Exchange 2010 UM Old Voicemails

I ran into an issue in applying Exchange 2010 Service Pack 3 on an Unified Messaging server - the Prerequisite Check came back with the following error:

Unified Messaging Role Prerequisites
Failed

Error:
The Unified Messaging voice mail folder 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\unifiedmessaging\voicemail' isn't empty. This folder must be empty before upgrade can proceed.
Click here for help... http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ms.exch.err.default(EXCHG.141).aspx?v=14.3.123.3&e=ms.exch.err.Ex28883C&l=0&cl=cp

I went and looked, and indeed this folder was not empty. Looking at the dates on the voicemails, it was obvious that they were all old, and had been there for some time (the most recent was 6 months old). I believe there had been some previous delivery issues that had prevented them from being delivered to the proper mailbox. Since they were all old, I merely made a copy of them, and then removed them from this folder. Once the voicmail folder was empty, SP3 was able to continue installing without issue.

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Dustin Shaw
VCP

Dump SMTP Relay and Connection Info from IIS on 2003 via VBS

I had the need to pull all the SMTP related information from an old 2003 IIS server setup to do relaying. The specific information I was looking for was:

• IPs allowed to Relay
• IPs allowed to Connect
• Domains and if they had any SmartHost setup

Obviously, pulling this information via the GUI was not practical - you can only view 5 Relay IPs at a time, 2 Connection IPs at a time, and you have to manually check each domain's properties to verify SmartHost information.

I was also unable to pull the information straight out of the Metabase Explorer, as I would still have to go to each domain separately, and then convert the Relay and Connection IPs from Hex.

I looked around, but was unable to locate a ready-to-use VBScript that gave me what I wanted. I did find a script here that dumped the IIS SMTP Relay IPs, so I started there and adapted to also get the Connection IPs (listed as IPSecurity). Then I found this site that detailed how to get the Domains and their settings. I added this to the script, and voila, I had what I wanted in a nice CSV file.

To run the script, copy the below into notepad, save as ExportIISSMTPSettings.vbs and run with the following command:
cscript ExportIISSMTPSettings.vbs > IISSMTPServerSettings.csv

'#####================================================================================
'## Title: ExportIISSMTPSettings.vbs
'##     '## 
'#####================================================================================

Set objSMTP = GetObject("IIS://localhost/smtpsvc/1") 'Connect to the IIS Namespace, You can change the "smtpsvc/1" to fit your needs.
Set objRelayIpList = objSMTP.Get("RelayIpList") 'Get the RelayIPListObject
Set objIPSecurity = objSMTP.Get("IPSecurity") 'Get the IPSecurityObject

' *** Get Relay List
' GrantByDefault returns 0 when "only the list below" is set (false) and -1 when all except the list below is set(true)
Wscript.echo "Results will be display based on the Relay Restrictions Radio Buttion Selection"
Wscript.echo "  o Only the list below"
Wscript.echo "  o All Except the list below"
Wscript.echo "-------------"
If objRelayIpList.GrantByDefault = true Then
    Wscript.Echo "All except the list below :"
    Wscript.echo "-------------"
    objCurrentList = objRelayIpList.IPDeny
Else
    Wscript.Echo "Only the list below :"
    Wscript.echo "-------------"
    objCurrentList = objRelayIpList.IPGrant
End If
    count = 0
For Each objIP in objCurrentList
    Wscript.Echo objIP
    count = count + 1
Next
If count = 0 Then
    Wscript.Echo "There were no IP Addresses Found"
End If
' *** Get Connection Control List
Wscript.echo "Results will be display based on the Connection Control Radio Buttion Selection"
Wscript.echo "  o Only the list below"
Wscript.echo "  o All Except the list below"
Wscript.echo "-------------"
If objIPSecurity.GrantByDefault = true Then
    Wscript.Echo "All except the list below :"
    Wscript.echo "-------------"
    objCurrentList = objIPSecurity.IPDeny
Else
    Wscript.Echo "Only the list below :"
    Wscript.echo "-------------"
    objCurrentList = objIPSecurity.IPGrant
End If
    count = 0
For Each objIP in objCurrentList
    Wscript.Echo objIP
    count = count + 1
Next
If count = 0 Then
    Wscript.Echo "There were no IP Addresses Found"
End If
Wscript.echo ""
' *** Get Domains and settings
Wscript.echo "Displaying list of Domains and settings"
Wscript.echo "-------------"
Wscript.echo "Route Actions:"
Wscript.echo "2: Use DNS to route to this domain"
Wscript.echo "4098: Forward all mail to smart host"
strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject _
    ("winmgmts:{authenticationLevel=pktPrivacy}\\" _
        & strComputer & "\root\microsoftiisv2")
Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
    ("Select * from IIsSmtpDomainSetting")

For Each objItem in colItems
    Wscript.echo ""
    For Each strTurn in objItem.AuthTurnList
        Wscript.Echo "Authentication Turn List: " & strTurn
    Next
    Wscript.Echo "CSide Etrn Domains: " & objItem.CSideEtrnDomains
    Wscript.Echo "Name: " & objItem.Name
    Wscript.Echo "Relay For Authentication: " & objItem.RelayForAuth
    Wscript.Echo "Relay IP List: " & objItem.RelayIpList
    Wscript.Echo "Route Action: " & objItem.RouteAction
    Wscript.Echo "Route Action String: " & objItem.RouteActionString
    Wscript.Echo "Route Password: " & objItem.RoutePassword
    Wscript.Echo "Route User Name: " & objItem.RouteUserName
Next

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Dustin Shaw
VCP

Outlook Sync Issues

Synchronization issues are something that seem to plague any Exchange Admin. They come up for no reason, and go away for no reason. There have been a number of posts on the issue over the years, most telling MS to go fix their issues.

One particular issue that I've seen recently is when moving a database from one Exchange 2010 DAG Member to another, the Sync Issues folder starts filling up with the following Synchronization Log messages:

7:57:57 Synchronizer Version 15.0.4701

7:57:57 Synchronizing Mailbox 'User Name'

7:57:57 Synchronizing Hierarchy

7:57:58 Synchronizing server changes in folder 'Inbox'

7:57:58 Downloading from server 'Client-Access-Server'

7:57:58    1 item(s) added to offline folder

7:57:58 Error synchronizing folder

7:57:58                   [8004010F-501-8004010F-0]

7:57:58                   The client operation failed.

7:57:58                   Microsoft Exchange Information Store

7:57:58                   For more information on this failure, click the URL below:

7:57:58                   http://www.microsoft.com/support/prodredirect/outlook2000_us.asp?err=8004010f-501-8004010f-0

7:57:58 Canceled

Checking all the normal locations, there is nothing wrong with the synchronization, yet every 5 minutes Outlook reports an error synchronizing. The above example is with Outlook 2013 on Exchange 2010 SP3 RU6, but I've seen it through several Service Packs and Rollups. The issue also shows up on Outlook 2010.

Looking through all the settings on the Exchange DAG Members, and the Client Access Server in use (which doesn't change during the failover), there is nothing out of the ordinary that might keep it from syncing.

If I find a solution to this particular issue, I'll post it back here for posterity. Until then, this is merely another "Microsoft, please fix you're sync problems" blog.

------
Dustin Shaw
VCP

How to use Group Policy to allow the users to chose any screensaver except (None)

I just found one of the most beautiful Group Policies that I've ever come across:

How to use Group Policy to allow the users to chose any screensaver except (None)

This post is from Group Policy Central, and is 4 years old, but I've verified that it works properly with Windows 7 and 8, and is just a beautifully done Group Policy. Thanks Kevin for creating it and thank Alan for sharing.

The below is excerpts from the posting:

Step 1. Edit a Group Policy Object (GPO) that is targeted to the users accounts you wan to apply this policy
Step 2. Navigate to User Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings > Registry then from the menu click on Action > New > Registry Item

Step 3. Select “Update” from the Action then type “Control Panel\Desktop” in the Key Path: text field then type “SCRNSAVE.EXE”  in the Value Name text field and “C:\Windows\System32\scrnsave.scr” in the Value data: text field.

Step 4. Click on the Common tab and then tick “Item-level targeting” and then click the “Targeting…” button.

Now we will target the screen saver to apply only when the “HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop\SCRNSAVE.EXE” registry key does NOT exist as this means the screen saver has been configured to “(None)”.
Step 5. Click on “New Item” then the “Registry Match” option.

Step 6. Select the “Value exists” Match type” then type “Control Panel\Desktop” in the key path field and then type “SCRNSAVE.EXE” in the value name field

Step 7. Click back on the targeting setting in the top pane and press “F8” which changes the option to “does not exist” then click OK and OK.

This policy will now apply the blank screen saver on the next group policy refresh to all targeted users whenever they select the “(None)”.

Installing Exchange Server 2010 SP3 Rollup 6

To get the permissions correct for installing Rollups on Exchange 2010 SP3, you will need to either disable UAC (not recommended) or you will need to launch the Rollup installer from an elevated command prompt (Right click and Run as Administrator) with the following command:
msiexec /update Exchange2010-KB2936871-x64-en.msp

This will allow the rollup to install properly. Other words, it will Roll Back and say that it Ended Prematurely.

Another note on Rollup 6 for SP3 is that it takes (at least in my environment) an extremely long time to generate native images for .NET assemblies. One of my servers took 45 minutes for this process. Wait it out and you'll be able to get it installed, just plan your windows accordingly.

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Dustin Shaw
VCP

The wizard was interrupted before VMware Tools could be completely installed.

Upon attempting to install VMware Tools on a Windows Server 2008R2 server, I received an error stating "The wizard was interrupted before VMware Tools could be completely installed."

After looking around on the internet, the closest thing I could find was this post by David Homer, detailing a similar issue with VMware Tools on VMware Workstation.

I tried his fixes (remove VMware Tools registry key, remove the vmtools service), but none of them allowed me to get past the problem.

What eventually worked was doing a search in the registry for all references to "vmware" and removing all keys having to do with VMware Tools - make sure you don't remove any of the keys referring to your SCSI devices/other hardware; just the VMware Tools entries.

I believe it was most likely the Installer registry entries that were mucking it up.

After a quick reboot to refresh the registry, VMware Tools installed with no issues.

------
Dustin Shaw
VCP

vCenter Server 5 Service Fails

We had an issue with the vCenter Server 5 Service failing recently. Basically what happened was the VMware VirtualCenter Server service failed (out of the blue) with the following Informational Event ID 1000 logged in the Application log:

The description for Event ID 1000 from source VMware VirtualCenter Server cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event:

Starting VMware VirtualCenter 5.0.0 build-623373

the message resource is present but the message is not found in the string/message table

Followed by another Info Event 1000:

The description for Event ID 1000 from source VMware VirtualCenter Server cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event:

Log directory: C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\Logs.

the message resource is present but the message is not found in the string/message table

And followed by an Error Event 1000 (upon it attempting to auto-restart the service):

The description for Event ID 1000 from source VMware VirtualCenter Server cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event:

Failed to intialize VMware VirtualCenter. Shutting down...

the message resource is present but the message is not found in the string/message table

First try was to restart all the vCenter services - only the VMware VirtualCenter Server service was offline; all other services (like VMware VirtualCenter Management Webservices) were still online. This obviously failed with the same error as before.

All of the SQL services were verified online (these are kept on a separate server due to the size), and accessible. I ran across a similar Discussion thread in VMware Communities, which pointed to issues inside of the SQL Database. Based off of this, I decided the first order was to look at my SQL server to see what was going on there. I was able to log in, and verified that everything was up. Then I looked at my logs, and saw Event ID 17053:

C:\VCDB.ldf: Operating system error 112(There is not enough space on the disk.) encountered.

 And instantly I knew my problem. Some yahoo (namely the yahoo writing this article) must not've been paying attention when installing the VCDB database, and stuck it in the root of the C drive. Naturally, that yahoo had to fix his own problem...

So I went into Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, and ran the following command:

alter database VCDB modify file ( name = vcdb , filename = 'E:\SQL\MDF\VCDB.mdf' )
alter database VCDB modify file ( name = vcdb_log , filename = 'E:\SQL\LDF\VCDB.ldf')
go

Then I Offlined the database (Right click, Tasks, Take Offline), and moved the files to their new homes. Then I Onlined the database, and verified that the path was correct for it. You can see the full process of how to move a SQL database here.


Once this was done, I went back to my vCenter Server, and was able to bring all my services online without incident, and was able to again go in and manage my vCenter 5 Server via vSphere Client.

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Dustin Shaw
VCP

WNLB and VMware

So I believe I've found an (known) issue with 2003 Windows Network Load Balancing and VMware.
VMware reports that WNLB on Windows 2003 Servers does not behave as expected here. Basically the article says the the NLB will point to one of the servers, not all of them, when running in unicast. They give you two fixes: use multicast; or reconfigure your Port Groups (or vSwitches) to prevent RARP Packet Transmissions. Interesting thing, with the current environment these servers are hosted in, I am unable to either run multicast or disable Switch Notify. I'll have to take that up with the Network Team, or perhaps investigate some NLB hardware.

So here's where I'm left with - these servers are not supposed to go down (hence the NLB), but they are everyday at 4AM (fun call). This is when backups are running, so I'm adjusting the time to see if the issue follows.

What appears to be happening is that when snapshots are taken for backups, the NLB seems to freak out at the one dropped ping. Currently the backups all run at once, which makes them all hiccup at the same time, killing the NLB for a good reported 45 minutes (no idea why so long). If the issue follows the backups, perhaps staggering the backups might solve the problem (let the NLB roll from one server to another).

I'll keep you posted on what I find.
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Dustin Shaw
VCP

Change DAG Witness Server - Exchange 2010 Hosted

I recently had to change a DAG on Exchange 2010 Hosted. This only uses the Exchange Management Shell, and I couldn't find instructions specific to this, so I thought I'd share my experience.

Requirements

Witness Server has the following Requirements:

-          Can’t be part of the DAG

-          Same AD forest as DAG

-          Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003 R2, or Windows Server 2003

-          Each DAG requires a different witness directory, but they can all be run on the same server

Permissions

Set permissions on target server –

Local Administrors group – add Exchange Trusted Subsystem

Reboot server to apply permissions

Commands

Go to Exchange Management Shell, and type in:

Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup | fl

There are two lines to pay attention to: WitnessServer and WitnessDirectory

To change the Witness server, type the following:

Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup | Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup –WitnessServer witness.serverdomain.local –WitnessDirectory C:\DAG1

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Dustin Shaw
VCP

V2V from Hyper-V to VMware ESXi

So you finally came to the realization that Microsoft Hyper-V really isn't as mature as you were lead to believe. Good! You can attend the Gullible Anonymous meetings later. First, let's get you over to something that can keep your servers up and running and performing like the $10k you spent on your hardware should provide you.

Assuming that you have a free server available, doing a V2V from Hyper-V to VMware ESXi is extremely easy. Just think of this as doing a P2V, and ignore the wasted resources in between...

Take one of your spare servers, and load up VMware ESXi on it (you can do 4.1 or 5, or whatever strikes your fancy). Get it all ready for the VM to run on it, and get it on the same network and gig switch as your Hyper-V box.

Login to the VM that you want to convert, and download and install VMware's Standalone Converter on it (current version is 5.0). Current supported platforms are:

Windows XP Professional (32-bit and 64-bit)

Windows Server 2003 SP2, R2 (32-bit and 64-bit)

Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit)

Windows Server 2008 (32-bit and 64-bit)

Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit)

Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)

Next, you will want to run the Converter against the local machine, and convert it to ESXi server that you just created. There are several settings to change to verify that it's done properly:

• Prep your computer for a P2V by stopping ALL unneccessary services. You only need core services to make sure that it's successful.
• Select Powered-on machine; local machine

• Put in the IP/Hostname of your new ESXi server and root/password

• Give it a destination Virtual Machine name
• Select a Resource Pool (if used), datastore, and Virtual Machine hardware version (unless you have a driving reason, go with Version 7)
• Set your disk drives the way that you want them to be on the new environment - I prefer Thin on all my disks, but it's up to you and your application. To change this, Edit the "Data to copy," Advanced, and Destination Layout tab. Change the type to Thin

• Change the Disk controller to SCSI. To change this, Edit the "Devices" and go to the Other tab. I typically select SCSI LSI Logic SAS for newer OSes and SCSI LSI Logic for older OSes.

• Set all services that say Hyper-V to disabled. To do this, Edit the "Services" and go to the Destination services tab. The ones I came across on my most recent migration were (your mileage may vary based on the version/options you have):
• Hyper-V Heartbeat Service
• Hyper-V Data Exchange Service
• Hyper-V Guest Shutdown Service
• Hyper-V Time Synchronization Service
• Hyper-V Volume Shadow Copy Requestor
• Edit Advanced options and go to the Post-conversion tab and check "Install VMware Tools on the destination virtual machine"

Off it goes converting. Once it's done, power down your Hyper-V VM, power up the VMware VM, and wait for the VMware Tools to install. Once that's done, uninstall the VMware Converter, and your off and running.

Now you can wipe your Hyper-V server, load up ESXi on it, and build yourself a nice little redundant cluster.

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Dustin Shaw
VCP

Exchange 2010 and IE9 Issues

Ran across a known issue with Exchange 2010 and IE9. How do I know it was a known issue? I happened to be on the phone with Microsoft Support at the time for another issue...

The error that this combination causes is that you cannot close the Exchange Management Console in Exchange 2010. When you try to close it you receive the error message "You must close all dialog boxes before you can close Exchange Management Console."

My friendly guy on the Microsoft call told me that there is currently no fix - they are expecting to have a patch out around Q4 2011. The current fix, according to him, was "Don't install it. And uninstall it if you have already." I almost forgot to mute the phone before I started laughing. Gotta love when Microsoft tells you to not keep your computer up to date because it will break it...

So I decided to do some research on my own and (easily) found an article here with the fix.

Basically what you need to do is disable the Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration, then add https://localhost to the trusted sites in IE and your good to go.

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Dustin Shaw
VCP

VMware View Client Fails to Connect

If you just recently installed Microsoft Windows Updates on your Windows 7 machine, you'll soon discover that two of them broke the VMware View Client 4.5.

VMware recommends in their KB Article that you update to the latest patch of the View Client (the latest patch available on their website is Build 353760), or uninstall the two offending MS Updates (KB2482017 & KB2467023).

Essentially the two patches are to fix holes in Internet Explorer and to address issues that occur when the system binaries are unloaded and loaded. Installing either of these updates will break the VMware View Client so that it will not connect to the View Connection Server. The behavior I experienced was that it appeared as if the VMware View Client locked up after I clicked on Connect.

To fix it, simply download the patch, install, and your back in the game.

Here's the text of the VMware KB Article for your convinience:

Unable to connect from the View Client on Windows 7 to the View Connection Server after installing the patch in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 2482017 or 2467023

Symptoms

• Unable to connect from the View Client on Windows 7  to the View Connection Server
• Connecting the View Client on Windows 7 to the View Connection Server fails
• You have installed one or both these Microsoft patches 2482017 or 2467023

Resolution

This issue occurs when you have installed one of these Microsoft patches, 2482017 or 2467023.

If you have already installed these patches, you can install VMware View Client (build 353760) or uninstall the Microsoft patches.

If you have not installed these patches, delay the installation of the Microsoft patches until you have installed VMware View Client (build 353760).

  

VMware View Client build 353760 has been tested on: 

• Windows 7 Enterprise 32 bit +  Internet Explorer 8
• Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit +  Internet Explorer 8
• Windows 7 Home 32 bit +  Internet Explorer 8 

The View Client patch can be downloaded from here. Enter your credentials, accept the EULA and download the appropriate file:

• If you are using Windows 7 32-bit, use VMware-viewclient-4.5.0-353760.exe.
• If you are using Windows 7 64-bit, use VMware-viewclient-x86_64-4.5.0-353760.exe.

Note: If you are using View Client 4.0.x and are experiencing this issue, you can install the appropriate View Client 4.5 for your environment.

Disclaimer: Using Windows 7 with a View Client 4.0.x is not supported, so this information is provided as is, and without testing.

To apply this patch 

1. Click Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs.
2. Choose the previously installed VMware View Client and click Remove.
3. Navigate to where you downloaded VMware-viewclient-xxx-4.5.0-353760.exe and run the executable file.
4. Follow the installation installation wizard to complete installation.
5. Reboot the computer.

Note: VMware View Clients with build number 353760 or later are not affected by this issue.

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Dustin Shaw
VCP

Migrate from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010

I ran across a great article by Jaap Wesselius that gives you a step-by-step on upgrading Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010.

You can find it here.
If you follow it through straight from beginning to end, you can't go wrong.

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Dustin Shaw
VCP

Exchange 2010 AD Prep

When you go to install Microsoft Exchange 2010, you need to prepare your AD first. MS has a good article on how to prepare the schema here.

The essence is that you need to run the following commands. If you want, you can skip 1. and 2. as they will run when you run 3. The advantage of running separately is tracking the changes and replication to your AD.

1. setup /PrepareLegacyExchangePermissions or setup /pl

2. setup /PrepareSchema or setup /ps

3. setup /PrepareAD or setup /p

4. setup /PrepareDomain or setup /pd
You only need to run this on any child domains under the domain you ran 3. on.

Addendum:

Another thing to note is that you MUST have a 64bit box on the domain that you run these commands from.

I ran into a client that didn't have an x64 machine on his parent domain, and was wanting to deploy Exchange 2010 to the separate client domains, but couldn't without loading up a x64 server on his parent domain.

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Dustin Shaw
VCP

Exchange 2010 Prereq Script

I was looking for an easy way to install all the Prerequisites on a new Exchange 2010 install this last week, and ran across a good script that does it all for you.

The script was written by Dejan Foro over at ExchangeMaster.net. You can find it here.

He has several variations of the script: one that lets you choose what server roles you are installing, or one that installs all prerequisites needed if you are loading down a box with all Exchange Roles.

It's also got variations for whether you are running Server 2008 SP2 or Server 2008 R2.

It's available in either ISO or ZIP format.

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Dustin Shaw
VCP

Speed, Speed, Speed

Who would've ever thought you'd see network performance like this on an Windows box:

This is the networking graph I got off of a physical box running the inital push for Quest vConverter's Continuous Protection option. The blip in the middle was it switching from the C: volume to the D: volume. It just about knocked my socks off - I've never seen anything eat up the entire NIC on Windows.

I found out some really cool stuff with vConverter. With the Continuous Protection option, you can keep a full-image copy of your physical server on an NTFS Share, ESX(i) Server, or Hyper-V server. After the first push, it just copies block (or file level) changes (whichever option you want) to the target store. This way, if you ever lose your physical box, you can either immediately pop it online in your ESX/Hyper-V box, or do a V2P back to your original hardware once it's back up and running. Very cool stuff.

Even cooler - let's say you're looking at Offsite DR. You already have Virtual Servers (VMware or Microsoft) in a hardened data center, and are currently replicating your VMs at your main office offsite to there. Good for you! Now how do you push your physical boxes out there?

With vConverter, you can do your initial copy locally (say to an NTFS Share on a NAS device), then you can take it to your Datacenter, and upload it to your SAN that your ESX or Hyper-V boxes use. Then go into vConverter, do a "change target" and select your ESX or Hyper-V box, tell it where the data is, and your good to go. Now all you have to worry about getting across the WAN is your block changes. Now you really do have an Offsite DR solution.

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Dustin Shaw

VCP

Exchange Memory Utilization

Recently I had someone ask me what the recommend maximum settings were in Exchange 2010 before getting a performance hit. After I pulled up the appropriate TechNet Articles for him, I decided I'd go ahead and post them here.

Here's the Article for Exchange 2010.

Memory configurations for Exchange 2010 servers based on installed server roles

Exchange 2010 server role	Minimum supported	Recommended maximum
Edge Transport	4 GB	1 GB per core (4 GB minimum)
Hub Transport	4 GB	1 GB per core (4 GB minimum)
Client Access	4 GB	2 GB per core (8 GB minimum)
Unified Messaging	4 GB	2 GB per core (4 GB minimum)
Mailbox	4 GB	4 GB plus 3-30 MB additional memory per mailbox: The total required memory is based on the user profile and database cache size. For more information about how to determine the total required memory, see Understanding the Mailbox Database Cache.
Client Access/Hub Transport combined role (Client Access and Hub Transport server roles running on the same physical server)	4 GB	2 GB per core (8 GB minimum)
Multiple roles (combinations of Hub Transport, Client Access, and Mailbox server roles)	8 GB	4 GB plus 3-30 MB additional memory per mailbox: The total required memory is based on the user profile and database cache size. For more information about how to determine the total required memory, see Understanding the Mailbox Database Cache.

Here's the Article for Exchange 2007.

Memory configurations for Exchange 2007 servers based on installed server roles

Exchange 2007 server role	Minimum per server	Recommended	Maximum per server
Edge Transport	2 GB	1 GB per core (2 GB minimum)	16 GB
Hub Transport	2 GB	1 GB per core (2 GB minimum)	16 GB
Client Access	2 GB	2 GB per core (2 GB minimum)	16 GB
Unified Messaging	2 GB	1 GB per core (2 GB minimum)	4 GB
Mailbox	2 GB; also depends on number of storage groups (For information, see later in this topic.)	2 GB plus from 2 megabytes (MB) to 5 MB per mailbox. This is variable based on user profile. For more details, see "Mailbox Server Role" later in this topic.	32 GB
Multiple roles (combinations of Hub Transport, Client Access, Unified Messaging, and Mailbox server roles)	4 GB; also depends on number of storage groups (For information, see later in this topic.)	8 GB plus from 2 MB to 5 MB per mailbox. This is variable based on user profile. For more details, see "Mailbox Server Role" later in this topic.	32 GB

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Dustin Shaw
VCP

ThinkPoint Virus

Seen a new virus running around in the last week. It's called the ThinkPoint; it's a rogue antivirus software, much like the traditional "Antivirus 2010" viruses.

Here's a good site on how to kill it.

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Dustin Shaw
VCP

Entourage 2008 connection issues to SBS 2008

Most things with Small Business Server 2008 work out of the box. Some do not.

Here's one that doesn't - Entourage 2008 connection from outside the network. Outlook uses RPC over HTTPS and works great. Entourage uses WebDAV and it doesn't. It usually works fine with most Exchange 2007 setups (as long as they are configured properly), but it doesn't with the custom config known as SBS 2008.

The solution is to allow the "Authenticated Users" Group to have "Read and Execute", "List Folder Contents", and "Read" access to the following folders:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\ClientAccess
C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\ClientAccess\Exchweb
C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\ClientAccess\OWA

And then you need to make sure you are connecting to the exchange server using the following format:

remote.domain.com/exchange/username@domain.com

And then you should be good to go.

That is of course if you are up to date on your Exchange 2007 SP2 or higher. If not, then it will probably break the RPC over HTTPS so that it continually prompts for username and password and never connects. The solution for this is either update to Exchange 2007 SP2 or do the following:

Go to IIS (7)
Go to Sites -> SBS Web Applications
In the following Virtual Directories, change the SSL settings to Accept Client Certificates:
OAB
RPC
RPCWithCert

I've seen some people that also recommend you should do the Autodiscover Virtual Directory, but I've not seen this needed.

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Dustin Shaw
VCP

All About the Design

It seems to me that you can always tell if an IT guy is worth his water by the way that he architects/designs solutions.

We picked up a small shop recently that their previous guy built them a heavy-built Dell T710 with Microsoft Hyper-V. They've got 5 VMs running on it, so nothing wrong with the basic idea behind it, but the execution is where I have an issue.

The machine was originally built (from factory) with the onboard SAS 6/iR RAID card with a set of four 450GB drives in a RAID 5 config. No hot spares. Issue number one.

He realized that he must have under built, so he then went off the deep end. He went out to NewEgg and bought four 2TB SATA drives, bought the caddies off EBay, and bought a PERC 6/i RAID controller directly from Dell (must've not found it cheaper somewhere else). This means the factory warranty from Dell (3 year NBD onsite) won't extend to anything except the RAID card. What's the most likely thing to die on a server again?

He then went in and reconfigured the machine to run off the PERC with a second RAID 5 set with the 2TB drives (again no hot spare), and directly attached one of the VMs to it for their main data storage. This is all fine and dandy, except for the fact that there is 800GB free on the first RAID set, and they are only (at this point) using 40GB on the second RAID set (leaving roughly ALL of it free).

And here comes the second part of the issue - much bigger than the previous config issues.

The PERC 6/i controller has issues running on drives 1.5TB and up. The latest firmware revision runs better than the previous one, but the controller is regularly (it's happened 3 times in a month, hence why the old guy went bye-bye) dropping a drive offline. Part of the issue is that when it drops the drive, it drops the RAID set offline at the same time.

When I got called in, the RAID set had dropped two drives offline (meaning bad, bad things could've happened to their data). I reseated the "bad" drive, imported the foreign config, and let the RAID set rebuild itself. I then proceeded to move their data off of that RAID set and remove the config from the environment.

They still have 800GB to grow into before we even need to consider doing anything. My first plan of order is to tell them that they need to get another 450GB drive and put it in as a hot spare. As I mentioned, this is a small shop, and the server sits on the floor in a closet. They only open the door when there is a problem, so they could easily loose a drive and not know it until someone asks "What's that red light for? It's been doing that for a month." Hence the driving need for a hot spare.

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Dustin Shaw
VCP