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

 

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"

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

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

Back on the Job Market

After three wonderful years at Research in Motion, I find myself back in the job market.  I have gathered many new skills such as VMware Administration, server hardware management, cabling, data center management, and formalized change control processes. 

If you know anyone looking for a System Administrator for Windows Server, Unix, VMware, Enterprise Vault, Exchange, Domino, etc. let me know. I specialize in messaging migration, change management, and collaborative systems. Atlanta area or would relocate for the right opportunity.

To-Do List

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The Alternative to a Career in IT

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Computer Cat Technician

Computer technican LOLCat just doesn't care. :-) Have a great weekend everyone.
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The basics of Blade Servers

The basics of Blade Servers

via apcmag.com

I ran across this very nice in depth article on blade server architecture. This is very topical for me this week and I thought it is a well written article that doesn't assume you already know everything, yet is detailed enough to make it very worthwhile to read.

If you are looking for a how to on blade server installation, this is a great background piece to look at along with the specific instructions for your hardware.

My New Motto

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