SolutionBase: Performing common tasks in Exchange Server 2007

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Takeaway: Deploying new software means learning new ways of doing things. In Exchange 2007, Microsoft has made some changes to way you do common administration tasks. In the first part of this series, Brien Posey shows you some of the changes you'll encounter.

This article is also available as a TechRepublic download.



If you've installed Exchange Server 2007, one of the first things you probably noticed was that the new Exchange Management Console is dramatically different from the Exchange System Manager that's found in Exchange Server 2003. As such, the technique for performing virtually every Exchange Server related management task has changed. In this article, I will walk you through the new procedures for some of the more common Exchange Server related management tasks.
Preliminary notes

Before I get started, I want to quickly mention that there are actually two different administrative interfaces to Exchange 2007; the Exchange Management Console, and the Exchange Management Shell. The Exchange Management Shell is a command interpreter you can use to manage Exchange 2007 from a command prompt or by using scripted commands. The Exchange Management Console is the graphical interface to Exchange 2007; it was actually built as a graphical interface to the Exchange Management Shell.
Anything you can do through the Exchange Management Console can also be done through the Exchange Management Shell. In many cases, after you complete an administrative task through the Exchange Management Console, the console will even show you the equivalent command in case you want to script the task next time. For the purposes of this article, I will be working solely within the Exchange Management Console.
Creating a mailbox

The first task I want to discuss is creating a mailbox for a user. As you probably know, creating an Exchange 2003 mailbox required you to go outside of the Exchange System manager: you had to navigate to Active Directory Users And Computers | Users, right-click on the user's account, and select Exchange Tasks from the resulting shortcut menu. Windows would then launch the Exchange Tasks wizard, which gave you the option of creating an Exchange mailbox.
Although this technique certainly got the job done, there were two problems with it. First, unless you created Exchange mailboxes at the same time that you created user accounts, the technique was inefficient because it required you to use the Active Directory Users And Computers console rather than allowing you to perform all of your Exchange related tasks from within the Exchange System Manager.
Second, the experience was inconsistent. The Active Directory Users And Computers console is a Windows Server component, not an Exchange Server component, meaning the console is not "Exchange aware" by default. The Exchange Tasks option only exists in the console after Exchange (or the Exchange management tools) has been installed. The problem is that installing a copy of Exchange on a server in your organization does not update the Active Directory Users And Computers console for all of the machines in your organization. The Active Directory Users And Computers console is only updated on the server on which Exchange is being installed, meaning you would be unable to create mailboxes or perform other Exchange related tasks from other servers in your organization unless the Exchange management tools had been installed on them.
Thankfully, Microsoft has taken care of these two problems in Exchange 2007. You can now create mailboxes directly through the Exchange Management Console. Navigate to Recipient Configuration | Mailbox, right-click on Mailbox, and select New Mailbox. Exchange will then launch the New Mailbox wizard, as shown in Figure A.
Figure A

You can now create mailboxes directly through the Exchange Management Console. You might have noticed that you can now create four different types of mailboxes. User mailboxes are the Exchange 2007 equivalent of the mailboxes that you created under Exchange Server 2003. Room and Equipment mailboxes are both resource mailboxes, and are typically used for scheduling conference rooms and pieces of equipment respectively. Linked mailboxes allow you to create an Exchange mailbox for a user who belongs to a trusted forest.
Create a distribution list

Another aspect of Exchange Server management that has changed considerably from the previous version is that of creating a distribution group. Exchange 2007 actually allows you to create two different types of distribution groups. You can create the standard distribution groups that you are probably already used to, or you can create dynamic distribution groups. A dynamic distribution group is a distribution group whose membership automatically changes based on the criteria you specify.
To create a distribution group, navigate to Recipient Configuration | Distribution Group. Right-click on the Distribution Group container and you will see options for creating either a normal or a dynamic distribution group.
If you choose the option to create a normal distribution group (simply called a distribution group), then Windows will launch the New Distribution Group wizard. This wizard leads you through several screens, prompting you to enter information.
The wizard's first screen asks you if you would like to create a new distribution group, or if you would like to mail enable an existing group. Assuming that you choose to create a new distribution group, the next screen you'll see prompts you to enter a name for the new group. This screen also gives you the option of creating a security group instead of a distribution group. Press Next and you will see a summary of the information that you have entered. Assuming that everything looks good, press New and the new distribution group will be created.
Creating a dynamic distribution group is a little more interesting. To do so, right-click on Recipient Configuration | Distribution Group and select New Dynamic Distribution Group. Windows will then launch the New Dynamic Distribution Group wizard. Enter a name for the new dynamic distribution group on the wizard’s first screen, and press Next.
The next screen will ask you to select some filter settings. By default, Exchange will include all recipient types in the dynamic distribution group, but you have the option of filtering by users with Exchange mailboxes, users with external e-mail addresses, resource mailboxes, and things like that. Make your selection and press Next.
You will now be prompted to select one or more conditions for the dynamic distribution group. For example, you can choose to include recipients from a specific state, department, or company; then create a dynamic distribution group of all of the employees in the state of South Carolina. The group’s membership would automatically change as employees move in or out of South Carolina. You can even include multiple conditions, such as creating a group of all of the employees who work in the IT department and live in South Carolina.
Press Next and you will see a summary of the options you have chosen. Assuming everything looks good, press New and the new dynamic distribution group will be created.
Adding recipients to a distribution group

When you create a distribution group (not a dynamic distribution group) one of the first things you'll probably want to do is add recipients to the group. To do so, navigate to Recipient Configuration | Distribution Group. When you select the Distribution Group container, the console’s details pane will display all of the existing distribution groups.
Right-click on the distribution group you want to modify and select Properties. You'll then see the distribution group’s properties sheet. Now, simply select the properties sheet’s Members tab and press Add. Add the desired members to the distribution group and press OK.
Filtering mailboxes

Large companies often have hundreds, or even thousands, of Exchange mailboxes. Sometimes it's necessary to perform a maintenance task on a subset of the mailboxes. You no longer have to hunt through all of those mailboxes looking for a few specific mailboxes. Instead, you can create filtered views of the mailboxes so only the mailboxes you need are displayed.
Creating a filtered view of your mailboxes is easy: navigate to Recipient Configuration | Mailbox. The console's details pane should then display a comprehensive list of all of the mailboxes in the entire Exchange organization.
To create a filtered view of those mailboxes, press Create Filter. The Create Filter button doesn’t really look like a button, so I have circled it in Figure B.
Figure B

Click the Create Filter button to create a filtered view of the recipient’s mailboxes. You will then see a series of drop-down lists at the top of the screen. The first drop-down list allows you to select the Active Directory attribute of your choice. For example, if you wanted to filter the list of mailboxes by city, then you would choose the City attribute.
The next drop-down list allows you to select a conditional. This is where you would select an option such as equal to, not equal to, contains, or does not contain. Finally, you would enter your criteria. For example, if you wanted to see only mailboxes of recipients residing in the city of Miami, you would choose City from the attribute list, set the conditional to Equals, and then enter Miami into the criteria field, as shown in Figure C. Now, press Apply to see the filtered view. When you're done, press Remove Filter to switch back to a normal view of the mailboxes.
Figure C

You can easily create filtered views of recipient mailboxes. Creating stores and storage groups

The last thing I want to show you is how to create stores and storage groups in Exchange 2007. As you may recall, Exchange Server 2003 Enterprise Edition allowed you to create up to four storage groups, each of which could contain up to five stores, for a total of up to 20 stores per server. Exchange 2007 allows you to create up to 50 storage groups, with up to 50 stores. Fifty stores is the maximum number of stores that can reside on a server, regardless of how those stores are distributed among storage groups.
Exchange Server 2007 is role based, and you can only create storage groups or stores onto servers that have the Mailbox role installed. To do so, navigate to Server Configuration | Mailbox. The server's Details pane will then display a list of the servers that stores or storage groups can be created on.
To create a new storage group, right-click on the server of choice and select New Storage Group. Windows will then display the New Storage Group wizard. This wizard consists of a single screen and asks for a name for the new storage group and for various paths, as shown in Figure D. Press New to create the new storage group.
Figure D

The New Storage Group wizard allows you to create a new storage group. Creating a store within a storage group is equally simple: Go to the details pane and select the server you want to create the store on. The lower portion of the screen will then display the storage groups and stores residing on that server, as shown in Figure E.
Figure E

When you select a server, its stores and storage groups are displayed on the lower half of the screen. Now, right-click on the storage group you want to create the store within. The resulting shortcut menu will contain options for creating mailbox stores and public folder stores. Select the option that corresponds to the appropriate store type. A very simple wizard will then ask you for the name of the new store and its path. Enter this information and press New to create the store

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موضوعات مشابه:

• SolutionBase: Administering mobile messaging in Exchange Server 2007
• SolutionBase: Outlook 2007's new features and how they work with Exchange Server 2007
• Deploying Exchange Server 2007 and Office Communications Server 2007 R2
• Transitioning from Exchange 2000/2003 to Exchange Server 2007
• Implementing Exchange Server 2007 for coexistence with Exchange Server 2003

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The release of new versions of software means learning new tricks. Exchange Server 2007 is no different: When you deploy it, you must learn the new way of doing things at the same time. Here are some of the things you'll have to know how to do.
Adjust mailbox quotas

One common administrative task is the adjustment of mailbox quotas. In case you're not familiar with mailbox quotas, quotas provide a way of limiting the size to which an Exchange Server mailbox can grow.
In Exchange 2007, mailbox quotas can be set at the database level or at the individual mailbox level. To set mailbox quotas at the database level, open the Exchange Management Console and navigate through the console tree to Server Configuration | Mailbox. The upper half of the details pane will then display the Exchange 2007 servers in your organization.
Select the server that contains the database you want to set the quota on, and the lower half of the details pane will display the storage groups and databases contained on the server. Right-click on the database you want to impose a quota on, select Properties, and the management console will display the Mailbox Database Properties sheet.
As you can see in Figure A, the quotas work very similarly to the way they did in Exchange Server 2003. You can set separate threshold values for issuing a warning, prohibiting messages from being sent, and prohibiting messages from being sent or received. This tab also contains the settings for the retention of deleted items.
Figure A

You can set database-level message quotas through the Links tab on the Mailbox Database Properties sheet. To set quotas on an individual mailbox, navigate to Recipient Configuration | Mailbox. The management console will then display a list of all of the mailboxes found in the Exchange Server organization. Right-click on the mailbox you want to set the quotas for, and select the Properties command from the resulting shortcut menu. You will see the mailbox's properties sheet.
Go to the properties sheet's Mailbox Settings tab and select the Storage Quotas icon and click the Properties button. The management console will now display a Storage Quotas dialog box that contains the exact same settings that you saw in Figure A.
The Exchange Management Shell

You've probably heard that there are two different mechanisms for managing Exchange Server 2007; the Exchange Management Console and the Exchange Management Shell. The Exchange Management Shell is a command line environment that allows you to enter commands manually, or script complex management processes.
The Exchange Management Console is actually built on top of the Exchange Management Shell, and issues Exchange Management Shell commands behind the scenes. Anything that can be done through the Exchange Management Console can also be done through the Exchange Management Shell. The reverse is not always true; there are some tasks that can only be performed through the Exchange Management Shell.
For the purpose of simplicity, I'm using the Exchange Management Console where possible in this article. To give you an idea of how the Exchange Management Shell works, I want to quickly show you how to adjust mailbox quotas using the Exchange Management Shell.
You can launch the Exchange Management Shell by selecting the All Programs | Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 | Exchange Management Shell commands from the start menu. When the show opens, it looks remarkably like a normal command prompt window, as shown in Figure B.
Figure B

The Exchange Management Shell looks a lot like a normal Command Prompt window. Now suppose that you wanted to implement a quota that prohibited to users from sending messages was their mailbox reached 1 GB in size. To do so, you would enter the following command:
Get-mailbox | set-mailbox –prohibitsendquota 1gb
Once the command executes, you can verify that it has worked by entering the get-mailbox command. Doing so will display a list of all of the mailboxes, along with their quotas.
Monitor system health

Exchange Management Console includes a container called Toolbox, which provides a number of troubleshooting tools. Toolbox contains everything from a queue viewer, to the Best Practices Analyzer, to the Performance Monitor. These tools are all handy, and I highly recommend taking time to see what all is available to you. However, if you want to simply check your system's health, there is no tool that will allow you to quickly do so. Many of the tools will allow you to gain some idea of the system’s health, but you need to know how to interpret the results.
If you truly want to find out how healthy your Exchange Server is, there are some special commands that you can enter into the Exchange Management Shell. The next version of Microsoft Operations Manager will actually monitor system health by using these exact same commands.
Open the Exchange Management Shell and enter the following command:
Test-servicehealth
Upon pressing [Enter], you will see a screen similar to the one that’s shown in Figure C. Notice that each of these server’s roles are displayed, along with a true or false status that indicates whether or not the required services are running. In this particular case, all of the necessary services are running. Had one of the service is not been running, you could start it from the Exchange Management Shell by entering the NET START command followed by the service name.
Figure C

The Exchange Management Shell indicates whether or not all of the required services are running. Another way in which the Exchange Management Shell can be used to diagnose system health is by allowing you to test MAPI connectivity. To do so, enter the following command:
Test-MAPIConnectivity
Upon doing so, the Exchange Management Shell will display a screen similar to the one that’s shown in Figure D. As you can see, the Exchange Management Shell indicates that the server was able to communicate with the mailbox database successfully, and had a latency of 8 ms.
Figure D

The Exchange Management Shell can be used to test MAPI connectivity. Move mailboxes

In larger Exchange Server organizations, it often becomes necessary to move mailboxes from one server to another. Fortunately, moving mailboxes in Exchange 2007 is simple. Begin the process by navigating to Recipient Configuration | Mailbox. When you select the Mailbox container, the console's details pane will display a list of every mailbox in the entire Exchange Server organization.
If you look at Figure E, you will notice that the Recipient Type Details column lists some mailboxes as being legacy mailboxes, while other mailboxes are listed as being User mailboxes. Anytime you see a mailbox listed as being a user, room, or equipment mailbox, that mailbox is hosted on an Exchange 2007 server. Legacy mailboxes typically reside on Exchange 2003 servers.
Figure E

The Exchange Management Console displays a unified view of every mailbox in your entire Exchange Server organization. Depending upon the size of your organization and the number of mailboxes that need to be moved, having a unified view of all of the mailboxes in the entire organization might not be practical. For example, if you needed to move 10 out of 10,000 mailboxes, then you certainly wouldn't want all 10,000 displayed. Fortunately, the Exchange Management Console allows you to easily create a filtered view that displays only the mailboxes you want to see.
For the purposes of this article, let's assume you wanted to migrate all of the mailboxes off of one of your exchange servers. Let’s create a filtered view that displays only the mailboxes found on that server. You can create filtered views based on many other attributes using the exact same procedure as what I’m about to show you.
Begin by pressing Create Filter. When you do, a series of drop-down lists will appear at the top of the console. These drop-down lists allow you to enter a condition for which you want the list of recipients to be sorted. Since our goal is to migrate all of the mailboxes from a specific server, let’s filter the recipient list so that only recipients with mailboxes on that server are shown.
Select the Server option from the first drop-down list, and leave the second drop-down list set to Equals. Press Browse and you should see a list of all of your organization’s Exchange servers. Choose the server you want to migrate and click OK. Press Apply Filter and the list will be filtered to display only recipients with mailboxes on the selected server.
Now that the list has been filtered, it’s time to move the mailboxes. You can move all of the mailboxes at once, but I recommend moving a couple of mailboxes individually first so that you can make sure that the migration process is working correctly. If you are concerned about the integrity of your user’s mailboxes, you could always create a few sample mailboxes and fill them up with junk mail as a way of testing the migration process before you attempt to migrate live data.
To migrate a mailbox, right-click on the mailbox and select Move Mailbox from the resulting shortcut menu. Exchange will launch the Move Mailbox wizard. The wizard’s initial screen prompts you to select a server, storage group, and database as the destination you want to move the mailbox to.
Press Next and you will see a screen asking you what you want to do if corrupt messages are found within the mailbox. You have the option of either skipping the mailbox or skipping the corrupt messages. If you choose to skip the corrupt messages, then you have the option of specifying the maximum number of messages to skip before the migration is aborted.
Press Next and you will see a screen asking you when you would like for the mailbox to be moved. The default option is to move the mailbox immediately, but you can schedule the move for another time. Scheduling the migration is useful if you are afraid of disrupting user productivity or disrupting the nightly backup.
After setting the migration schedule, press Next and you will see a summary of the migration options you have chosen. As you look over the summary, pay particular attention to the number of mailboxes to be moved. Otherwise, you could be in for a nasty surprise if you accidentally selected the wrong mailboxes. If the summary looks good, press Move to move the mailboxes. When the move completes, press Finish to close the wizard.
Access Outlook Web Access

The last thing that I want to show you is how to use Outlook Web Access (OWA). In case you hadn’t heard, OWA has been completely redesigned in Exchange 2007. For example, OWA now supports autocomplete. This is possible because autocomplete information is now stored in the Active Directory. In addition, spell check has been improved, and flags and categories are now completely supported.
In order to access OWA, one of your servers must be hosting the Client Access role, and you must know the name or the IP address of this server. You can access OWA by opening Internet Explorer and entering the following URL:
https://servername/OWA
Upon connecting to the client access server, a user will be prompted to enter their username and password. The logon screen also gives the user the option of telling OWA whether they are using a public or a private computer. A check box on the screen also gives users the option of using OWA Light. OWA Light is typically used in low bandwidth environments.
The first time that a user logs on to the client access server, they will be prompted to select a language that they want to use, and to verify that the currently selected time zone is correct. Once the user presses OK, they are taken to the main OWA screen, where they should feel right at home