Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 PowerShell Cookbook: Second Edition

Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 PowerShell Cookbook: Second Edition - Second Edition

Overview of this book

Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 is a complex messaging system. Windows PowerShell 3 can be used in conjunction with Exchange Server 2013 to automate and manage routine and complex tasks to save time, money, and eliminate errors.Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 PowerShell Cookbook: Second Edition offers more than 120 recipes and solutions to everyday problems and tasks encountered in the management and administration of Exchange Server. If you want to write scripts that help you create mailboxes, monitor server resources, and generate detailed reports, then this Cookbook is for you. This practical guide to Powershell and Exchange Server 2013 will help you automate and manage time-consuming and reoccurring tasks quickly and efficiently. Starting by going through key PowerShell concepts and the Exchange Management Shell, this book will get you automating tasks that used to take hours in no time.With practical recipes on the management of recipients and mailboxes as well as distribution groups and address lists, this book will save you countless hours on repetitive tasks. Diving deeper, you will then manage your mailbox database, client access, and your transport servers with simple but effective scripts.This book finishes with advanced recipes on Exchange Server problems such as server monitoring as well as maintaining high availability and security. If you want to control every aspect of Exchange Server 2013 and learn how to save time with PowerShell, then this cookbook is for you.

Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 PowerShell Cookbook

Credits

About the Authors

Acknowledgement

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Preface

Free Chapter

PowerShell Key Concepts

Introduction

Using the help system

Understanding command syntax and parameters

Understanding the pipeline

Working with variables and objects

Formatting output

Working with arrays and hash tables

Looping through items

Creating and running scripts

Using flow control statements

Creating custom objects

Creating PowerShell functions

Setting up a profile

Exchange Management Shell Common Tasks

Introduction

Manually configuring remote PowerShell connections

Using explicit credentials with PowerShell cmdlets

Transferring files through remote shell connections

Dealing with concurrent pipelines in remote PowerShell

Managing domains or an entire forest using recipient scope

Exporting reports to text and CSV files

Sending SMTP e-mails through PowerShell

Scheduling scripts to run at a later time

Logging shell sessions to a transcript

Automating tasks with the scripting agent

Scripting an Exchange server installation

Managing Recipients

Introduction

Adding, modifying, and removing mailboxes

Working with contacts

Managing distribution groups

Managing resource mailboxes

Creating recipients in bulk using a CSV file

Working with recipient filters

Adding and removing recipient e-mail addresses

Hiding recipients from address lists

Configuring recipient moderation

Configuring message delivery restrictions

Managing automatic replies and out of office settings for a user

Adding, modifying, and removing server-side inbox rules

Managing mailbox folder permissions

Importing user photos into Active Directory

Managing Mailboxes

Introduction

Reporting on the mailbox size

Working with move requests and performing mailbox moves

Mailbox move e-mail notification

Importing and exporting mailboxes

Deleting messages from mailboxes

Managing disconnected mailboxes

Generating mailbox folder reports

Reporting on mailbox creation time

Checking mailbox logon statistics

Setting storage quotas for mailboxes

Finding inactive mailboxes

Detecting and fixing corrupt mailboxes

Restoring deleted items from mailboxes

Managing public folder mailboxes

Reporting on public folder statistics

Managing user access to public folders

Distribution Groups and Address Lists

Introduction

Reporting on distribution group membership

Adding members to a distribution group from an external file

Previewing dynamic distribution group membership

Excluding hidden recipients from a dynamic distribution group

Converting and upgrading distribution groups

Allowing managers to modify group membership

Removing disabled user accounts from distribution groups

Working with distribution group naming policies

Working with distribution group membership approval

Creating address lists

Exporting address list membership to a CSV file

Configuring hierarchical address books

Mailbox Database Management

Introduction

Managing the mailbox databases

Moving databases and logs to another location

Configuring the mailbox database limits

Reporting on mailbox database size

Finding the total number of mailboxes in a database

Determining the average mailbox size per database

Reporting on database backup status

Restoring data from a recovery database

Managing Client Access

Introduction

Managing ActiveSync, OWA, POP3, and IMAP4 mailbox settings

Setting internal and external CAS URLs

Managing Outlook Anywhere settings

Blocking Outlook clients from connecting to Exchange

Reporting on active OWA and RPC connections

Controlling ActiveSync device access

Reporting on ActiveSync devices

Managing Transport Service

Introduction

Managing connectors

Configuring transport limits

Allowing application servers to relay mail

Managing transport rules and settings

Creating a basic disclaimer

Working with custom DSN messages

Managing connectivity and protocol logs

Searching message tracking logs

Working with messages in transport queues

Searching anti-spam agent logs

Implementing a header firewall

High Availability

Introduction

Building a Windows NLB cluster for CAS servers

Creating a Database Availability Group

Adding mailbox servers to a Database Availability Group

Configuring Database Availability Group network settings

Adding mailbox copies to a Database Availability Group

Activating mailbox database copies

Working with lagged database copies

Reseeding a database copy

Using the automatic reseed feature

Performing maintenance on Database Availability Group members

Reporting on database status, redundancy, and replication

Exchange Security

Introduction

Granting users full access permissions to mailboxes

Finding users with full access to mailboxes

Sending e-mail messages as another user or group

Working with Role Based Access Control (RBAC)

Creating a custom RBAC role for administrators

Creating a custom RBAC role for end users

Troubleshooting Role Based Access Control

Generating a certificate request

Installing certificates and enabling services

Importing certificates on multiple exchange servers

Compliance and Audit Logging

Introduction

Managing archive mailboxes

Configuring archive mailbox quotas

Creating retention tags and policies

Applying retention policies to mailboxes

Placing mailboxes on retention hold

Placing mailboxes on in-place hold

Performing a discovery search

Enabling mailbox audit logging

Generating mailbox audit log reports

Configuring Administrator Audit Logging

Searching the administrator audit logs

Server Monitoring and Troubleshooting

Introduction

Managing and monitoring services

Verifying server connectivity

Working with event logs

Reporting on disk usage

Checking CPU utilization

Monitoring memory utilization

Reporting on Exchange Server uptime

Troubleshooting the Mailbox role

Troubleshooting the Client Access Server role

Troubleshooting the Transport service

Verifying certificate health

Scripting with the Exchange Web Services Managed API

Introduction

Getting connected to EWS

Sending e-mail messages with EWS

Working with impersonation

Searching mailboxes

Retrieving the headers of an e-mail message

Deleting e-mail items from a mailbox

Creating calendar items

Exporting attachments from a mailbox

Common Shell Information

Exchange Management Shell reference

Properties that can be used with the Filter parameter

Properties that can be used with the RecipientFilter parameter

Query Syntaxes

Advanced Query Syntax

Using the word phrase search

Using a date range search

Using the message type search

Using the logical connector search

Index

Customer Reviews

5 star

4 star

3 star

2 star

1 star

Reporting on Exchange Server uptime

Using WMI and PowerShell, we can quickly determine how long a server has been online based on the last boot time of the operating system. This information can be useful for monitoring scripts that report on availability, or even when you just want to do a quick check on how long each server has been online. In this recipe, we'll take a look at how to use PowerShell to extract this information.

How to do it...

To determine the total uptime for a server, we can query the Win32_OperatingSystem class by first running this command:
```
$OS = Get-WmiObject Win32_OperatingSystem
```
Next, we can access the LastBootUpTime property of this object to determine how long the system has been online:
The problem with this, as you can see from the output shown previously, is that the value is stored in UTC (Universal Time Coordinate) format, so let's convert the value to a readable date-time format:
```
$OS.ConvertToDateTime($OS.LastBootUpTime)
```
To get the total uptime, we can subtract...

Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 PowerShell Cookbook: Second Edition - Second Edition

Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 PowerShell Cookbook: Second Edition - Second Edition

Overview of this book

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Current Title:

Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 PowerShell Cookbook: Second Edition - Second Edition

Reporting on Exchange Server uptime

How to do it...