Exchange 2010 DAG IP fails to be brought online
While running an Exchange 2010 Database Availability Group you might encounter an error in the System Log of your mailbox server stating that
Cluster IP address resource 'Cluster IP Address' cannot be brought online because the cluster network 'Cluster Network 2' is not configured to allow client access. Please use the Failover Cluster Manager snap-in to check the configured properties of the cluster network.
Open the Failover Cluster Manager go to Networks and select the faulty network reported in the above error. You will notice that "Allow clients to connect through this network" is enabled.
This seems to be a bug and the solution is pretty easy, you just need to deselect "Allow clients to connect through this network", click on Apply, select it again and apply once more the new configuration, this should take care of the error right away.
Hub Transport Rule based on recipient’s domain
If you have played long enough with Hub Transport rules in Microsoft Exchange 2007 you might have noticed that they contain no flexible condition that applies on the recipient's address.
For whatever reason it is always assumed that the recipient is a user inside your organization and you won't find an easy way to implement the missed ToAddressContains predicate.
In this example I will show you how to build your own ToAddressContains predicate and create a Hub Transport Rule that will Blind Carbon Copy all emails sent to @domain.com to a specific mailbox, this mailbox will be called Alerts.
Microsoft Exchange 2007 up to SP1 Rollup update 8
If you are running any version of Exchange 2007 up to SP1 Rollup 8 create your transport rule by running the following from Exchange Management Shell.
Of course make sure to replace @domain.com and Alerts with the required values.
Get-OwaVirtualDirectory fails with: “An iis directory entry couldn’t be created access is denied”
After deploying Microsoft Exchange 2010 in your existing Exchange 2007 organization you might face the following error from using either Exchange Management Shell or Exchange Management Console
An IIS directory entry couldn’t be created. The error message is Access is denied. HResult = –2147024891
The error looks like this in EMS
Exclude hidden mailboxes from a Dynamic Distribution Group
Another interesting finding I made thanks to an Expert Exchange question I was involved with.
The question sounded pretty simply
I can create new dynamic distribution groups using powershell and the Exchange Console, but I cannot figure out how to filter the hidden mailboxes so they are not added.
I logically started by trying to use the msExchHideFromAddressLists attribute trying to get the list of mailboxes where it is set to false using the following powershell script to create the Dynamic Distribution List
New-DynamicDistributionGroup -Name "test" -OrganizationalUnit 'mydomain/Distribution Groups' -RecipientContainer mydomain -RecipientFilter { recipienttype -eq 'usermailbox' -and HiddenfromAddresslistsEnabled -eq $false}
But I was surprised to noticed it didn't work! It was actually returning only mailboxes the ones hidden from the address lists. There was something wrong in my OPATH query but wasn't able to find out what up front...
To double check I was not missing something I tried creating another DDG with the same command as above just with HiddenfromAddresslistsEnabled -eq $true and both groups where giving exactly the same results! Here is the full powershell command I used to create test1
New-DynamicDistributionGroup -Name "test1" -OrganizationalUnit 'mydomain/Distribution Groups' -RecipientContainer mydomain -RecipientFilter { recipienttype -eq 'usermailbox' -and HiddenfromAddresslistsEnabled -eq $true}
That was pretty weird !
Exchange 2010 mmc fails with “An error caused a change in the current set of domain controllers” after demotion of a Domain Controller
After demoting one of your Domain Controllers you might be faced with the following error when using the Exchange 2010 Management Console.
An error caused a change in the current set of domain controllers
This error might appear at different places in you Exchange 2010 Management Console and under different error messages that all have the sentence above in common. However using the Exchange Management Shell works flawlessly.
As weird as it might sound manually specifying a Domain Controller for the Exchange Server to use did not solve the problem, however during my troubleshooting I tried to log on as another user and the error was miraculously gone.
How to run Exchange .ps1 script as scheduled task
There are many reasons why one would like to run an Exchange powershell .ps1 script as a scheduled task.
In this post I will share with you how to achieve this on both Microsoft Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2010.
Obviously you should start by creating your .ps1 script for this article we will assume the script location is c:\pcs\YourScript.ps1
