Exchange 2007

How To Remove Shadow Copies From Exchange Server Drives

July 20, 2017 by Sivakumar Margabandhu Leave a Comment

You might be wondering sometimes, the drives are getting filled during or after the backup. Sometimes it will not get cleared automatically. The backup team might say the backup is completed but when you check the drive space, still the drives are not freed up. If you check the total free space and the files utilized size inside the drive, the value will not get match. In this situation, it is best to check and clear the Shadow copies in the drives. The simple way to do it is following the below method

Steps:

Make sure the backup is completed in the Exchange server
Check the size of the files and make sure the value is not matching with the free space
Open cmd or PS and type diskshadow.exe
In the DISKSHADOW, type LIST SHADOWS ALL
It will list all shadow copies in the server.
In order to delete it type, DELETE SHADOWS ALL

Voila!! It will start clearing the shadow copies. If you refresh the drive you can see the free space is increasing 🙂

Please comment if you have any other easy method to do the same.

Happy learning 🙂

Transport Submission Server Override List

May 23, 2017 by Prabakar Ponnusamy Leave a Comment

Recently faced mail flow issue that users from the databases DB9 to DB12 have received emails without any issue but sent emails have been queued in their Outbox (Outlook Cached Mode users) or in their Sent Items folder but recipients didn’t receive it (Outlook Online Mode users) or in their Draft (OWA users).

We have 5 Mailbox Servers (EXCHMBX01 to EXCHMBX05) in a DAG (DAG01), EXCHMBX01 to EXCHMBX03 are in production site with 4 Databases per mailbox server for the total of 12 Databases and EXCHMBX04 & EXCHMBX05 are in DR site with the database ActivationPreference 3. We have total of 3 HUB/CAS Servers (EXCHHC01 to EXCHHC03), 2 HUB/CAS in the production site and 1 HUB/CAS in DR site.

We found that one of the mailbox server (EXCHMBX03) & HUB/CAS server (EXCHHC03) has faced high performance issue due to auto-update happened in Antivirus software then antivirus scan was executed automatically in the background and even we are unable to RDP the server. At the same time, only auto-update of Antivirus task was executed without system scan in rest the mailbox servers (EXCHMBX01 & EXCHMBX02) & HUB/CAS servers (EXCHHC01 & 02), so we didn’t face much performance issue in EXCHMBX01 & 02 and EXCHHC01 & 02

As EXCHMBX03 was unable to work properly, mailbox databases (DB9 to DB12) in that mailbox server automatically tried to switch over to another servers. Since there was more load in rest of the mailbox servers (EXCHMBX01 & EXCHMBX02) in the production site, DB9 to DB12 mounted in EXCHMBX05.

As mentioned earlier that HUB server (EXCHHC03) also has high performance issue, so all mailbox servers should notify the available HUB servers (EXCHHC01 & 02) that new mail is available then HUB server will picks the mail and place it in Submission Queue in HUB server. All the emails from EXCHMBX01 & 02 were successfully submit to either EXCHHC01 or EXCHHC02 but emails from EXCHMBX05 emails are unable to submit to anyone these HUB servers.

While troubleshooting we found that TransportSubmissionServerOverride was set in the mailbox server EXCHMBX05 to submit the emails only to EXCHHC03. So we have removed the values and marked it as Not Set then emails were submitted to EXCHHC01 & 02. To verify this option, please refer the screen captures of a mailbox server from ADSI Edit:

Also we have PowerShell command to verify as well as to set the override value:

Get-MailboxServer | ft name,SubmissionServerOverrideList

Set-MailboxServer “EXCHMBX05” –SubmissionServerOverrideList “EXCHHC03”

Set-MailboxServer <Mailbox ServerName> -SubmissionServerOverrideList $null

Note: The PowerShell command above will not check whether we are updating a valid HUB Server to SubmissionServerOverrideList.

Unable to install update rollup 15 in Exchange 2007

January 10, 2017 by Prabakar Ponnusamy Leave a Comment

Issue:

As we are in the process of migrating data from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2013 then Office 365, needs to install Rollup 15 in Exchange 2007 Servers to migrate Public Folders data from Exchange 2007 to Office 365. But unable to install rollup 15 in Exchange 2007 and received the below error:

Cause:

This happens because an earlier rollup is missing .msp file. Whenever you are installing a rollup update, Exchange server will look for .msp files of earlier rollups in the path %SystemDrive%\Windows\Installer and if the file is missing then will receive the above prompt.

Solution:

First we have to execute the Rollup in Command prompt in the format below to capture the execution details in a log file to analysis the issue.

Exchange2007-KB<RollupPackageNumber>-x64-EN.msp /lxv c:\<path>\<filename>.log

As per the logs below, Rollup 4 KB2509911 detail is missing in the installer:

Therefore, downloaded Rollup 4 Exchange2007-KB2509911-x64-EN.msp then try to install it or rename the rollup 4 file as 2e97d4.msp and place it in the path C:\Window\Installer but again received the same error.

Executed Exchange2007-KB2509911-x64-EN.msp in Command Prompt to get the logs and found that Rollup 8-V2 details are missing then updated all the missing Rollup files. After updating the missing files, finally it accepted the rollup 15 Exchange2007-KB2996150-x64-EN.msp installation and successfully updated to Rollup 15.

To verify installation details after the completion, please check Application Event Id below:

Also you can verify it in the path Control Panel à Programs à Program and Features à Installed Updates

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PowerShell Commands to get users having Full Access and Send As Permission

September 11, 2016 by Prabakar Ponnusamy Leave a Comment

Today got a task to collect the users with Full Access and Send-As permission in my organization and didn’t expect that I can finish the task but PowerShell make it as simple.

You have to use the PowerShell command below to get all the users who have Full Mailbox Permission for the user mailboxes or shared mailboxes, etc. other than their own NT account.

Get-Mailbox –Resultsize “Unlimited” | Get-MailboxPermission | Where-Object {($_.AccessRights –like ‘FullAccess’) –and –not ($_.user –like ‘NT Authority\Self’)}

NB: If you have multiple domains and you have to collect the information of mailboxes in the entire domain then use the PowerShell commands below to verify the mailboxes in the entire Forest:

Set-ADServerSettings -ViewEntireForest $true

You may get more rows and columns in the result and you may not be able to view all those information. To check all the information, just append Export-CSV to export the result in a CSV file.

Get-Mailbox –Resultsize “Unlimited” | Get-MailboxPermission | Where-Object {($_.AccessRights –like ‘FullAccess’) –and –not ($_.user –like ‘NT Authority\Self’)} | Export-CSV <File path followed by file name.csv>

If you have to verify any particular user has Full Mailbox access to any other User mailbox or Shared mailbox, etc. then use the PowerShell command below:

Get-Mailbox –Resultsize ‘Unlimited’| Get-MailboxPermission | Where-Object {($_.Accessrights -like ‘FullAccess’) -and ($_.user -like ‘domain\SamAccount’)} | Export-CSV <File path followed by file name.csv>

You have to use the PowerShell commands below to get all the users who have Send-As permission for User Mailboxes or Shared Mailboxes, etc. other than their own NT Account.

Get-Mailbox –Resultsize “Unlimited” | Get-ADPermission | Where-Object {($_.Extendedrights -like ‘Send-As’) -and –not ($_.User -like “NT Authority\Self”)}

You may get more rows and columns in the result and you may not be able to view all those information. To check all the information, just append Export-CSV to export the output in a CSV file.

Get-Mailbox –Resultsize “Unlimited” | Get-ADPermission | Where-Object {($_.Extendedrights -like ‘Send-As’) -and –not ($_.User -like “NT Authority\Self”)} | Export-CSV <File path followed by file name.csv>

Get-Mailbox –Resultsize “Unlimited” | Get-ADPermission | Where-Object {($_.Extendedrights -like ‘Send-As’) -and ($_.User -like “Domain\SamAccount”)} | Export-CSV <File path followed by file name.csv>

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Add Rules in Mail Enabled Public Folders

July 18, 2016 by Prabakar Ponnusamy Leave a Comment

Please find the steps to create Rules in Mail Public Folder from Outlook:

Right Click Mail public folderpropertiesFolder Assistant…Add Rules then you can choose Auto Reply, Auto forward, etc…

NB: When you create a rule, it will be activated by default.

Please find the screenshot below for reference:

PF-Rule_2