Category: Email

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 – Microsoft Active Directory Domain Preparation Tasks

March 13, 2014
Email

The following tasks are used to prepare the AD infrastructure for the deployment of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. This Microsoft Active Directory (AD) domain is utilizing the Windows Server 2008 forest and domain functional levels.

1. Use the run dialog box and change the current directory to that which contains the Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 setup files (in this example it is D:) and run the command D:\Setup /PrepareSchema.

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2. Repeat the instructions from step 1 but use the following command instead D:\Setup /PrepareAD /OrganizationName:ROOTMAIL.

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3. Verify the completion of these commands by viewing the new Microsoft Exchange Security Groups organizational unit (OU) in your AD domain (ROOT.SYSADMIN.NET).

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4. Repeat the instructions from step 1 but use the following command instead D:\Setup /PrepareAllDomains.

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5. Verify that the D:\Setup /PrepareAllDomains command completed successfully by viewing the Microsoft Exchange Systems Objects container in the AD domain and that the Exchange Install Domain Servers security group is located in this container.

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This completes the configuration.

 

Google Apps – IMAP Settings for Microsoft Outlook 2010

October 24, 2013
Email

You may use the following information to configure a Google Apps email account in your Microsoft Outlook 2010 email client.

Incoming mail server: imap.gmail.com

Outgoing mail server (SMTP): smtp.gmail.com

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My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication

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Service Port Numbers: Incoming server (IMAP): 993

  • SSL

Service Port Numbers: Outgoing server (SMTP): 587

  • TLS

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Enjoy!

Migration – Email Service Provider – 3

October 17, 2013
EmailMigration

Google provides an Administration Guide for email migrations to Google Apps. Google has done a great job of documenting the migration process and even provides a Google Apps Migration for Microsoft® Exchange tool as well as video documentation.

You download this tool, provide a user list, and the tool will authenticate to your existing email server and migrate the email to Google Apps platform.

The format for the user list is as follows:

user1#user1password, google_user1

For example, if you had a user with the email address of [email protected] and a password of “letmein” then your user list would be:

[email protected]#letmein, migration

Enjoy!

Migration – Email Service Provider – 2

October 15, 2013
EmailMigration

If you are ever completing an email service provider migration (to Google Apps) you may use the Google Apps Migration for Microsoft Outlook® tool provided by Google for users who have POP accounts.

To use the tool you sign in with the credentials for the email user, locate the .pst file(s) to be migrate and the migration tool does the rest.

Additionally, the tool creates a log file in Windows 7 in the C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Google\Google Apps Migration\Tracing\ClientMigration directory.

Enjoy!

Microsoft Outlook 2010 – Locate a .pst File

October 13, 2013
EmailMigration

In order to find the location of a .pst file, for a Microsoft Outlook profile, in Microsoft Outlook 2010 on Windows 7 you may use the following method.

File > Info > Account Settings > Account Settings… > Data Files

The default directory for Microsoft Outlook 2010 .pst files in Windows 7 is C:\Users\%username%\Documents\Outlook Files

Enjoy!

Migration – Email Service Provider – 1

October 9, 2013
Domain Name SystemEmailMigration

Currently, I am assisting with the technical planning for an email service provider migration for my employer. One of the things to take into consideration for this type of project is reducing the impact of any possible down time with email.

One of the ways to reduce any impact is to perform such a project over a weekend (when normal business is not taking place). Additionally, you may considering changing the default time-to-live (TTL) for the MX records. In our case, the default TTL is set to 86400 (1 day) so we are changing it to 7200 (2 hours). This will make sure that when we change the MX records for our domain all of the DNS servers around the globe will receive that change within (2) hours. Therefore, theoretically, any new incoming email while be forwarded to the correct mail servers within (2) hours of the MX record changes.

As always, with any changes made to your existing infrastructure always plan carefully and document the changes (i.e. change management or change tracking).