PowerShell - Exchange server

• General Properties
• Users and Mailboxes
• Public Folders
• Address Lists
• Messages and Logs (email)
• Tests and Checks

General Properties

If we want to use PowerShell ISE, and not Exchange Management Shell, we must first load the Exchange server commands.

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.Admin 

For Exchange Server 2010, we can use.

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.E2010

Another option is to connect remotely to Exchange PowerShell. Either we let a dialog be displayed for entering the username and password, and use them for the connection.

$user = Get-Credential 
$ExchSession = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionURI https://mail.firm.local/powershell -Credential $user 
Import-PSSession $ExchSession
# Exchange commands
Remove-PsSession $ExchSession

Or we can use the details of the currently logged-in user (under which we're running the script).

$ExchSession = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionURI https://mail.firm.local/powershell -Authentication Kerberos
Import-PSSession $ExchSession
# Exchange commands
Remove-PsSession $ExchSession

Users and Mailboxes

Creating a User with a Mailbox

We create the user with the default password 123456 and specify the container in which the account will be created.

$pass = ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText -Force -String '123456' 
New-Mailbox -Name 'Petr Bouška' -Alias 'bouska' -OrganizationalUnit 'firm.local/Firm -UserPrincipalName 'bouska@firm.local' -SamAccountName 'bouska' -FirstName 'Petr' -LastName 'Bouška' -Password $pass -ResetPasswordOnNextLogon $false -Database 'MAIL\First Storage Group\Mailbox Database' -ActiveSyncMailboxPolicy 'Default' 

Mailbox Information

Get-Mailbox -Identity bouska | FL 

Setting AutoAccept for Calendar Events

For example, for a conference room, we want it to automatically approve reservations. The important parameter is BookingWindowInDays, which determines how long (recurring) an event we can set.

Set-MailboxCalendarSettings -Identity conference-room -BookingWindowInDays 360 -AutomateProcessing AutoAccept -AddOrganizerToSubject $false -DeleteSubject $false

Mailbox Permissions

Checking permissions

Get-MailboxPermission -Identity conference-room | FT -AutoSize

Setting permissions

Add-MailboxPermission -Identity conference-room -User bouska -AccessRights FullAccess -InheritanceType All

Removing permissions

Remove-MailboxPermission -Identity conference-room -User bouska -AccessRights FullAccess -InheritanceType All

Calendar Information

Get-MailboxCalendarSettings -Identity conference-room | FL 

Setting Calendar Delegation

Set-MailboxCalendarSettings -Identity conference-room -ResourceDelegates bouska -ForwardRequestsToDelegates $true

Setting Calendar Permissions

Add-MailboxFolderPermission -Identity whose-calendar:\Calendar -User who-we-grant-rights -AccessRights Reviewer

List of Databases

Get-MailboxDatabase

List of Mailboxes

Get-Mailbox
Get-Mailbox -Database SERVER\VIP  

List of All Email Addresses, Groups, and PFs (with a filter on part of the address)

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize unlimited | Select-Object DisplayName -ExpandProperty EmailAddresses | Where-Object {$_.SmtpAddress -like "*firm.cz*"} | FT displayName, SmtpAddress 
Get-DistributionGroup -ResultSize unlimited | Select-Object DisplayName -ExpandProperty EmailAddresses | Where-Object {$_.SmtpAddress -like "*firm.cz*"} | FT displayName, SmtpAddress
Get-MailPublicFolder -ResultSize unlimited | Select-Object DisplayName -ExpandProperty EmailAddresses | Where-Object {$_.SmtpAddress -like "*firm.cz*"} | FT displayName, SmtpAddress

List of All SMTP Addresses - Export to CSV

Get-Recipient -ResultSize unlimited | Select Name -ExpandProperty EmailAddresses | Select Name, SmtpAddress | Export-csv d:\AllEmailAddress.csv

Searching for Email Addresses Containing Text

Get-Recipient -ResultSize unlimited | Select Name -ExpandProperty EmailAddresses | Where-Object {$_.smtpAddress -like "*@firm.it"} | FT Name, SmtpAddress

List of Mailbox Sizes

Get-MailboxStatistics -Database SERVER\VIP
Get-MailboxStatistics -Server SERVER -Identity bouska
Get-MailboxStatistics | select DisplayName,TotalItemSize,ItemCount,LastLogonTime | sort TotalItemSize

Disabling POP3 and IMAP

Set-CASMailbox -Identity bouska -PopEnabled $false -imapEnabled $false 

List of Mailboxes with POP3 or IMAP Enabled

Get-CASMailbox -Filter {popEnabled -eq "True"}
Get-CASMailbox -Filter {imapEnabled -eq "True"} 

Setting IMAP and POP3 for a Mailbox

Users have POP3 and IMAP enabled by default. If we want to prevent this, we can only disable the services. But if we want to have IMAP enabled for a few selected accounts and disable it for the rest, this is not possible. One solution is to set an extended attribute, e.g., to the "IMAP" value for the special accounts, and disable it for all accounts that don't have this setting.

List of users who have the customAttribute1 set (in ADUC for the user, Attribute Editor tab, extensionAttribute1 item)

Get-Mailbox -Filter {customAttribute1 -eq "IMAP"}

Disable POP3 for all users who have it enabled

Get-CASMailbox -Filter {popEnabled -eq "True"} | Set-CASMailbox -PopEnabled $false 

Disable IMAP for all who don't have the attribute set

Get-CASMailbox -Filter {imapEnabled -eq "True"} | get-Mailbox | where{$_.customAttribute1 -ne "IMAP"} | Set-CASMailbox -imapEnabled $false

Changing the Size Limit on Rules and Alerts

A user can have only a limited number of active rules (Rules and Alerts) created in their mailbox. This limit is given by the total size that these rules occupy, and on Exchange 2007, it is 64 kB.

Set-Mailbox -Identity bouska -RulesQuota 128kB

Public Folders

Determining User Permissions on a Public Folder

Get-PublicFolderClientPermission -Server SERVER -Identity "\folders\hotline" 

Setting User Permissions on a Public Folder

Add-PublicFolderClientPermission -Identity "\folders\hotline" -AccessRights Owner -User bouska

Determining Permissions on an AD Object

Get-ADPermission -Identity hotline | FT -AutoSize

Setting SendAs Permissions

Add-ADPermission -Identity hotline -User bouska -ExtendedRights Send-as

List of Public Folder Sizes

Get-PublicFolderStatistics -Server SERVER -ResultSize Unlimited | Sort-Object TotalItemSize | FT Name,FolderPath,ItemCount,TotalItemSize,LastAccessTime -AutoSize

Size of a Specific Public Folder with Subfolders

Get-PublicFolder "\Folder1\Folder2" -Recurse | Get-PublicFolderStatistics -Server SERVER -ResultSize Unlimited | ForEach-Object {$_.TotalItemSize.Value.ToMB()} | Measure-Object -Sum

Additional Statistics

Get-PublicFolderStatistics -Server SERVER -ResultSize Unlimited | FT Name, FolderPath, ItemCount, @{label='TotalItemSize(KB)';Expression={$_.TotalItemSize.Value.ToKB()}} 
Get-PublicFolderStatistics -Server SERVER -ResultSize Unlimited | ForEach-Object {$_.TotalItemSize.Value.ToMB()} | Measure-Object -Sum
Get-PublicFolderStatistics -Server SERVER -ResultSize Unlimited | Measure-Object -Sum -Property ItemCount

List of Public Folders, Their File Size, and Available Space

The AvailableNewMailboxSpace value shows how much space we can free up when we perform an Offline Defrag.

Get-PublicFolderDatabase -Status | FT Name, DatabaseSize, AvailableNewMailboxSpace

Address Lists

List of All Address Lists

Get-AddressList

Renaming an Address List

Changing the name and display name of the list. We can change the name through the GUI, but we won't change the DisplayName there, so users in Outlook will still see the old name.

Set-AddressList -Identity "All Users " -Name "Employees"
Set-AddressList -Identity "Employees" -DisplayName "Employees"

Messages and Logs (email)

Administrator Audit Log

From Exchange 2010 SP1, a log of every administrative intervention is stored in a special arbitration mailbox. We can retrieve information from it using two cmdlets or the ECP.

We can simply display the use of a particular cmdlet.

Search-AdminAuditLog -Cmdlets New-Mailbox

Or we can have the query result sent to us by email in XML format.

New-AdminAuditLogSearch -Name "Mailbox change log" -Cmdlets New-Mailbox, Set-Mailbox -StatusMailRecipients bouska@oksystem.cz -StartDate 11/01/2013 -EndDate 11/30/2013

Finding Specific Messages Over a Given Period

We need to find out if a message was received on a particular address in the last day, or we want to list all incoming messages from a particular sender - there are many similar situations. We will use the Get-MessageTrackingLog cmdlet, which, as the name suggests, goes through the message tracking log and searches for specific records. We can specify the category (such as Receive, Send), sender, recipient, time range, subject (if we're logging it), etc.

Get-MessageTrackingLog -server MAIL1 -EventID "RECEIVE" -Recipients "samuraj@samuraj-cz.com" -Start "01/12/2010 00:00:00" -End "03/12/2010 23:59:59" | Group Recipients | FL
Get-MessageTrackingLog -server MAIL1 -EventID "RECEIVE" -Sender "samuraj@samuraj-cz.com" -Recipients "samuraj@samuraj-cz.com" -MessageSubject "question" -Start "06/12/2010 16:00:00" -End "06/12/2010 17:00:00" |  FT Timestamp, Sender, MessageSubject -AutoSize

If we want to find out if a message was received in the last hour, we can use the following, for example.

$time = Get-Date
$mails = Get-MessageTrackingLog -server OKMAIL1 -EventID "RECEIVE" -Sender "samuraj@samuraj-cz.com" -Recipients "samuraj@samuraj-cz.com" -Start $time.AddHours(-1) -End $time |  FT Timestamp, Sender, MessageSubject -AutoSize
($mails | Measure-Object).Count

Statistics Over the Last Period

It may be helpful to get various statistical data from sent and received emails. For example, the top 10 addresses from which mail was sent in the last 12 hours.

Get-MessageTrackingLog -Start (Get-Date).AddHours(-12) -End (Get-Date) -ResultSize unlimited | group-object -Property Sender | Sort-Object Count -Descending | Select -First 10 | FT Count, Name

Or similarly, the number of messages sent from an address in the last hour.

Get-MessageTrackingLog -Start (Get-Date).AddHours(-1) -End (Get-Date) -ResultSize unlimited | group-object -Property Sender | FT Count, Name

Another similar example is the number of messages for a recipient over a given period.

Get-MessageTrackingLog -Start "8/6/2013 08:00:00" -End "8/6/2013 10:00:00" -ResultSize unlimited | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Recipients | Group-Object | FT Count, Name

Or a list of messages larger than 1MB in the last hour.

Get-MessageTrackingLog -Start (Get-Date).AddHours(-1) -End (Get-Date) -ResultSize unlimited  | Select-Object sender,recipients,totalbytes,eventid  | where {$_.totalbytes -gt "1000000"} 

Tests and Checks

Test ActiveSync connectivity for a specific user (we need to enter their password).

Test-ActiveSyncConnectivity -MailboxCredential (get-credential user@domain)

Test synchronization with the Edge server and verify if it has the current data.

Test-EdgeSynchronization

Verifies if email sending and delivery is working, can also test between defined mailbox servers and check for delays.

Test-Mailflow

Logs in to a defined or system mailbox, thus verifying the functionality of MAPI, LDAP, and the Exchange store.

Test-MAPIconnectivity

Verifies the autodiscover functionality.

Test-OutlookWebServices | FT -AutoSize

Verifies OWA functionality for a specific user (we need to enter their password).

Test-OwaConnectivity -MailboxCredential (get-credential user@domain)

Verifies POP3 functionality for a specific user (we need to enter their password).

Test-PopConnectivity -MailboxCredential (get-credential user@domain)

Checks if a given IP address is legitimate for sending emails from a given domain.

Test-SenderId -IPAddress 1.2.3.4 -PurportedResponsibleDomain domain.tld

Lists all Exchange services and tests whether they are running and set to autostart.

Test-ServiceHealth

Retrieves data about the Exchange system and prints recommendations based on Best Practices.

Test-SystemHealth