Powershell scripts at SEForum

Recently I spoke at Sharepoint and Exchange forum http://www.seforum.se/ One of the session was about powershell scripts.

The two most valuable scripts are Get-ExchangeStoreageInfo.ps1 and Create-User.ps1
Get-ExchangeStorageInfo gather information about your Exchange databases, storagegroups, file and diskutilization. pretty handy to run now and then to monitor your Exchange storage.

The other script Create-User, creates windows accounts with homefolder, mailbox, joining the account to group, setting permission on folders etc. The script itself is not that fancy and could be more straightforward and smarter. Its intention was to show various techniques that can be used from powershell. One popular thing is to show a windowsform for userinput instead of questions in the script itself.

To make this script work there is a bunch of prerequisite, OU structure, variables, fileshare etc. so you will not be able do download it and just make it work, you have to put in some effort yourself.

The script can be downloaded from http://www.seforum.se/Pages/20088115544100.aspx

The Autodiscover song

If you like Exchange 2007 Autodiscover functionality which you should, you might enjoy the Autodiscover song http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/145822.asp

Info about Autodiscover http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124251.aspx and the White paper http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb332063.aspx

Exchange Server Remote Connectivity Analyzer

Have you ever needed to do some testing of your Exchange server from Internet?
Well here is a site that can do some pretty valuable tests of your server.

Exchange Server Remote Connectivity Analyzer https://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com/

Be carefull with the account and password that you submit, they should only be test account and should be deleted afterwards for best security.

Grant permission to change permission on mailboxes

To change mailbox permission on an Exchange 2003 mailboxes you must have the Exchange Full Administrator right. In many organizations there is just a few people that have this right, but the need to change mailbox permission is quite big, often the need is to give Full mailbox access to a user on a mailbox that is unmonitored.

And there we have a conflict, do we trust helpdesk or a novice Exchange administrator to have the Full Exchange Administrator permission? probably not. So what can be done?

Luckily there is a way to grant the permission to change permission on mailboxes without being the big Exchange administrator, sort of.

Use Exchange Management Console, drill down to a mailbox database, right click and click properties and select the security tab, add the helpdesk group and select Allow only Change Permission and Administer Information Store.
Change Permission will inherit down to mailboxes. The helpdesk group must also have Active Directory permission to manage user account. This is done with normal AD delegation.
Unfortunately helpdesk group must also have Administer Information Store permission to get what we want. With this right they can also dismount and mount that database.

Two links that help you understand things better.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/329236
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124053.aspx

This is not the ideal solution, but if there is a need for setting mailbox permission without being Full Exchange Administrator, this solution can help.

Automatic installation of Rollups with Exchange 2007

Have you ever gotten tired of applying Service Packs or hotfixes after you installed Exchange? With Exchange 2007 you can do this automatically.
Copy complete Exchange DVD to a folder and then copy the rollup fix to the updates folder. Finished result looks like this.

2008-05-02 19:26 DIR scripts
2008-05-02 19:26 DIR Setup
2008-05-02 19:30 DIR Updates
2007-11-27 09:29 21244928 exchangeserver.msi
2007-11-27 09:29 63 autorun.inf
2007-11-27 09:29 361472 setup.com
2007-11-27 09:29 9228 relnotes.htm
2007-11-27 09:29 519296 setup.exe


In the updates folder you have readme.txt plus the rollup patch file.

2008-07-16 18:14 35991040 Exchange2007-KB949870-x64-EN.msp
2007-11-27 09:30 60 readme.txt

so when you run setup and install Exchange, the setup process will automatically apply the patch in the updates folder.
Pretty slick if you ask me