. On the component selection page, it will show you the summary of components going to be installed, review and click next



8. On the installation type page, select create a new exchange organization and click next, because this is the first organization for our exchange



9. Type a organization name, I type syztalk as the organization name, click next to continue



10. On the license agreement page select I agree and click next to continue



11. Review the installation summary and click next to start the installation



12. Below diagram show the installation process



13. Click finish to close the installation of exchange server 2003



Following shows the System manger



Keep in mind the following details regarding Exchange Server 2003 installation:

• The installation is the same whether you are installing the Exchange Server 2003 Standard or Enterprise Edition.
• The default directory for the Exchange Server 2003 installation is C:Program FilesExchsrvr.
• Exchange Deployment Tools guides you through the installation.
• The Messaging and Collaboration Services option installs all the necessary components of an Exchange server.
• If you haven’t run /forestprep or /domainprep they will run when you run the standard setup (if your account has the necessary rights).
• View the event log to see installation events and troubleshoot the installation.
• To upgrade from Exchange 2000 to Exchange 2003, run the setup program. Following the upgrade, you must remove the Mobile Information Server Exchange 2000 Event Source.
• When you install Exchange, the SMTP and HTTP virtual servers are the only servers that are started. If you require other services (such as POP3, IMAP4, or NNTP), you must start these virtual servers manually.

After installing Exchange 2003, you can verify the installation in the following ways:

• Use the Services snap-in to view the list of installed services. Make sure that the Exchange-specific services have been installed and started on the server.
• In Active Directory Users and Computers, check a user account to make sure the Exchange Tasks wizard has been added.
• Run the Exchange System Manager and verify the Exchange organization and server are correctly listed.
• Check the C:Exchange Server Setup Progress.log file for successful installation messages.
• Check the Application log in Event Viewer for the following message: ID: 1001 “Setup [build nnnn] completed successfully.”

How to delegate Administrative permission in Exchange Server 2003

To have a better Administration over the Exchange Organization, delegating Administrative permission is the best way.

The following shows the permissions options for Exchange administrator role.

• Full Administrator Role – Full control over all objects within the hierarchy
  Change all permissions, Delegate permissions and Read mailboxes
• Administrator - Full control over all objects, except cannot change permissions
• View Only Administrator – To view the configuration

Using permissions you can delegate Exchange server administrative tasks to other users. Keep in mind the following facts for managing Exchange permissions:

• Permissions are assigned either at the organizational level or the administrative group level.
• Use the Exchange Delegation Wizard in Exchange System Manager to manage delegations.
• While running /forestprep or during the Exchange Server 2003 installation, you identify the default Exchange System Administrator. This administrator has all permissions to the Exchange organization.
• Exchange administrators must have specific permissions in Active Directory for the objects and levels they will be working. They must also have permissions on the local computer.

Note: When you assign the Full Administrator or Administrator roles to an administrative group, the user also receives View Only permissions to the organization, allowing the administrator to view the configuration of the entire organization.

Step by step procedure to Delegate Administrative roles to particular users

Go to Start ->All Programs -> Microsoft Exchange ->System Manager ->right click the Organization Name and select delegate control

On the welcome page click next to continue

We can add the user or groups to grant administrative permission, Click add to find the user to be granted administrator permission over the exchange organization

On the delegate control window, click browse to find the user or group from AD

‘

Select a user to grand permission

Select the required permission what you planned to grant and click ok to continue

After assigning particular permission, review the permission and click next

On the warning page click ok to continue. Make sure you are following the warning

On the last page click finish to end the delegation

As mentioned in the above steps, we have delegate respective permission for Exchange Administrators.

How to manage Administrative Groups in Exchange Server 2003

An Administrative Group is a logical administrative structure that is used to manage permissions and delegate permissions to Exchange servers.

• Administrative groups organize servers for management purposes.
• Administrative groups match your network administrative structure. Groups are often based on locations or major departments.
• Use permissions to allow administrators to manage the Exchange servers within the group

If Exchange is running in native mode, you can rename administrative groups in Exchange System Manager. Otherwise, use Adsiedit to rename administrative groups.

Below diagram shows the first Administrative Group of our Exchange Server. 3 important containers are the there in every Administrative group

1. Server
2. Routing Groups
3. Folders

Servers – Includes the physical server in server container for Administration purpose, servers holds the Message Queues, Storage Groups which includes the mail box store and the public folder store, protocols – which includes virtual server for HTTP, IMAP4, NNTP, POP3 and SMTP

Routing Groups – It is the group of Exchange servers that are connected by constant, high-speed links. The routing group identifies Exchange servers that can contact each other without any additional routing considerations.

This includes the Routing Group Connectors (Routing group connector, SMTP connector and X.400 connector)

Folders – Folders deals with public folders

Important facts on Administrative Group

1. During installation you specify the name of the administrative group into which you install the Exchange server.
2. It is important to select the correct administrative group for each server because you cannot change it after installation.
3. During the installation, if there is only one administrative group, all Exchange servers will automatically be installed in that group. You are not prompted to select the administrative group if Exchange only has a single administrative group.
4. You can set up administrative groups prior to the installation of the first Exchange server. This gives you the advantage of being able to select multiple administrative groups during the install of the first Exchange Server. To set up administrative groups prior to installation:
   1. Run /forestprep
   2. Use Adsiedit to create administrative groups in Active Directory.
5. After installation, you can use Exchange System Manager to create new administrative groups.

Step by step procedure to Manage Administrative Group

1. Creating a New Administrative Group

Go to Start ->All Programs -> Microsoft Exchange ->System Manager ->right click Administrator Group and select New to create a New Administrative Group

2. Creating a new Routing Group

Go to Start ->All Programs -> Microsoft Exchange ->System Manager ->Administrative group -> Expand first Administrative Group -> Navigate to Routing Group, right click and point to New to create a new Routing Group

3. Delegate Permission – To Mange the designated option on servers

1. Permissions are assigned either at the organizational level or the administrative group level.
2. Use Exchange Delegation wizard to assign permission for particular User

Go to Start ->All Programs -> Microsoft Exchange ->System Manager ->right click the Organization Name and select delegate control

Thank you for reading this post J

How to manage Exchange 2003 Servers

Managing Exchange Server deals with lot of day to day activities related to exchange server administration. Exchange Admin has to prepare a daily task to maintain all the servers. If we look at the daily tasks, here I listed few basic tasks

1. Check the Event Viewer for any error or alerts
2. Check the Disk Space on database and log drives
3. Backup completion check
4. Internal and External OWA connectivity
5. Internal and External mail flow

Also, we have several tools available to monitor and manage Exchange servers. The below option describes some common Exchange management tools.

1. Exchange System Manager
2. Active Directory Users and Computers
3. Adsiedit
4. LDAP Viewer

Step by step procedure to Manage Exchange Server 2003
Exchange System Manager
The System Manager tool is installed by default and is the primary tool you use to monitor and manage your Exchange Server 2003 configuration. Use System Manager to:

• Change server settings
• Change database settings
• Move databases
• Create additional databases
• Enable message tracking

System Manager runs on Windows 2003 or Windows 2000 SP3 as long as Active Directory Users and Computers are running on the machine. You can also use System Manager on a Windows XP machine with SP1 as long as SMTP service is running on the machine during the installation of the tools.
By default System Manager looks like this,



You can do the following steps,
1. Enabling Administrative Groups
By default Administrative Groups are disabled, you can enable by
Go to Start -> All programs -> Microsoft Exchange -> System Manager ->right click the exchange system Manager and go to properties,



2. Enabling Routing Groups
By default Routing Groups are disabled, you can enable by
Go to Start -> All programs -> Microsoft Exchange -> System Manager ->right click the exchange system Manager and go to properties,



A warning of restarting Exchange System Manager will show when you apply these settings



After enabling Administrative Group and Routing Group, the system manager window will look like this; the first server in your organization will come under the first Administrative Group



Active Directory Users and Computers
Active Directory Users and Computers is the primary tool you use to manage users in an Exchange Server 2003 environment. Use Active Directory Users and Computers to:

• Create recipients
• Modify recipients
• Hide recipients
• Manipulate additional recipient options

Active Directory Users and Computers runs on Windows 2003, Windows 2000 SP3, or Windows XP.
Following figure shows the diagram of Active Directory Users and Computers



Notes:
1. If you open the properties of the existing user the Exchange features tabs will not be there, to have the exchange properties, right click the user Accounts and click exchange tasks to create a Mailbox, after creating a Mail box you will have the New Exchange features tab



To get the Exchange Feature, right click an existing user, select Exchange tasks, on the welcome page click next



Select create Mailbox



Review the Mailbox location, alias name and the Administrative Group, click Next



Click finish to end the user mail box creation for existing user



Following figure shows the user properties after creating a Mailbox for existing user.



ADSIEDIT (for security reason, without knowing about the Active Directory Partition)
Adsiedit is the tool you use to modify advanced properties in Active directory. Use Adsiedit to:

• Grant advanced security permissions
• Add, modify, delete, and organize user accounts, computer accounts, security and distribution groups

Adsiedit runs on any Windows 2003, Windows 2000 SP3 or Windows XP machine that is part of the domain.
Install Adsiedit using the Support Tools available on the Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 CD
To run ADSIEDIT
Go to start ->Run ->adsiedit.msc



It will open up the ADSI edit window



For example if we are planning to edit the name of the first Administrative Group.
Navigate – configuration partition -> Services -> Microsoft Exchange -> Exchange Organization Name ->Administrative Group
From here you can create a New Administrative Group and edit the Name of First Administrative Group etc



LDAP Viewer
The LDAP viewer allows you to view advanced properties of recipients such as:

• The SMTP addresses of users
• The date and time of a user’s last log on
• SID of an object
• Object history
• How an object was migrated

Following figure shows the LDAP viewer



Important Notes:

• Because of Exchange System Manager and the Active Directory Users and Computers are snap-ins, you can create custom MMCs for both of them. You do this by typing MMC.exe at the command line to run the Microsoft Management Console.
• Exchange System Manager can only be used to administer Exchange Server 2003.
• Use Active Directory Users and Computers to move mailboxes within an organization. Use the migration wizard and other migration tools to move mailboxes between organizations.

System Center 2012 DPM Installation

Here in this post, we will see the step by step procedure to install the Data Protection Manager 2012. DPM 2012 comes with lot of new features but the discussion on new features will be posted later.

Prerequisites to Install DPM
Operating System: Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2

Other Prerequisites: .Net Framework 3.5.1, windows PowerShell 2.0, VC ++ Redistributable 2008 and KB 2223201 if you are installing DPM2012 on Windows Server 2008 R2
SQL Server 2008 or Server 2008 R2 (DPM 2012 download includes the SQL Server 2008 R2 setup)

For this demo: I prepared a computer with the below details

1. Operating System: Windows Server 2008 R2 with 2 GB of RAM
2. Two hard disks, one for operating system and the Other for DPM 2012 data.
3. All the other perquisites are installed (If the .Net framework, PowerShell and VC++ is not installed, it will be automatically installed during DPM 2012 installation)

Step by step procedure to install Data Protection Manager 2012
Click on the DPM 2012 setup, below screen appears up and select Data Protection Manager to start the installation.


Accept the license agreement and click next to continue. On the welcome screen click next to continue



Prerequisite Check: Before performing the prerequisites check, it will ask the SQL database instance which will be used for DPM database, there are two options available
Use the dedicated instance: will install a new instance of SQL server 2008 r2 on the DPM server



Use an existing instance: will allow an option to point the remote SQL server to configure the DPM 2012 Database



Once the required configuration is selected, click on check and install. Below screen show the error message the KB2223201 needs to be installed prior to the DPM 2012 installation and also the SIS filter component is installed and reboot is required. Apply the KB and perform a restart



I have corrected the error now and the below screen show the pre requisite check has been completed. Click Next to continue



On the Product Registration page, enter the details of user name and the company name. Click next to continue the installation



Below screen shows the option to change the DPM installation location and SQL database location, change the location as your design plan and click next



On the below screen, enter the secure password for the two new local accounts created for security reasons



Optional Screen



Optional Screen



Review the summary page and click next to continue



If you download the DPM2012 file, it will come as two parts, you have to point the second installation media over here. Below screen show the installation of SQL server 2008 R2 and the DPM 2012



Below screen shows the successful completion of DPM 2012



Below screen shows the System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager Management console



Inform if you are facing any issue in installing System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager, will help you on that.