Windows 2008 Expand & Shrink Disk on the FLY

Here is out little project. We figured out our C drive is 20 GIG, operation system is windows 2008 standard edition. We want to shrink the space to half on alive domain controller. We simply perform fallowing steps. Rather than writing I decided to post pictures, since this is incredibly easy to achieve, after shrinkage we will expand the drive to what it was, with couple clicks.

Log into win08, click start, diskmgmt.msc

• Make right click on C (root) Choose “Shrink Volume”

• Click Shrink

here is C drive now

• now lets go back

• here is C ( root ) drive now

MVP (Exchange)
MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
Security+, Project +, Server +

Http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.spaces.live.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.worldpress.com (Blog)

MX Record and Mail Delivery in Basic

Mail Exchanger record is the record tells other DNS servers who the authoritative mail server is for the requested SMTP name space.

If my SMTP name space is “@smtp25.org” I typically expected to have or would have below records in the public DNS servers for senders to be able to send my mail servers e-mails.

MX (Mail exchanger record) tells other DNS servers, who is the authoritative mail server for the requested SMTP mail domain.

A record specifies the FQDN for the server, FQDN pointing to unique IP address, Let’s say I am going to e-mail you, here what happens in a simple way.

I use my outlook to send mail to you, I insert your mail address as destination, you@yourDomain.com, My exchange server takes the message, contacts to its configured DNS server.(normal internal AD/DNS integrated DNS)
AD/DNS server , sees the requested domain is YourDomain.com and uses it’s configured forwarders to perform recursive query, and ask the question ( generally works this way) , who is responsible mail server for SMTP domain YourDomain.com?

The configured Forwarder on the internal DNS servers, normally are ISP DNS server and they do the heavy lifting and they go out the internet and ask the same question to other DNS name servers.

I need to know the IP address of the mail server for the domain YourDomain.com, who has this information? Assuming there is least one DNS server who claims to be authoritative for your SMTP domain and the mail server record so the DNS server do know where to pass the SMTP traffic too, (YourDomain.com) says

***Hey I am the authoritative mail server for requested SMTP name space and here is my IP address*** and provides the IP address to the requested ISP DNS server.
*** DNS query wont fail if there is no MX records, MX record in reality is not needed for mail delivery, the DNS servers do search in this order, Look MX record first, Look A record second, Look Cname record third***

The part become tricky is, some mail gateways or DNS servers will fail the query and be mean if there is no MX record for the destination mail server, meaning it is up to sender to talk to strangers or not.
When ISP DNS server finds the IP address for intended SMTP server if passes the IP address back to AD/DNS server, AD/DNS server passes it to exchange server and exchange server established SMTP connection on port 25
I hope this helps to understand the basic mail flow

Oz Casey Dedeal

MVP (Exchange)

MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
Security+, Project +, Server +

Blog: http://www.smtp25.blogspot.com

Exchange Server Remote Connectivity Analyzer

One of the most common scenario, you got e-mail from your boss saying, I cannot sent e-mail to oz@smtp25.org, (-:, and what you will do? How you will know quickly if the destination SMTP server accepting mails for oz@smtp25.org? Go to below URL, www.testexchangeconnectivity.com

I think it is very useful tool, and if you remember DNS stuff old days when it was free we had similar functions to speed up troubleshooting steps. Seeing this from MS is really nice, and I wish we all are given more tools to test issues related to exchange servers when we needed.

This tool will help you to identify quickly if such SMTP address is able to receive e-mails, the IP addresses for the destination SMTP domain, open relay test and more.

Oz ozugurlu MVP (Exchange)

MCITP (EMA), MCITP (EA) MCITP (SA)

MCSE (M+, S+) MCDST,

Security+, Server +, Project+

Blog: smtp25.blogspot.com

Blog: telnet25.wordpress.com

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I would like to wish Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my friends, Students and visitors. I would not have gone this far without your support and I do appreciate it.

I am wishing you and your lovely families all the best, great Xmas and Happy New year, also I wish the New Year will bring good health and high spirits.

Oz ozugurlu MVP (Exchange)

MCITP (EMA), MCITP (EA) MCITP (SA),

MCSE (M+, S+) MCDST, Security+, Server +, Project+

Blog:http://smtp25.blogspot.com/

Blog:http://telnet25.wordpress.com/

Microsoft TechDays Event in Arlington, VA

Today I attended Microsoft TechDays event is Arlington VA, and had an opportunity to meet with MS folks. I was surprise and exited to meet with Harold Wong (24 Hours of Exchange 2007 webcast series) and also met with Blain Barton. Here is Harold website for all of you one more time, check it out, exchange webcast series, Harold has done incredible work by providing us new futures in exchange 2007 on this video and MP3 series.

The TechDays Event was very interesting, especially Forefront


"Stirling" which is integrated security system which delivers comprehensive solutions. It seems to be Microsoft is going to provide great security system will be doing pretty impressing task. If you want to read more about it here is the link

Oz ozugurlu

MVP (Exchange)

MCITP (EMA) , MCITP (EA ) MCITP(SA),

MCSE (M+,S+) MCDST, Security+, Server +,Project+

Blog: http://www.smtp25.blogspot.com

Jiu-Jitsu and Exchange 2007

Well I am not going to blah blah this time, there really isn't any connection with Exchange 2007 and Jiu-Jitsu as far as I concern so far (-:

It has been a year and I have been practicing Jiu-Jitsu and one of my dreams to spar with Royce Gracie since I start practicing. Well my dream came true and I had an honor to roll with him last Friday, beside sparring with master I asked him to chock me out and he was kind enough to make it happen.

Those of you who do not know Royce or Jiu-Jitsu here is the link

--Oz Ozugurlu

MVP (Exchange) MCITP (EMA),

MCITP (SA) MCSE 2003, M+, S+,

MCDST, Security+, Project +, Server +

Blog: http://www.smtp25.blogspot.com

WHY Exchange Admin must secure the Logs with his life

I am reading this great Technet article in regards to architecture Exchange databases and decided to post some of it as it is in my blog and give the reference link to it.

The Key points are as follows

Information store work hand in hand with following components

• MAPI
  
• Information Store
  
• Database engine
  
• Operating System disk I/O
  

The Database engine

• The Exchange database engine caches the disk in memory by swapping 4 KB chunks of data
  
• These called pages, and they work in and out of memory
  
• It updates the pages in memory and takes care of writing new or updated pages back to the disk.
  
• This makes the system more efficient because writing to memory is FASTER
  

When users make requests
(Let's say using outlook)

• The database engine starts loading the requests into memory and marks the pages as "dirty" (a dirty page is a page in memory that has been written with data).
  
• Now we know who is actually corrupting exchange databases, all it is users fault isn't it (- :
  
• These dirty pages are then later written to the information store databases on disk.
  

The information on disk is never completely up-to-date

• Although caching data in memory is the fastest and most efficient way to process data, it means that while Exchange is running, the information on disk is never completely up-to-date.
  
• since many changes in memory haven't made it onto disk yet, the database and memory are out of sync
  

Because these operations are done in a transaction, Exchange will perform none or all of these operations. As a result, it doesn't matter which order Exchange performs the operations. The message can be deleted safely from "Inbox" first because the system knows that the delete will only be committed if the message is also inserted into "Important." Thanks to transactions, even if the system crashes, it is guaranteed that Exchange will never lose an e-mail message while moving it. What's more, Exchange will never end up with two copies of an e-mail message that was moved

• The user sends a message.
  
• MAPI calls the information store to tell it that the user is sending the message.
  
• The information store starts a transaction in the database engine and makes the corresponding changes to the data.
  
• The database engine records the transaction in memory by dirtying a new page in memory.
  
• At about the same time, the database engine secures the transaction in the transaction log file and creates a log record. When the database engine reaches the end of a transaction log file, it rolls over and creates a new log file in sequence.
  
• The database engine writes the dirty page to the database file on disk.
  
• The checkpoint file gets updated
  

Read more

--oz

Oz Ozugurlu

MVP (Exchange)

MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)

MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST

Security+, Project +, Server +

Blog: http://www.smtp25.blogspot.com

MVP AWARD and making a difference

Today is for sure one of the happiest days of my life. July the first, and I received Exchange MVP award today. I would like to say million thanks to all my friends and students who helped me to achieve one of my biggest goals and dream in my life.

I would like to pass my special, thanks for James Chong (Exchange MVP), all Msexhange.org family & members,
all my friends, Andy Goran, Dean T Uemura (Exchange MVP).

My team from work Exchange Engineers, (Brad, Jeff, Jason, Pushpendu, Rony, Scott, Josh, Gene)

Thanks all to you for all your continuous supports and encouragements over time, I could not have done without you all.

here is my MVP Profile at Microsoft

"I love Exchange"

All the best,

Oz ozugurlu

VMware P2V ( Physical to Virtual )

Exchange is still not supported in VMware. I wrote couple articles in the past and explained the decision is political, and I have not seen any other issues putting exchange on VMware except the Microsoft is not supporting it, it means we should never go for unsupported configurations. Imagine the trouble shooting tools for exchange won't work because of VM platform, or if you call support PS person will tell you, simulate the same problem on supported hardware and we will help you our (-:, I cannot imagine the stress and trouble any exchange administrator will face if the situation comes to this point not to mention about the business concerns when there is an outage.

We will have some of our exchange servers on VM (bridgehead servers), just because they don't house any mailbox and bridgehead server requires very little configuration, therefore we have several Exchange running on VM over the years and no problems so far.

I did couple P2V the other day for some for some of the exchange servers and run into problems when it comes to assign the IP address to the virtual server after successful P2V. The windows were complaining about the IP address conflict and I got the solution from one of my friend at work and wanted to share with you if you ever need it.

Open command prompt. Type the following:

• C:\set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
  
• C:\devmgmt.msc
  
• Click on Show all hidden devices and remove whatever is unnecessary. In there should not be any other NIC device listed, if yes uninstall them and reboot the box to end to the conflict
  

After removing all other adapters (most likely the NIC's belong to Physical machine) and rebooting it the VM will be happy and peaceful

Best,

Oz ozugurlu

MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)

MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST

HOW LONG IT TAKES TO MOVE USER MAILBOXES.

The question came today on MSexcahnge.org,, in regards to moving mailboxes and how long it would take to move the X number of mailboxes from Exchange server A to Server B There is not any fix time, anyone can tell you in regards to mailbox move. Your best estimation will be selecting different size of mailboxes and moving them in order to get the picture at the time you are planning to make the mailbox move happen (probably weekend in the night). We did similar test in the past and the time we have recorded for the mailbox move for various size mailboxes, fluctuated in each time, due to other aspects involves into mailbox move (network, available bandwidth, Hardware specs, etc) process.

Here is some good information for you to remember,

• Four threads are used for each instance of Move Mailbox, even though multiple mailboxes can be scheduled to be moved
  
• SIS (Single Instance Storage), try not to break it if you want to move the mailboxes faster.
  
• If you move mailboxes from mail store A from Server A to Mail Store B on Server B, you will preserve the SIS
  
• Communicate with the users ahead of time and let them know the mailbox move and make sure they understand they won't lose any e-mail during the move and will have no access to their mailbox or the BlackBerry.
  

(If a message is sent to one recipient, and if the message is copied to 20 other recipients who reside in the same mailbox store, Exchange Server maintains only one copy of the message in its database. Exchange Server then creates pointers)

Mailbox Move

Improvements

SIS

Oz Ozugurlu,

Systems Engineer

MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)

MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST

Security+, Project +, Server +

http://smtp25.blogspot.com

OCS SERVER (OFFICE COMMINICATOR)

We finally finished deploying OCS. Let me tell you this up front the OCS look rock. I am sure it will improve the work quality in a short time. So those of you who don't know much this is the product for internal Chat, file sharing, virtual meeting ( round table) and more. Installation of OCS is kinda of tricky, but the installation wizard is extremely helpful. It was easy to follow it trough.

Installation Tips:

Keep your database files on a separate Drive and keep transaction logs on separate drive if it is possible.

• Installation Path: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007\
  
• Main service account name: RTCService
  
• Conferencing service account name: RTCComponentService
  
• Internal web farm FQDN: NHQOSC001.smtp25.org
  
• External web farm FQDN: <Empty>
  
• User database path: O:\LC Data\
  
• User database log path: C:\LC Log\
  
• 
  

Problem: Failed to activate Office Communications Server Standard Edition Server on machine

• Event Type: Warning
  
• Event Source: OCS Setup
  
• Event Category: (1007)
  
• Event ID: 30502
  
• Date: 5/19/2008
  
• Time: 3:10:55 PM
  
• User: N/A
  
• Computer: NHQOSC001
  
• Description:
  
• Failed to activate Office Communications Server Standard Edition Server on machine NHQOSC001.archq.ri.redcross.net.
  
• Error: 80004002
  
• Description: No such interface supported
  

Solution:

The command needs to be executed on the Root Domain rather than the Child domain. This scenario you are installing OCS on a child domain and there is empty root domain, so go to command prompt on the OCS server and execute following command

PS: RCODC3CHI005 is the name of the ROOT DC in this case.

LCSCmd.exe /Server /Role:SE /Action:Activate /Password:My$tr0ngPwd /RootDC:RCODC3CHI005 /GC:RCODC3CHI005

Problem:

• Event Type: Warning
  
• Event Source: Communicator
  
• Event Category: None
  
• Event ID: 1
  
• Date: 5/20/2008
  
• Time: 11:13:14 AM
  
• User: N/A
  
• Computer: OOZUGURLUPC
  
• Description:
  

Communicator was unable to locate the login server. No DNS SRV records exist for domain smtp25.org, so Communicator was unable to login.

Resolution:

Please double-check the server name to make sure that it is typed correctly. If it is correct, the network administrator will either need to use manual configuration to specify the login server's fully-qualified domain name (FQDN), or add DNS SRV records for the smtp25.org domain in order to allow automatic client configuration. The DNS SRV records

• _sipinternaltls._tcp.smtp25.org
  
• _sipinternal._tcp.smtp25.org
  

Go to DNS Server

Create SRV record, new, other records, service record, on the service erase and type _sipinternaltls

Sip.smtp25.org (change the smtp25.org to your own domain)

Problem:

Office communicator cannot use auto sigh in, receiving following errors

"Cannot sign in because the server is temporary unavailable. If the problem persists, contact your system administrator"

Solution:

This is purely DNS issue; if you fix the previous issue you won't see this error. You can still make client work by configuring it to manual configuration, by clicking on left upper corner,

• Tools
  
• Options
  
• Advance
  
• Manual configuration
  
• TLS
  
• Name or IP address of the OCS Server

Regards,

Oz Ozugurlu

Systems Engineer

MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA),

MCSE 2003 M+ S+ MCDST

Security Project+ Server+

oz@SMTp25.org

Change RDP listening port to SSL

You switch the job and realized you cannot RDP back to your home Lab Exchange 2007 server. Or the security team at your work decided has no mercy to IT department. Either way, why in the world the security folks would stop us playing with Exchange 2007, (-: who knows, here is quick way around. Go to server you wish to RDP too.

• click start
  
• run
  
• regedit, enter
  
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
  
• System
  
• CurrentControlSet
  
• Control
  
• TerminalServer
  
• WinStations
  
• RDP-Tcp
  
• PortNumber
  
• switch to Decimal
  
• add the SSL port 443
  
• exit the reg edit
  
• open RDP and include the port number as below ( my exchange server IP is 10.10.10.7)
  
• Change this to your exchange or server IP and leave the :443 in tacked
  
• 10.10.10.7:443
  

You may have to reboot the server, and now you can RDP back to your Lab exchange server

Oz Ozugurlu,

Systems Engineer

MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA),

MCSE 2003 M+ S+ MCDST

Security Project+ Server+

oz@SMTp25.or

http://smtp25.blogspot.com

Designating a Routing Group Master

We are on the way decommissioning our BH servers, I ran into issues, and had to move the master role to another server. Doing it is as easy as making a right click and selecting a new server in ESM under routing groups. I am posting TechNet article explaining the routing group master in exchange.

When you create a routing group, the first server in that routing group is assigned the role of routing group master. The routing group master maintains current link state information for its routing group and propagates it to the other servers within the routing group. The routing group master monitors the routing configuration that is written in Active Directory for its routing group only. Member servers can communicate any connector state or server availability information to the routing group master. For example, if a member server tries to contact another server in a different routing group over a connector, and this link is unavailable, the member server immediately notifies the routing group master. Likewise, when a non-master server receives new link state information, it immediately transfers the connector state information to the routing group master, so that other servers can receive the information about the routing change.

• When you designate a routing group master, ensure that the server you choose has good access to a domain controller because this is where it reads the configuration information that is stored in Active Directory. Additionally, when a change occurs in the configuration of its routing group, Exchange System Manager writes this information directly to Active Directory and then the domain controller notifies the routing group master of this change. The routing group master then propagates this information to all the member servers.
  
• Within a routing group, the routing group master and the other Exchange servers communicate link state information over TCP/IP port 691. However, communication of link state information between routing groups is different. If the routing group master is not a bridgehead server for the routing group, the routing group master sends the link state information to the group's bridgehead server over TCP/IP port 691. The bridgehead server then forwards this information (over TCP/IP port 25 using SMTP and the X-LINK2STATE verb) to the bridgehead servers of other routing groups.
  

Best

Oz ozugurlu

Systems Engineer
MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA),
MCSE 2003 M+ S+ MCDST
Security Project+ Server+
oz@SMTp25.org
http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog)

OWA CHANGE PASSWORD FEATURE IN EXCHANGE 2003

We finally went alive with two FE (front end server) road balanced behind the contend switch. All BE (Back End) server is using these two OWA FE servers from outside. The OWA traffic is being directed to URL, something like this Https://smtp25.org/webmail , this Cname maps to the IP address of the ISA Virtual IP Address. ISA (Proxy) server accepts all the traffic and passes over to inside network. The way we configured ISA, is with two interfaces. One is Public other one is internal interface. When ISA accepts traffic on Port 80, it redirects it to SSL (443) and passes inside network VIP (Virtual IP of the content switch). The Content switch is configured to distribute the traffic in round robin fashion, one session for one server A, second session for server B, third for server A forth for server B and so on. This is where you get the "Road Balance" type of configuration.

Anyway after completing this entire existing task, we realized we forgot to enable "Password Change" future. Now I am writing all the notes I put together to archive the mission with little finding. Creating Virtual directory called "Iisadmpwd" is the first step as shown below. Of course all these little things we do it not required in exchange 2007, because it is all build in, so upgrade to Exchange 2007 whenever is possible (-:

• Open IIS, click start, Run, InetMGR, and hit enter.
  
• In IIS Manager expand SERVERNAME, expand again Web Sites, and then expand Default Web Site.
  
• Right-click Default Web site and choose New, then select Virtual Directory.
  
• In the Welcome screen click next.
  
• In the Virtual Directory window type Iisadmpwd Click Next.
  
• In the Website Content Directory screen navigate to %Systemroot%\System32\Inetsrv\Iisadmpwd. Click Next.
  
• In the Virtual Directory Access Permissions grant Read, Run Scripts and Execute permissions. Click Next Finish.
  
• On the "Iisadmpwd" directory make a right click on go to properties and make sure
  
  

  Executive permissions set to "Scripts and executables"
  

  Application pool "ExchangeApplicationPoll" also one more thing to do. Click on Directory security, Under Authentication and access control, Click edit and make sure only "Basic authentication (password is sent in clear text) is selected.
  

  Now you need to enable a register key. All you need to do it copy and paste below code into notepad and save as "DisablePassword_to_0.reg", after this double click on the red file to make the changes in the register
  

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeWEB\OWA] "UseRegionalCharset"=dword:00000001 "DisablePassword"=dword:00000000

PS:
Here is the trick after you have done all the hard work you will have to reset IIS and make sure the information store service is restarted on the BE (back end server) to get this working otherwise you won't see the option change password when you log into OWA.
There is one property in MetaBase: PasswordChangeFlags. The default value in
Windows 2003 (IIS 6.0) is 6.PasswordChangeFlags, Metabase , Property With the value set to 6 u cannot change the password in OWA when the user password expires/Change password at next logon is selected.
You can run the below command on the server to check the value
If everthing is not working, but you are not getting "User must Change password" password expired, you have to run below scripts to get it going on the FE servers, so Click run, cmd, and go to"C:\Inetpub\AdminScripts" directory, use get script first if you get "6" it means prompt for expired password is not allowed, so use the second script to set it to "0" after IISRESET, OWA will happly will prompt you, your password expired and must be changed window.
C:\InetPub\AdminScripts> cscript adsutil.vbs get w3svc\PasswordChangeFlags
Set the value by following command on the server:
C:\InetPub\AdminScripts> cscript adsutil.vbs set w3svc\PasswordChangeFlags 0

KB:833734

Technet2

if there is more problems after this check this link out KB894825

You receive an "Object Required" error message IIS 6.0

To register the file in IIS 6.0, type the following command at a command prompt:

regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\inetsrv\iisadmpwd\iispwchg.dll

Best,

Oz ozugurlu

Systems Engineer
MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA),
MCSE 2003 M+ S+ MCDST
Security Project+ Server+
oz@SMTp25.org
http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog)

Mailbox manager settings Exchange Policies

Let's say the company decided to implement mailbox policies for all mail enabled users. You are assigned to get this task done based on the company policy. Regular mailbox policies would be delete such e-mails older than X number of days and to set this up on the Exchange org you need to start from ESM, and drill down to recipient policies, under recipients folder in ESM. New recipient policy selects "mailbox manager settings"

Image-1

Name your policy, once you get there makes a right click and click modify and select where you want to apply this policy, in my case I choose a single server. Click on mailbox manager settings (Policy) and complete the each filed corresponds or satisfies to your company policy. On the bottom there is an option to send mail to clients and let them know what happening.

When all looks good click apply and save the policy in ESM.

Image-2

Go to properties of exchange server

Mailbox management, click on custom schedule, and I picked 6AM every day. Click on reporting and point it to a DL (Exchange administrators), also we want detailed report.

Image-3

Manually initiating Mailbox Management

If you right-clicking the new Mailbox Management recipient policy and select Apply This Policy Now the policy gets applied right away regardless the schedule. Also right-click the Recipient Update Service, under "Recipient Update Service" select Update Now after doing this select Rebuild.

This will kick off the RUS with the new policy and then applies the policy to existing objects that meet the search criteria. For better redundancy dedicating multiple bridge head server and different DC/GC would be a good way of making sure RUS steps all policies and the SMTP Proxy addresses.

Image-5

Best

Oz ozugurlu

MCITP (EMA) ,MCITP(SA),

MCSE (M+,S+) MCDST

Security+, Server +,Project+

Public folders adding a dedicated public folder server into Public folder tree

Here is the scenario we will build dedicated public folder server and we will add it into existing PF replica list. While adding the new server into replica list we will delete the one of the dedicated PF server and decommission it eventually. Ideally when it comes to PF design it is a good idea to have the PF folder replica on the local exchange server as well as on the dedicated PF server.

The PFDEVAdmin comes into rescue of course. Doing bulk operation with PFDEVAdmin is real easy.

• Click Tolls
  
• Click Custom bulk operations
  
• Click Add
  
• Replica list click ok
  

The new menu will appear, and click on "select" under replicas

Here is the trick first window opens up ask you which server you wish to add into PF replica list, if you don't select any server you are leaving it blank, and go to second window (second window ask you which server needs to be removed from replica list) and select the server needs to be removed from PF replica list. Vice versa, if you only want to add without removing existing server when window opens up click okay without selecting any server to accomplish adding and removing PF server into PF tree.

Click ok and start performing bulk operations. PFDEVAdmin is great tool to perform bulk operations in large enterprise environment, altering the PF replica list manually would take up to days.

• There is only one MAPI public folder hierarchy that a single Exchange organization can support.
  

Another important part of the client public folder experience is the actual Public Folders tree that you can expand to see the public folder hierarchy. The Public Folders object is an Active Directory object that lives under the Administrative Group's Folders object. There is only one MAPI public folder hierarchy that a single Exchange organization can support. This tree object is located in the administrative group that had Exchange 200x installed into it first. The Public Folders object has an attribute that points to every public folder store that is associated with it. You can move this specific object between administrative groups by just dragging and dropping it in Exchange System Manager

Exchange 2007 is still supporting PF architecture; next version of exchange will support it as well (if Microsoft won't change their mind). There is serious intention from Exchange team to drop the PF architecture and use more robust (Share point), type of solution. Eventually PF structure won't be part of exchange, this is the intention and I do support it. In my opinion, the PF folders more of a headache and we need to move away it.

Best Regards,

Oz ozugurlu

Public Folders Error on ESM Id no: c0070000

I wish there would be a way to turn the GUI totally off on the server. There really should be no reason to open a browser and surf on the internet from a server anyway. We discovered following error on our dedicated public folder server, ESM was crapping out and generating errors.

Problem:

IE 7.0 ESM is Crashing upon opening public folders

Cause

The following DLL files won't seem to like IE 7.0.

Exchange System Manager (ESM), the application crashes with the following errors:

App: contentfilter.dll; module hhctrl.ocx app: maildsmx.dll; module unknown app: exadmin.dll; module

Solution:

Uninstall IE 7.0 and leave IE 6.0

Best,

Oz ozugurlu

IronPort SMTP Mail Gateways

We have implemented IronPort devices and dumped our legacy SMTP gateways. I am truly impressed with IronPort performance, heads up no wonder it is called IronPort. I had to prepare a little summary sheet for IronPort and decided to share here with you all

IronPort is capable of performing following

IP reputation is called reputation Filtering ( checks the sender IP reputation).The Sender Base Reputation Service provides an accurate, flexible way for users to reject or throttle suspected spam based on the connecting IP address of the remote host.

On SMTP hand Shake Iron, port is also capable of performing,

• RBL List (Real Time Block List)
  
• IP Reputation
  
• RDNS Check (Reverse DNS check to make sure, sender is coming from domain)
  
• Domain reputation
  
• Sender Base Reputation Service (SBRS) Score
  

The Sender Base Reputation Service (SBRS) score is a numeric value assigned to an IP address based on information from the Sender Base Reputation Service. The Sender Base Reputation Service aggregates data from over 25 public blacklists and open proxy lists, and combines this data with global data from Sender Base to assign a score from -10.0 to +10.0, as follows:

Score		Meaning
-10.0		Most likely to be a source of spam
0		Neutral, or not enough information to make a recommendation
+10.0		Most likely to be a trustworthy sender

The lower (more negative) the score, the more likely that a message is spam. A score of -10.0, means that this message is "guaranteed" to be spam, while a score of 10.0 means that the message is "guaranteed" to be legitimate.

How Does IronPort identifies Spam?

IronPort Anti-Spam filtering is based on Context Adaptive Scanning Engine (CASE) ™, and is the first anti-spam scanning engine to combine email and web reputation information following areas.

• Eliminate the broadest range of email threats — detect spam, "phishing," zombie-based Attacks, and other "blended" threats.
  Deliver the highest accuracy — anti-spam rules based on email and web reputation from Sender Base Reputation Service.
  
• Offer ease of use — due to reduced hardware and administrative costs. Deliver industry leading performance — CASE uses dynamic early exit criteria and off-box network calculations to deliver breakthrough performance.
  
• Address the needs of international users — IronPort Anti-Spam is tuned to deliver industry-leading efficacy world-wide IronPort Anti-Spam filtering is based on Context Adaptive Scanning Engine (CASE) ™, and is the first anti-spam scanning engine to combine email and web reputation information to: Eliminate the broadest range of email threats — detect spam, "phishing," zombie-based attacks, and other "blended" threats.
  Deliver the highest accuracy — anti-spam rules based on email and web reputation from
  
• Sender Base Reputation Service. Offer ease of use — due to reduced hardware and administrative costs. Deliver industry-leading performance — CASE uses dynamic early exit criteria and off-box network calculations to deliver breakthrough performance. Address the needs of international users IronPort Anti-Spam is tuned to deliver industry-leading efficacy world-wide
  
• IronPort designed IronPort Anti-Spam from the ground up to detect the broadest range of email threats. IronPort Anti-Spam addresses a full range of known threats including spam, phishing and zombie attacks, as well as hard-to-detect low volume, short-lived email threats such as "419" scams. In addition, IronPort Anti-Spam identifies new and evolving blended threats such as spam attacks distributing malicious content through a download URL or an executable. To identify these threats, IronPort Anti-Spam uses the industry's most complete approach to threat detection, examining the full context of a message-its content, methods of message construction, the reputation of the sender, and the reputation of web sites advertised in the message and more.
  
• Only IronPort Anti-Spam combines the power of email and web reputation data, leveraging the full power of the world's largest email and web traffic monitoring network — Sender Base — to detect new attacks as soon as they begin.
  

  Lowest False Positive Rate
  

  IronPort Anti-Spam and IronPort Virus Outbreak Filters are powered by IronPort's patent-pending Context Adaptive Scanning Engine (CASE) ™. CASE provides breakthrough accuracy and performance by analyzing over 100,000 message attributes across four dimensions:
  

  
  

  • Email reputation — who is sending you this message?
    
  • Message content — what content is included in this message?
    
  • Message structure — how was this message constructed?
    
  • Web reputation — where does the call to action take you?
    

Analyzing multi-dimensional relationships allows CASE to catch a broad range of threat while maintaining exceptional accuracy. For example, a message that has content claiming to be from a legitimate financial institution but that is sent from an IP address on a consumer broadband network or that contains a URL hosted on a "zombie" PC will be viewed as suspicious. In contrast, a message coming from a pharmaceutical company with a positive reputation will not be tagged as spam even if the message contains words closely correlated with spam.

Best,

Oz ozugurlu

IronPort

We finally deploying IronPort and dumping our existing SMTP appliance. It was a horrible and painful experience during last 2 years to have SMTP appliance which is not Enterprise level. We found out we wasted our resources, $$$$ and made our network vulnerable to multiple treats by having wrong SMTP appliance.

The short story we are deploying IronPort, my first impression about IronPort is impressive. This appliance seems to be Rock.

Multiple SMTP domain support

• Each appliance is capable of having multiple names and IP addresses
  
• 10.000 Concurrent connections
  
• AV updates every 15 minutes
  
• Outbreak updates every 5 minutes
  
• RDNS, A record, MX record, IP reputation, RBL list check on the SMTP handshake
  
• The internal interface is great, most logical design
  

I will write in more details how IronPort works and how we will deploy it in true enterprise environment. We will have to go trough the migration, which seems very smooth.

Best,

Oz oozugurlu

First day in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) class at Capital Jiu-Jitsu Scholl

I did enjoy the class and learn some nice moves from the first day. I think I was luck since I met Rodrigo Gracie on the first day. I asked Rodrigo if he could show me one of the moves. I grappled him pretty strong; he chocked me in seconds, which I enjoyed it. He is such a nice guy and it was truly an honor to be choked by him. He said technique is always stronger than a physical power. Since I have no technique yet I was using my power and that seems to be not worked well. Here is my first impression; it is awesome sport, a lot of ground grappling, throwing.

here is some information about scholl,Royce Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Course ("RGJJ") classes are for those students who desire to learn the proven techniques of the Gracie family. The complete art of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is taught, including techniques for self-defense, ground grappling, throwing and basic striking. Classes are separated by belt levels. Beginner classes are for White Belts from 0 - 3 stripes. Advanced Classes are for 4 Stripe While Belts and up (Commercial break ends here )

Rezky company me, so I owe him my thanks. We could not make Ron to sign up, he seems to be interested but for some unknown reason, he is not ready yet.

Heads up I am getting first stripe soon

This time good luck to me,

Oz ozugurlu