How to Install and Configure Exchange Server 2007 Edge Transport Server

I plan to discuss the following chapters in the Edge Transport Server Installation and Configuration,

1. Planning
2. Installing Edge Transport Server
3. Protocols and Port Settings
4. Setting up Edge Sync
5. Edge Transport Server Important Points
6. Configuring Edge Transport Server

Planning

Following are the important consideration when we install Edge transport Server. Below mentioned points are to be strictly followed.

1. Edge Transport Should not be included in Active Directory
2. Should be installed in a Standalone Server
3. Edge Transport Should not be Part of the domain
4. ADAM Should be Installed
5. Pre requisites .Net framework , Windows Management Shell, MMC 3.0 to be installed
6. Two networks cards

Installing Edge Transport Server

Start the installation by Double clicking the Setup.exe of Exchange Server 2007 Installation files

Select Install Microsoft Exchange to start the Exchange Installation, Review the Exchange Installation Introduction page and click Next

Click I accepts the terms in the license Agreement and Click Next ( read License Agreement Document Carefully )

In the Error Reporting window choose the option you needed

For installing Edge Transport Server, on the Installation type Page, Select custom installation to choose the Edge Transport Server Installation option

Select The Edge Transport Server Role, If you select the Edge Transport Server Role rest of the server Roles will be deselected because the Edge Transport Server has to installed in a Stand alone server without having any other roles combined to it

Click Next to Start the Readiness Check, this will report the important options that are not configured properly

After the Readiness check has been completed, click next to complete the Edge transport server Installation

The Below Window shows the option after the Edge Transport Server Installation is over. we can configure the below options in Edge Transport Server

1. Anti Spam / Anti Virus
2. Transport Rules and Accepted Domain
3. Address Rewriting

Protocols and Port setting

The following ports are opened through SCW

Port 25 – Should be opened both internally and externally, mails flow takes place with this port

Internal Port setting (Edge Transport Server to Hub Transport Server)

Port 50389 – LDAP local connection to ADAM in Edge Transport Server

Port 50686 – SLDAP (Secure Light weight Directory Access Protocol) Edge Sync Synchronization

Port 3389 – RDP optional

Edge Sync

Edge Sync – it’s a one way replication from Hub Transport Server to Edge Transport Server, while Edge Sync happens the recipient configuration will be replicated from Active Directory to ADAM in Edge Transport Server

In order to establish the Edge sync there are 3 important steps to be followed, the following options are done by exchange Management shell only

1. Create a Edge Subscription file from Edge Transport Server ( XML file)

New-EdgeSubscription –file “c:edge.xml, after entering this command it will ask for confirmation type “Y”

1. Move the file to Hub Transport Server – by using a pen drive or portable media.
2. Subscribe the file in Hub Transport Server

Navigate to Organization Configuration and in the action pane select New Edge Subscription and choose the path where the Edge file exists

Running Security Configuration wizard

1. Install SCW
2. Register SCW extension

Review all the setting and under Network security wizard open the following Ports

Port – 25

Port – 50389

Port – 50636

Edge Transport Server Important Points

1. Edge transport Server is not required for small organization; Hub Transport Server will function as Edge Transport Server

2. Edge Transport Server Role should not be a member of the Active Directory

3. ADAM stores the configuration of Active Directory for Edge Transport Server

4. Edge Synchronization to connect Hub Transport Server and Edge Transport Server

5. Security Configuration Wizard, Important ports to be opened, Port 25, 50389, 50636

Important Configuration for Edge Transport Server

1. Post Master Mailbox – create a New Post Master Mailbox which is used to receive the Non delivery reports, Postmaster can be in Edge Transport Server and also in Edge Transport Server

Post master mailbox can be created by Exchange management shell

To check for Postmaster Mailbox – (Get-TransportServer)

To create a Postmaster mailbox – (Set-TransportServer “server Name ” –Externalpostmaster Address ” Mail Address” After Creating a new email address for Postmaster and running the same command Get-Transport Server will shows the postmaster Mail Address

1. DNS Settings – DNS setting is the most important setting for internal and external mail flow

Internal DNS – Host record for the Edge transport server has to be created

External DNS – MX Record pointing towards Edge Transport Server should be configured

Edge Transport Server Settings

With Edge Transport Server we can have the following configuration

1. Anti Spam / Anti Virus
2. Transport Rule, Accepted Domain and Email Address Policies
3. Address Rewriting

Address Rewriting

Address Rewriting Agent runs in Edge Transport Server. The main purpose of Edge Transport Server is to rewrite the Address the address to some other address. This plays an important role, consider if there are 5 Sub domain inside a forest and the entire sub domain want send mail outside with a unique address space.

Address rewriting can be achieved only with Exchange Management Shell

To know the Address Rewriting entries, (Get-AddressRewriteEntry)

To create a New Address Rewrite Entry,

New-AddressRrewriteEntry – Name ” Internal to External” – InternalAdress raj.syztalk.com – ExternalAddress Syztalk.com

Inform us, if you are having any questions on the above mentioned points… J

Post installation Steps for Exchange Server 2007

After the Exchange Server 2007 installation, everyone used to ask the same question What Next? This topic gives the information on what we have to do to make the Exchange server to send mails outside to Internet, how to allow the external mails to come to internal mailboxes etc…

Following are the Topics discussed in this chapter

1. Verify Exchange installation
2. Post installation Tasks
3. Create a Send connector
4. Configure MX record
5. Create a Receive connector

Verify Exchange installation

To verify all the selected roles are installed successfully use Exchange Management Shell command – Get-ExchangeServer

Event viewer – shows the application log for Exchange Server

Log file checking– shows the progress what happened during the installation
c:ExchangeSetupLogsExchangeSetup.log – shows every task that is performed during the Exchange installation and configuration
c:ExchangeSetupLogsExchangeSetup.msilog – shows the information about the extraction of the Exchange 2007 code from the installer file
To view the log file in Exchange Management shell – Get-SetupLog c:exchangesetuplogsexchangesetup.log

Post Installation Tasks
After reviewing the Exchange Setup installation, following are the additional tasks that are to be done
Note: It’s good to run the EXBPA tool to look at the issues in your configuration
1. If you have Exchange Server 2003 in your organization – you have to create a OAB and if you have only the Exchange Server 2007, a default OAB will be created
2. Client Access Security – default self-signed certificate is configured, instead of having the default secured configuration for Client Access, its good to configure the Client Access server to use a trusted certificate from either a third-party commercial certification authority (CA) or a trusted Windows Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) CA.
3. Configure Accepted Domain in Hub transport Server to send and receive mail for particular domain, this option will be used when internal and external domain name is different
4. Configure a postmaster address





After creating this you have to create a New Mailbox with the name postmaster@domainname.com

My Exchange Setup
Internet –> Sonic Wall ->NAT –> Exchange Server 2007 (HT,CAS, MB)

To send Mails to internet from a Hub Transport Server

You have to create a Send Connector with Smart host or DNS to forward your mails to internet – By default, no Send connectors are created on Hub Transport server – create a New Send Connector with * as the Address space to send mails to any domain












Configure your MX record in a NAT environment
A record – mail.domainname.com, IP Address – Public IP

MX record – domainname.com, choose computer as mail.domainname.com

Configure Receive Connector to receive mails from outside domains – default Receive connector named “Default Server Name” that is created on all Hub Transport servers to listen for incoming connections on port 25 doesn’t accept anonymous connections – modify the default receive connector permissions for “anonymous users”
It’s up to you, to anonymous permission to receive mails from different domain. If anonymous permission is not enabled, emails from external domain will be blocked


Tips:

• Instead of POP3/IMAP4 configuration, configure Exchange Server 2007 to use (Outlook Anywhere) RPC over HTTP to remote clients
• By default POP3/IMAP4 options are disabled in Exchange Server 2007, you have to start the service to enable this option

If you need additional information on this, kindly leave your comments

How to perform Database failover from Active to Passive node in Cluster Continuous Replication - Exchange 2007

Before performing Database failover, we have to know few concepts related to Cluster concepts in Exchange server 2007

Storage Group – Storage group are the logical container for Database which share a common transactional log.

Storage Group Copy – It holds the exact replica of the active copy of the storage group with the Database and Transactional logs associated with the active copy.

Switch OverFailover – Switchover is the manual activation of secondary database to function as Primary, happens on scheduled maintenance, admin involves in performing the move and

Failover is the automatic activation of secondary database to primary, this happens when primary database or the services on the primary server is not available.

Copy Queue Length – The log files waiting to be copied to the passive node from active node.

Replay Queue Length – The log files are copied to the passive copies of the mailbox databases successfully and the log files are not replayed into the mailbox databases at the secondary node.
Pre-checks before moving the database from active node to Passive node

1. Check whether all the databases are mounted in Primary Node using

Get-MailboxDatabase -Server “Server Name” –Status |Ft Name, Mounted

1. Check whether the storage group Copy is in healthy and there is no copy queue and replay queues using

Get-StorageGroupCopyStatus –Identity “Server Name”

 

If any queues are visible, wait for some time get the log files committed. If you try to move the cluster when copyreplay queue length is more, you will get the below warning

 

 

Still if any issue, check whether the Replication service is started on both the nodes and again if issue, go for reseeding on the particular storage group.

1. Check which server is cluster mailbox server ( active) using

Get-ClusterMailboxServerStatus –Identity “Cluster Name”

 

I run this command from Test-EX-CCR1 and the OperationMachines shows that Test-EX-CCR2 was the Active Server and holds the Quorum Owner. We have Jump into Test-Ex-CCR2 to Move the Active Node to Passive Node

We can check the cluster status in Cluadmin using Start->Run-> Type Cluadmin on the cluster server

 

 

One the above figure

Cluster Group – It shows the status of Windows Cluster which is holding the cluster owner

TEST-EX-CCR – It is the Cluster Name of Exchange Server (CCR) and shows which node is active now

 

Moving Active Cluster Mailbox Server to Passive Server
To move the cluster mailbox server from active node to passive node use the below command and don’t use the Windows Cluster Administrator tool to move the cluster resources.
Move-ClusteredMailboxServer –Identity “CCR Name” –TargetMachine “Passive Node” -MoveComment:”Getting ready for maintenance on Active Node”



Below diagram shows the process of the cluster mailbox server move status



After the CMS move using the above shell command, Windows cluster will remain on the same passive node and if you perform the installation or maintenance and if you go for a reboot, automatically the windows cluster resource will move to other node.
Inform me if you are facing any issue on the above steps;

Also leave your feedback…

Managing and Administering Public Folders and Public Folder Database in Exchange Server 2007

In this post, we are going to discuss on how to manage the public folders and the Public Folder Database in Exchange Server. As we all know, exchange server 2007 release don’t have the management console to manage the public folders, only option available its exchange management shell and in the release of Exchange server 2007 SP1, we got the New Management Tool called Public Folder Management Console.
We have three option to manage and Administer Public folders and public folder databases.

1. Exchange Management Console – We have the option to manage and admin Public Folder Databases
2. Exchange Management Shell – Full control over the public folders and databases to manage them
3. Public Folder Management Console – GUI mode to manage public Folders located in Tools

Here in the post, we are going to look at the below topics

1. Public Folders in Simple
2. Managing and Administering Public Folder Database
3. Managing and Administering New Public Folder
4. Managing Permission on Public Folder
5. How to view the permission on a public folder for a specific User
6. How to set public Folder replication
7. Public Folder Management Console

Public Folder in Simple
Public folders are designed for a shared access of information to the employees. Public folders are hierarchically organized, stored in dedicated databases, and can be replicated between Exchange servers using public folders replication. With the release of exchange server 2007, public folder is an optional one, where, if any of the users in an organization is using outlook 2003, he needs public folder database to get the free busy information and the offline address book. In no outlook 2003, then there is no need of a public folder database

Managing and Administering Public Folder Database
Public Folder Database: Public Folder Database it’s just same like a Mailbox Database created as an .edb file. The public folder database contains data that is available to all users who have mailboxes and appropriate permissions

Public Folder Replication
As like CCR, SCR or LCR, we don’t have any option to have high availability concept for exchange server Public Folder Database, if the second server is having public folder database, we can replicate the content of the database to achieve high availability.
Public Folder Replication replicates two types of information to other public folder database, if public folder replication is enabled. They are the Hierarchy Information and the Public Folder Contents

Public Folder Referral
When a client application, such as Outlook, attempts to open an Exchange public folder, the Exchange server determines which folder replica the client application should access. This process is called public folder referral. If a replica of the requested content exists on the Exchange server that serves the request, the client application accesses the local replica. If the replica does not exist on the local server, Exchange attempts to locate a replica in the same Active Directory directory service site. You can modify the flow of user traffic to allow referrals over certain connectors by specifying a list of referral servers and assigning a routing cost to each server

Creating a Public Folder Database
In my environment, I don’t have Public Folder Database and for the first time I’m creating the public folder, Below figure shows the current storage group and available mailbox database in my environ before create Public folder



Since it’s a test environment, I’m not mentioning Storage group path or Public folder path, while creating a new storage group for public folder database and the public folder database



Below figure show the status after creating public folder database on fifth storage group. Where you have to mount the mailbox database



Exchange Management shell command on managing and administrating Public Folder Database

Below are few exchange management shell commands related to public folder managing and administration

Get-PublicFolderDatabase

à To view the list of public folder database in your organization
Mount –Database -Identity “your public folder database name”
à To mount the PF database
Dismount-Database –Identity “”your public folder database name”
àTo dismount the PF database

To maintainmodify public folder database settings
Set-PublicFolderDatabase -Identity “Server namePF Database name” -DeletedItemRetention 07.00:00:00 -RetainDeletedItemsUntilBackup $true -EventHistoryRetentionPeriod 14.00:00:00 -ItemRetentionPeriod unlimited

To remove a public Folder Database, we have to pass the server name, Storage group name and the PF database as mentioned below
Remove-PublicFolderDatabase -Identity “<server><storage group><public folder database>”

To move the public folder content from one PF database to other
MS provide a script name “MoveAllReplicas.ps1″ to move all the public folders in a PF database from single server to other server, we can use it like
MoveAllReplicas.ps1 -Server Server01 -NewServer Server02

Managing and Administrating Public Folders
We can createdelete, assignremove public folder permission and also mail enablemail disable public folders using public folder management console or the exchange management shell
To createDelete a New Public Folder
New-PublicFolder -Name ‘System Administrator’ -Path ” -Server ‘test-ex-ccr.ssmtest.com’
Remove-PublicFolder –Name ‘System Administrator’ -Path” -Server ‘test-ex-ccr.ssmtest.com’ –Recurse:$true

How to view public folder statistics
Public folders statistics command will give the details such as the display name, creation time, last modified time, and item size.



Managing and Administering Public Folder Permission
To assign or remove public folder permission, We have two types of permission that can be assigned to public folders for a user

Public Folder Administrative Permission – granting administrative access to user on the public folder like deleted item retention, managing public folder quotas etc…
 
Add-PublicFolderAdministrativePermision –Identity ‘System Administrator’ –AccessRights viewinformationstore –user Rajkumar

None The administrator does not have any rights to modify public folder attributes.

• ModifyPublicFolderACL The administrator has the right to modify client access permissions for the specified folder.
• ModifyPublicFolderAdminACL The administrator has the right to modify administrator permissions for the specified public folder.
• ModifyPublicFolderDeletedItemRetention The administrator has the right to modify the Public Folder Deleted Item Retention attributes (RetainDeletedItemsFor, UseDatabaseRetentionDefaults).
• ModifyPublicFolderExpiry The administrator has the right to modify the Public Folder Expiration attributes (AgeLimit, UseDatabaseAgeDefaults).
• ModifyPublicFolderQuotas The administrator has the right to modify the Public Folder Quota attributes (MaxItemSize, PostQuota, PostWarningQuota, UseDatabaseQuotaDefaults)
• ModifyPublicFolderReplicaList The administrator has the right to modify the replica list attribute for the specified public folder (Replicas).
• AdministerInformationStore The administrator has the right to modify all other public folder properties that are not defined above.
• ViewInformationStore The administrator has the right view public folder properties.
• AllExtendedRights The administrator has the right to modify all public folder properties.

Public Folder Client Permission – granting client access permission to user on the public folder to have access control over the public folder to create items, owner of the public folder etc. Below are the access rights that can be set for a user

Add-PublicFolderClientPermision –Identity ‘System Administrator’ –AccessRights createitems –user rajkumar

• ReadItems The user has the right to read items within the specified public folder.
• CreateItems The user has the right to create items within the specified public folder and send e-mail messages to the public folder if it is mail-enabled.
• EditOwnedItems The user has the right to edit the items that the user owns in the specified public folder.
• DeleteOwnedItems The user has the right to delete items that the user owns in the specified public folder.
• EditAllItems The user has the right to edit all items in the specified public folder.
• DeleteAllItems The user has the right to delete all items in the specified public folder.
• CreateSubfolders The user has the right to create subfolders in the specified public folder.
• FolderOwner The user is the owner of the specified public folder. The user has the right to view and move the public folder, create subfolders, and set permissions for the folder. The user cannot read items, edit items, delete items, or create items.
• FolderContact The user is the contact for the specified public folder.
• FolderVisible The user can view the specified public folder, but cannot read or edit items within the specified public folder

To Manage Full access permission for a user on a public folder



To Manage Send As permission for a public folder
Add-ADPermission -Identity ‘CN=System Administrator,CN=Microsoft Exchange System Objects,DC=SSMTEST,DC=COM’ -User ‘SSMTESTrajkumar’ -ExtendedRights ‘Send-as’

Managing and Administering Public Folder Settings
Below are the shell commands available to manage public folder settings
Set-Public Folder – help us to configure only the mail-enabled public folder settings that are not mail related
Set-MailPublicFolder – help us to configure mail-enabled public folder settings that are mail related
Set-PublicFolder -Identity ‘System Administrator’ –MaxItemSize 2048 –IssueWarningQuota 10240 –ProhibitPostQuota 20480 –UseDatabaseReplicationSchedule: false –RelicationSchedule:Always
Enable-MailPublicFolder or Disable-MailPublicFolder – To mail enable or mail disable public folders
Enable-MailPublicFolder -Identity ‘System Administrator’



While mail enabling public folder, if there is a gap between the two words, it will be automatically filled with _ and the email address will be created like firstname_lastname@domainname.com

Managing and Administering Public Folder Management Console
Below figure shows the public folder management console available in the Tools option on exchange management console



Public Folder tree: The public folder tree is located on the left side of my console and is organized by nodes that are based on the public folder hierarchy. As you can see, I’ve got the classic

Default Public Folders node, where all of the public folders that I’ve created exist. Users can access these folders either directly or by using a client application such as Microsoft Outlook. And then I’ve got the snazzy

System Public Folders node, Users don’t access these folders. These folders store the information that is used by Outlook such as free and busy data or offline address books (OABs).
For easy understanding and navigation, I marked few option in red box in the below figure



Additional shell commands to manage and administration related to public
folder
To export the list of public folders those are available in a server and export the output in csv

Get-PublicFolder -recurse -Server test-ex-ccr | select name, parentpath |export-csv c:public.csv

To get the list of mail enable public folders in a server
Get-MailPublicFolder -recurse -Server test-ex-ccr | select name, parentpath |export-csv c:public.csv

To view the client access permission for on a single public folder
Get-PublicFolderClientPermission -Identity “System Administrator” | fl



Inform your feedback on this post, I’ll add few more information later on this topic

Storage Groups and Mailbox Databases in Exchange Server 2003/2007/2010

Here in this post, we are discussing the Storage Groups and Mailbox Database in Exchange Server 2003/2007/2010

In exchanging 5.5 there are 3 databases to support the Email container and the message flow

• PRIV.EDB – responsible for Mailbox Databases
• PUB.EDB – Responsible for Public folder databases
• DIR.EDB – Stores the own directory structure for exchange.

This DIR directory no longer exists in higher version like exchange 2000, exchange 2003 and exchange 2007. We have only 2 database files, one for Mailbox Database (PRIV.EDB) and other for Public Folder Database (PUB.EDB). File extension with .STM is nothing but a database file to support the Non MAPI clients to access their mailbox contents.

If these database grow in size it’s very complicated in backup and restoring process. Here the storage group evolves into action.

Storage Groups and Databases

Storage groups are nothing but the Structural unit that holds the databases. If we deeply look into the storage groups, these storage groups are nothing but the folders to separate the database file. If we choose Enterprise Edition, we can create

Exchange Server 2010

Storage Groups concepts are removed in Exchange Server 2010 and there is no need to create a Recovery Storage Group in disaster recovery scenario. Instead of RSG, we can create a Recovery Mailbox Database. We can create 100 Databases in Enterprise Edition

Exchange Server 2007

50 storage group / 5 Database in single storage group – Maximum of 50 Database, Recommended having 1 database per storage group if we are deploying LCR, CCR or SCR

Exchange Server 2003

4 Storage Groups / 5 Database in single Storage group – Mailbox database and Public Folder Database can be combined

If we choose Standard Edition, We can create

Exchange Server 2010

Storage Groups concepts are removed in Exchange Server 2010 and there is no need to create a Recovery Storage Group in disaster recovery scenario. Instead of RSG, we can create a Recovery Mailbox Database. We can have 5 Databases in Standard Edition

Exchange Server 2007

5 storage group / 5 Database in single storage group – Maximum of 50 Database, Recommended having 1 database per storage group

Exchange Server 2003

1 storage group / 2 Database in single storage group – In which contain 1 Mailbox Database and 1 Public Folder Database

What happen if mails come into exchange server?

Once the mail comes into the exchange server it writes the mails as transactional logs and also the same in system memory simultaneously. What the transactional log will do in the sense, it will hold the mails for a while until the mailbox database is freed up. The transactional logs are 1 MB in size and if the mail comes with size of 5 MB, the transaction log will first write the 1Mb log and creates a another transactional log, it will write the log files until the mails have completed.

File types in exchange server

In which Exchange Server 2007 holds the following files, in the following location

Streaming Database with the extension .stm is removed in Exchange Server 2007

When we are looking into Exchange Server 2003, under the following location

These are the files exists in Exchange Server 2003 with the following extensions.

.CHK – check point file, keeps track of which transactional logs moves into database files. Keep on check the log file entering the database in a current order

.LOG – 2 types of transactional logs –

1. Current Transactional log – eoo.log file which write the current transactions into transactional logs. If it reaches 1 MB, it will rename the log file into E00000001.log

2. Transactional log – If Current Transactional log reaches 1 MB, it will rename the log file into E00000001.log

.EDB – Stores the database files

Temp.EDB – Temporary database file, which will process the transactional logs that are to be to write in .EDB Database file

.JRS – Reserved Log files – if the size of the disk is full and you can’t write any mails as transactional logs these files will help into action

Storage Group Management

Options to go for storage Management

1. Direct attached Storage
2. Storage Area Network
3. I SCSI

NOTE: Network attached storage will not be supported in Exchange Server 2007

Following shows the good storage options in order to have high availability. its good separate the following files in different disks in order to have better Performance. Reliability and Recoverability

Operating System: System files to be backed up. RAID 0 or RAID1

Database Files: if we move the database to different disk and if you are making backup the transactional logs will be added into the Backup. Provides better recoverability, RAID5 (Stripe set with Parity)

Transactional Log Files: in order to handle load, it’s good to have Transactional log files in different disk. If both the log file and database file are in same disk, increase performance and reliability. RAID1 (Mirroring)