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Retention Policies in Exchange 2010

By on August 25, 2011 in Exchange

I have to say that retention policies in Exchange 2010 are a bit confusing. I understand that they are more powerful and it gives users more control in marking items that should not be purged. But, it is just easier in exchange 2003, you can select the folders you want and select “delete immediately”. For users created folders, you select “all other mail folders”

In 2010, it took me a while to realize that, to create a purge policy that only removed mail items, I needed to create Calendar, Contacts, and Notes policies and “Disable this Tag” .

Get-RetentionPolicyTag Calendar-NeverDelete | fl Name,MessageClass, RetentionEnabled,Type
Name             : Calendar-NeverDelete
MessageClass     : *
RetentionEnabled : False
Type             : Calendar

. . .  and in the gui:

That seems backwards to me.

Scheduled PowerShell script to resume Mailbox Moves (New-MoveRequest)

By on August 18, 2011 in Exchange, PowerShell

Moving mailboxes from 2003 to 2010 is easy, but there is not a “Gui” to schedule it. So I created the following PowerShell script to find all the suspended MoveRequest(s) with the correct date, and resume them.
MailboxMove.ps1:

$TodaysDate = (get-date).day.ToString() + (get-date -format MMMM)
Get-MoveRequest -MoveStatus Suspended | Get-MoveRequestStatistics | Where {$_.BatchName -like "*$TodaysDate*"} | Resume-MoveRequest

Next I create a scheduled task with the following command to run a script with the code above:

C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -command ". 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\bin\RemoteExchange.ps1'; Connect-ExchangeServer -auto; c:\Scripts\MailboxMove.ps1"

Now when I create a New-MoveRequest,

New-MoveRequest -Identity username -TargetDatabase MailboxDatabase02 -BatchName "19August" -BadItemLimit 10 -Suspend

I know that a scheduled task will resume the move a the correct time.

To monitor progress, I have been using this script:

Get-MoveRequest  | Get-MoveRequestStatistics | ft -auto alias,Status,TotalMailboxSize,PercentComplete,TargetDatabase,TotalInProgressDuration,BytesTransferred,BatchName

Force the Light Version of Exchange 2010 OWA on a Cisco ASA WebVPN with SSO

By on August 17, 2011 in Exchange

We have a Cisco ASA in front of our Exchange 2010 OWA application. We needed to create a “bookmark” to point to OWA. Since we are using Forms based authentication, we did not want users to have to re-login after just logging into the ASA. I found this link on how to setup the Bookmark for SSO and Exchange 2010 OWA. We wanted to take it a step further and force the “Light version” of OWA until we could upgrade the ASA code (we are using an older rev and OWA JavaScript is not working correctly). To do this you need to change the “flags” post value to “1”.

So, to “Force the Light Version of Exchange 2010 OWA on a Cisco ASA WebVPN with SSO” you need to do the following:

Configuration -> Remote Access VPN -> Clientless SSL VPN Access -> Portal -> Bookmarks -> Add/Edit your Bookmarks
URL: https :///owa/auth/owaauth.dll

Advanced Options: Post
destination : https:///owa/
flags : 1
forcedownlevel : 0
trusted : 0
username : <yourdomain>\CSCO_WEBVPN_USERNAME
password : CSCO_WEBVPN_PASSWORD
SubmitCreds : Login
isUtf8 : 1

Fun with Toshiba IPT 2010 phones and NAT

By on August 12, 2011 in MyThoughts

We have a Toshiba phone system in our office. I don’t know much about it, because it is run by the very capable @mattsix, but today I jumped and did a little troubleshooting.

The reoccurring issue we had, was that a remote phone would connect to the IPU, ring, but there would be no audio. We were testing with an Airport Extreme hooked up to a DSL modem and an IPT 201-SD hooked to that.

First, we found this thread. We checked the “NAT/No Peer to Peer ” settings and they seemed right. Then I cam across this post. Wait, what? There are different types of NAT? I did not know that. As soon as we moved the Airport Extreme out of the mix, and put in a D-Link gaming router, the audio started working.

I guess the Airport Extreme is using Symmetric NAT and the D-Link is using a more capable NAT.

Mystery solved? We shall see.

Update: I found this in the “Starta CIX General Description”

The Strata CIX supports the use of IP telephones that are behind NAT firewalls.

Symmetric — At this time these routers may cause unreliable service or cause unwanted symptoms. These routers are not compatible with Strata CIX and Strata Net IP configurations

BASH script to email if WordPress plugins or themes need updating

By on August 5, 2011 in Linux, WordPress

This one took me all day. But I got it. I wanted to have a script that could look through all WordPress sites and find if there are outdated themes or plugins. All I need to do is slap it into a cron job and I am good to go!

Here is the BASH code to do it.

 

UPDATESNEEDED=""

for installpath in $(find /var/www -name wp-config.php)
do
cd $(dirname $installpath)

THEMENEEDED=$(php -r 'require_once("./wp-load.php");
delete_site_transient("update_themes");
wp_update_themes();
$new = get_site_transient("update_themes");
echo count($new->response);')

if [ ! $THEMENEEDED = 0 ]; then
UPDATESNEEDED="$UPDATESNEEDED \n Site $installpath needs $THEMENEEDED theme(s) updated"
fi

PLUGSNEEDED=$(php -r 'require_once("./wp-load.php");
delete_site_transient("update_plugins");
wp_update_plugins();
$new = get_site_transient("update_plugins");
echo count($new->response);')

if [ ! $PLUGSNEEDED = 0 ]; then
UPDATESNEEDED="$UPDATESNEEDED \n Site $installpath needs $PLUGSNEEDED plugin(s) updated"
fi
done

if [ -n "$UPDATESNEEDED" ]; then
echo -e "$UPDATESNEEDED" | mail -s "Updates are needed" [email protected]
fi

I have been needing this script for a while.

How the cloud failed me.

By on July 29, 2011 in Linux

We host our Linux boxes on Rackspace’s Cloud Server platform. We pay extra per month to use their Redhat Linux images. In return we receive all our patches and updates through Rackspace’s RHN Satellite server. Our thinking was that, we could purchase a Redhat support contract, and  since we were running Redhat we would have OS/Application support if needed.

We were every happy with the service until the cloud failed me.

It all started when the new WordPress 3.2 required PHP 5.2.4 or higher. Redhat 5.5 only shipped with 5.1.x. I needed to update my Redhat VMs to 5.6 as Redhat 5.6 had PHP 5.3.x. BUT. Rackspace decided not to deploy 5.6. They said it is coming, but weeks later I still can’t access it.

They suggested I go to a non supported repo and install it from there. But that defeats the whole purpose of using Redhat on their VMs – I would not have a support path – Redhat would not support a package that was not in their repo (understandably).

I was forced to buy Redhat support contracts for my servers. Now, we are paying twice for updates, with a support contract and with Rackspace’s extra cost per VM for running Redhat.

We have all heard that “forced upgrades” is a downside of cloud services.

This is the opposite – their cloud service is holding me back.

Adventures in Load Balancing: Kemp (@KempTech)

By on July 29, 2011 in Exchange, Windows

My current project is a migration from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010. We wanted to load balance our CAS servers and do some SSL offloading. I have never worked with a load balancer before – pretty cool stuff. We have been using a couple of Kemp 2600’s in an active passive configuration. The Kemp devices have a nice price point and seem to have all the functionality that we need. Plus the support has been excellent. They have really helped us get up and running. Things I have learned while implementing these devices:

  • You actually set the CAS servers IP gateways to the load balancer. I guess the device acts like a router when it receives new traffic that did not originally pass through the device.
  • Clients and servers can not be in the same subnet if you want to use Layer 7 transparency. Traffic will hit the load balancer and it will pass it along to the server. The server will see that the traffic originated on the same subnet, and it will send the return straight back to the server, not through the load balancer. Timeouts result.
  • The documentation repeatedly refers to “clients”. A “client” can be a workstation, but it can also be a service.  Our BES server was connecting to the CAS to find the “/Autodiscover/Autodiscover.xml” info. Since it was on the same subnet as the CAS servers, they replied back directly and not through the load balancer. Timeouts again.
  • I really like the idea of a drain stop. I can move all traffic to one CAS and work on the other.
  • We ended up turning off Layer 7 transparency since we have all servers on the same subnet. The only other real choice would be to move the load balanced servers to their own subnet. The loss of transparency means that all connections seem to originate on the load balancer. So logs become pretty useless. Trouble shooting will occur on the Kemp. We can always ssh in and run a TCPDUMP.
Now I need to find other cool things we can do with these cool Kemp boxes.

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