Beyond Messaging

Making and Managing Shared Mailboxes using Exchange Management Console and PowerShell

These will work for both Exchange 2010, Exchange 2013, 2016 and Office 365.

 

Make a new shared mailbox:

New-mailbox "Mailbox Name" -shared –userprincipalname [email protected] -OrganizationalUnit "domain.com/OU1/OU2/OU3" -Database MBX-DB-1

 

If you already have the mailbox and want to set it to a shared mailbox use this:

Get-Mailbox -Identity alias@ccompany.com | Set-Mailbox -Type Shared

 

Grant Full Access Permissions to your new shared mailbox:

Add-MailboxPermission -Identity Mailbox Alias -User User Alias -AccessRights FullAccess

 

 

Grant Send As permissions to your new shared mailbox:

Get-user -identity mbx-alias| Add-ADPermission -User username -ExtendedRights "Send As"

 

List Users with Full Access to a Mailbox
 
Get-Mailbox -identity "alias" | Get-MailboxPermission | where { ($_.AccessRights -eq "FullAccess") -and ($_.IsInherited -eq $false) -and -not ($_.User -like "NT AUTHORITY\SELF") | List User, DisplayName, PrimarySmtpAddress }
 

List Mailboxes a user has full access to:
List all mailboxes to which a particular user has Full Access permissions:
Get-Mailbox | Get-MailboxPermission -User alias

 

Microsoft Windows 2012 R2 Failover Cluster Powershell Goodies

MS Cluster Goodies

 

Tip: Check to make sure you have the latest hotifixes:

Recommended hotfixes and updates for Windows Server 2012 R2-based failover clusters

Recommended hotfixes and updates for Windows Server 2012 R2-based failover clusters

 

 

 

Check for hotfix by number: 

 

Get-HotFix -ID "KB2799904"

 

Load the Failover Clusters PowerShell Module:

import-module failoverclusters

 

Get some information about your cluster:

Get-cluster | fl *

 

Get status of your CSV / Cluster Shared Volumes

Get-ClusterSharedVolumeState

 

Get a cluster log from the last 30 minutes.  (Great way to find problems)

 get-clusterlog -timespan 30 -destination c:\cluslog

 

+++

 

Get Enterprise Vault cluster resources parameters.  (Useful if you have reinstalled EV and need to set the cluster resources back)

Get-ClusterResource –Name "evserver-01-EnterpriseVaultIndexingService" | Get-ClusterParameter

Free Web Ops & DevOps Ebooks from O'Reilly

IT Publisher O'Reilly is offering a large bunch of ebooks free with sign up for their email list.  Featuring 20 titles in Operations and 11 in Culture / DevOps and scroll down to the bottom of the page for even more categories.

http://www.oreilly.com/webops/free/?cmp=tw-webops-free-lp-vlca17_free_report_ac

Export an Exchange mailbox to a PST file via Exchange Management Console

There are times that you may be asked to export the contents of an Exchange mailbox to a pst.  Other times accounts may be being merged and you may need to export the contents of an account being merged and import the mails to the account which will be kept.

Before you begin, your account needs to have the Mailbox Import Export role and you need a folder to export to that the Exchange server has rights to.  I like to have a drive on an Exchange server itself to use for the exports.  Just make sure the Exchange servers have rights to that folder and you have a unc path - the ones that begin with backslash backslash.  (\\)

See here for how to Add the Mailbox Import Export Role to a Role Group

 https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee633452(v=exchg.141).aspx

To initiate the export:

New-MailboxExportRequest –Mailbox alias -FilePath \\servername\PST_Export\alias_date_filename.pst

Where alais is the user's alias.

Check status of queued export

Get-MailboxExportRequest

To import a pst to a mailbox

New-MailboxImportRequest -Mailbox destinationalias -FilePath \\servername\PST_Export\alias_date_filename.pst -TargetRootFolder "SourceAlias Imported"

Clear C:\ drive space on a Windows Server without the Disk Cleanup tool installed

Need to clear C:\ drive space on a Windows Server without the Disk Cleanup tool installed?

My go to method:

• Delete any old user profile directories under C:\Users.

 

• Delete temp files - if you type %temp% in the search field  it will open Windows Explorer in the folder set as your Windows Temp folder.

 

• Delete downloaded Windows patch files.  These are generally located under C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download and if the patches have already been applied Windows Update is supposed to clear them out but often patches remain there.

Need more space? - check out this nice post - http://blog.willbeattie.net/2013/06/freeing-disk-space-on-c-windows-server.html

Reclaim Space, Windows 2016, Windows 2012 R2, Windows XP, Windows 2003

 

Marianne's Quick and Dirty Exchange Scriptmaker Full Access and Send As Permissions

If your organization uses lots of shared mailboxes in Exchange (On-Prem or Office 365) one thing you probably do a lot of is grant full access and send as permissions to shared mailboxes.  Being a busy admin, I like one liner scripts and shortcuts.   I decided to use Excel's concatenate function and a really simple spreadsheet to automate adding users to have rights to shared maiboxes.  

Instructions:

Add your values to Mailbox Alias and User Alias and drag down script result field.  Select and copy the results from the results column.  Then open Exchange Management Console and paste in all of the one liners one by one to test or all at once if you feel good about it.

How it works:

The one liner PowerShell script we are using is:

Add-MailboxPermission -Identity Mailbox Alias -User User Alias -AccessRights FullAccess

 

Then we are using Excel's Concatenate function to put it all together.

=CONCATENATE("Add-MailboxPermission -Identity ", A1," -User ", B1, " -AccessRights FullAccess")

 

Here is a screenshot and you can download a sample spreadsheet here -  Download Mariannes Quick and Dirty Exchange Script Maker Full Access and Send As Permissions

Exchange 2010 Powershell Script to Make Multiple Rooms at Once

A company I worked for had been using a 3rd party tool to manage rooms and resources and decided to move all their rooms to Exchange.  Great decision, as it makes sense to take advantage of Exchange and Outlook's integrated calendaring.  Why pay extra to manage rooms scheduling when Exchange does it so well?

I found myself needing to make hundreds of rooms for multiple locations across the globe - time for PowerShell and the Exchange Management Shell!  These scripts were written for Exchange 2010 but they would work in newer versions of on-premise Exchange and Exchange 365 as well.

1.  Fill out the csv file with your room information for as many rooms as you need to make.  Save the file to C:\scripts or wherever you like and edit the script to reflect the new location.

Download "rooms" csv file 

2.  Save the following as roomsfromcsv.ps1.  Tip: It's usually a good idea to paste the script into a text editor and then save as your .ps1 file to get rid of any weird formatting.

 

Import-CSV “C:\scripts\rooms.csv” | foreach {new-mailbox –Name $_.name -DisplayName $_.DisplayName –Alias $_.alias –OrganizationalUnit $_.organizationalunit  –UserPrincipalName $_.userprincipalname –SamAccountName $_.SamAccountName –Database $_.Database –Office $_.Office –Phone $_.Phone –ResourceCapacity $_.ResourceCapacity -room}

 

3.  This second script turns on the Room Attendant feature that allows the room to accept or decline meetings.  I call this one setattendantfromcsv.ps1. Tip: Wait a few minutes before you run this one as there is some processing that needs to occur on the new rooms before it will run successfully.

 

Import-CSV “C:\scripts\rooms.csv” | foreach {Set-CalendarProcessing -Identity $_.alias -AutomateProcessing AutoAccept}

 

4.  Open Exchange Management Shell and cd to c:\scripts.  Then run the script by typing .\roomsfromcsv.ps1.  Wait a few minutes and then run the second script setattendantfromcsv.ps1.

 

Congratulation, you just made a bunch of rooms. 

 

 

Which models of Kindle e ink have the Freetime Parental Controls App?

I have had a lot of Kindle e ink devices.  I started with the second generation.  I have a Kindle keyboard, and  a Paperwhite first generation.   Recently my Paperwhite updated itself and I now have the Freetime parental controls app on it.  I looked it over and it looks like it will be great for my 9 and 10 year old boys.  So I wanted to know if any of my older Kindles will run it too.  I googled but my best friend Google didn't know.  So I did an Amazon support chat and Denise gave me the scoop. Since Google failed I figured I could help people out by posting the information. 

Alright Marianne, the Kindle Keyboard doesn't have the FreeTime feature. It would only be available for the following devices:

- Kindle Fire Tablet [Previous Generation]

- Kindle Fire HD 7", Dolby Audio, Dual-Band Wi-Fi, 16 GB [Previous Generation]

- Kindle Fire HD 8.9" Tablet

- Kindle Fire HD 8.9" Tablet Wi-Fi + 4G LTE AT&T

- All-New Kindle Fire 7" Tablet, Now in HD

- All-New Kindle Fire HDX 7" Tablet

- All-New Kindle Fire HDX 8.9" Tablet

- All-New Kindle Paperwhite, 6" High Resolution Display with Next-Gen Built-in Light, Wi-Fi

- All-New Kindle Paperwhite 3G, 6" High Resolution Display with Next-Gen Built-in Light, Free 3G + Wi-Fi

- Kindle Paperwhite [Previous Generation]

Huge collection of Free Microsoft eBooks

Huge collection of Free Microsoft eBooks

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Includes Office, Office 365, SharePoint, SQL Server, System Center, Visual Studio, Web Development, Windows, Windows Azure, and Windows Server.

Labelling Cables and Setting up Racks and Patch Panels

Having well labeled cabling can be a life saver for a System Admin.  There's few things more frustrating than having mystery cabling and when you have a problem you don't know which port on the switch a particular piece of equipment is plugged into.

At the last large company I worked for they has a wonderful cable labeling scheme where each cable would be labelled with the path it took including server, rack or cabinet, row, and port it was coming from and going to.

I just purchased a Brother P-touch PT-2030 for labeling. I will use TZeFX Flexible Laminated tape which they recommend for small curved surfaces like cables.

Most groups color code their cables as well - something like this:

 

- User patch cables - BLUE

- Cables to backup switch - GREEN

- Cables to ILO or DRAC - WHITE

- Crossover Cables - RED

For a small network closet or server room a rack configuration like this makes sense, with short patch cabled (2 ft.) so its really easy to see where the cables go and to move them around if needed.  That was you can get away with only labelling cables for server and equipment, not user patch cables going to wall ports.  As long as the patch panel is labelled for each wall port it goes to the short cables maked it easy to trace.

Core Switch
24pt patch panel
48pt access switch
24pt patch panel
24pt patch panel
48pt access switch
24pt patch panel