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Microsoft Exchange Email Address Variables

digitalkid — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:40:31 +0000

From time to time it is necessary to apply an email address policy using a non-standard name for the user (e.g. instead of the users alias JOHN@DOMAIN.COM you need JSMITH@DOMAIN.COM). This can be accomplished across the entire organization by editing the Recipient Policies/email Address policies and using the following variables before (to the left of…) the @ symbol in the domain. Here are the variables and some examples:

%g = givenName (First Name)

%s = sn (surName or Last Name)

%d = Display Name

%m Exchange Alias (Usually default for email addresses).

Here are some examples of how to combine and use these variables to customize your Recipient Policy/Email Addresses.

%1g.%s@DOMAIN.COM — This will give you j.smith@DOMAIN.COM

%g%s@DOMAIN.COM — This will give you johnsmith@DOMAIN.COM

%g@DOMAIN.COM — This will give you john@DOMAIN.COM

I am sure there are more that I can think of but you get the idea.

Custom Attributes and Exchange 2007 Email Address Policies

digitalkid — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:38:08 +0000

There are a lot of useful things that can be accomplished using Custom Attributes in Exchange 2007. This Doc applies to Recipient Policies (email Address Policies) and applying email addresses to users based on their custom attributes. This is useful when you have multiple domain names that you need to receive mail for as well as multiple users that need to have their primary email address in a domain that is different from the default domain.

First, create an Accepted Domain by navigating to Organization Configuration > Hub Transport. Click “New Accepted Domain” in the Action Pane. Fill in all of the domain information as needed and continue below.

1. Create your Email address Policy: Open Exchange Management Console and navigate to Organization Configuration > Hub Transport and click the “Email Address Policies” Tab. In the Action Pane, click “New Email Address Policy”

2. When the new email address policy wizard starts, Give your Policy a name (Does not have to be the domain name but it is a good idea to use the domain name for ease of future understanding). Click Next.

3. On this page, choose the condition “Custom Attribute 1 Equals Value”. Below that (Step 2) click “Specified” and enter a value for the custom attribute (Once again, I use the domain name) click Add then OK. Click Next.

4. Add the email address. Click Add and choose the format you would like to use (Pretty self explanatory when looking at it). Also, select the accepted domain for email address that you created earlier for this domain. Click Next twice and you are done.

5. Now, to apply this policy based on custom attribute, choose the users that this policy will apply to and change their Custom Attribute value to match the one you created in step 3 above. Navigate to Organization Configuration > Recipient Configuration and edit each user to apply this policy to (On the general tab, choose custom attribute and enter your value).

That is it. All users with the specific Custom Attribute will have the email address that corresponds to that attribute in the Email Address Policy that you created. You can do this for as many domains as there are Custom Attribute Fields.

Send-As a Distribution Group Exchange 2007

digitalkid — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:18:23 +0000

I have had many requests over the past year from users that want to send as a distribution group as opposed to their primary account. This is useful when a user wants to send out something like an invoice from an email address such as accounting@domain.com. Fortunately, there is a way to easily grant a user or users permissions to send-as a distribution group using the Exchange Management Shell – Here is how:

1. Open the Exchange Management Shell as an Administrator.

2. Type in the following command, replacing GROUPNAME and USERNAME with the name of the distribution group that you want to grant the user(s) access to send as and the username(s) of the users that will be able to send-as this distribution group.

Add-ADPermission GROUPNAME -ExtendedRights Send-As -user USERNAME

Once you have entered that command for all of the users that will be sending as the distribution group, the user can now select the group in the FROM field of their Outlook client and send the message as that distribution group.

DigitalKid (jason)
www.954network.com

Schedule Hard Drive Defrag through Logon Script

digitalkid — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:57:34 +0000

Hello again,

Recently I had a need to schedule a monthly defrag on all of the client machines in one of the networks that I manage. As usual, finding an efficient way of centrally deploying such a task is much easier than going to each machine and manually creating the task. I accomplished this by editing the SBS_LOGIN_SCRIPT.bat that is present on all SBS 2003 servers by default. Of course, if you are not in an SBS environment, you can apply this to any other login scripts that you may already have or create a new one and deploy it through Group Policy.

For my purposes, I needed a defrag to run automatically monthly on all machines so I used an app called schtasks.exe that is already installed on all 2000/XP machines. You can read the syntax by typing “schtasks /?” at the command prompt. Below is the line I added to my login script.

schtasks.exe /create /SC MONTHLY /D 20 /TN DefragMonthly /TR “C:\Windows\System32\defrag.exe\”C: -f” /ST 00:45:00 /SD 06/01/2009 /RU SYSTEM

Now, let me explain that as it may look cryptic..

/create – Indicates you are creating a scheduled task.
/SC – Specifies the Schedule Frequency (MONTHLY in this case).
/D – The Day of the month is should run (the 20th of each month in this case).
/TN – The Task Name (MonthlyDefrag in this case).
/TR – Task Run specifies the task to be ran or the application to be executed (”C:\Windows\System32\defrag.exe\”C: -f” in this case ((defrag.exe /? for more info on this))).
/ST – Start Time is the Hour at which the task should start in 24 hour format.
/SD – The Start Date, pretty self explanatory.
/RU – The user to run the task as (SYSTEM in this case – Must be SYSTEM or and Administrator).

After adding the above line to the Login Script, a new scheduled task will be added to the machines that run the login script. You can then wait until after the schedule was set to be run and check if it ran.

That is it for now..

DigitalKid (Jason)
www.954network.com

Internet Explorer 8 Review

digitalkid — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 15:41:33 +0000

As Microsoft Goes, competing in the Browser Industry has been a battle. After all of the exploits and holes that have been discovered and exploited over the years, many users have switched to alternative browsers such as FireFox. To combat this trend, MS released IE (Internet Explorer) 7 – Which enhanced security and added many features that Microsoft’s browsers had lacked in comparison with others such as tabbed browsing. Now they have improved upon IE 7 and released IE 8. I recently installed the new browser and took a short tour of the new features, below are my thoughts.

Accelerators: These allow you to complete tasks (Such as Spell Checks, Mapping, Translations etc). There are endless numbers of accelerators that you can add to IE 8 – Social Networking, Search, Translations, Maps and On and On. You can find the gallery of Accelerators here: http://ieaddons.com/en/. Some seem very useful, others not so much - Most of which are entertaining and will contribute to your Internet time wasting by adding direct interaction with sites like Face Book and others.

Enhanced Navigation Features: IE 8 has added a few new features to navigation. One that I find to be pretty cool as a techie is the Compatibility View feature. Since IE8 is a new release, some sites may not display properly within the browser. That is where Compatibility View comes in. You can find this feature next to the “refresh” button on the address bar. This is similar to the “User Agent String Utility” accept now these features are built right into the browser – No need to install a second application.

Speaking of the Address bar, there are a few enhancements here as well. For example, if you cannot remember a site that you visited a few days/weeks/months (depending on your history settings and browsing habits) IE 8 Will search across all aspects of your history and suggest sites. This is especially useful when doing research online.

Tab Grouping is also a helpful feature. When you click a link that opens another tab, the 2 related tabs (having the link in common) are color coded to each other. They are also opened next to each other as opposed to at the end of the tabs as with IE 7.

Increased Performance: Now IE starts quicker and loads pages faster. I am somewhat skeptical of this as I think it also depends on how many add-ons and plug-ins and other features that you have installed/enabled. I guess results will vary from user to user. I can say that it definitely loads faster for me but I have very few add-ins enabled and virtually no plug-ins installed.

InPrivate Browsing: Browse the web without saving history Cookies etc. This is useful when using a public computer or a friends PC. No form or password data (or any other data) is maintained on the computer after it is entered into the sites that you visit. This is also useful for the paranoid and those trying to “Cover their Tracks”.

Web Slices: Keep track of changes to your favorite sites. This is basically like a favorites system. For example, if you wanted to keep track of what is going on on MSNBC, you would see a green “Web Slice” icon in the upper right corner of the browser. By clicking the Web Slice icon, you add this site to the web slice favorites bar so that you can keep up with that “Slice” of the web.

Smart Screen Filter: Websites that have been deemed unsafe can be screened using this feature. You can also submit a site to the list of questionable sites. This does not seem very useful to me personally but may be useful for parents etc. You can enable this feature by clicking on the “Safety” drop down on the Right side of the browser window and choosing “InPrivate Filtering”.

All in All, my experience with Internet Explorer 8 so far Has been a good one. I will have to use it for a few more days before I am sure that I like it though and I will definitely have to thoroughly test it before deploying it to any of my clients. As with any new browser, it will take some time to learn all of the new features and test as many sites as possible for compatibility and functionality. I will also be testing the Web Slice features as I have always HATED the favorites system.

Jason (Digitalkid)
www.954network.com

Remove Dell Splash Screen/Wallpaper Terminal Server

digitalkid — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:25:34 +0000

As a Systems Administrator, procedures that take longer than they should is an extreme annoyance. That being said, I am sure that some of you out there are wondering the same thing that I was when dealing with Dell Servers and Terminal Services. How do you remove that annoying splashscreen/Wallpaper when logging into a Dell Server? Well my friends, it turns out that it is a simple registry hack – Below:

Navigate to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop

You will see a number of values on the right, find the one labeled “Wallpaper”, Edit it and clear the contents of the value. Once complete, Log off and back on and see if the Wallpaper comes up again.

Jason (Digitalkid)
www.954network.com

Symantec Backup Exec 10d-11d-12.X email alert configuration.

digitalkid — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:39:56 +0000

Firstly, I would like to say hello again. I have not posted in quite a while as I have been preoccupied with the holidays and the end of the tax year and beginning of the new year.

Now that we have that out of the way, I have seen a lot of people wondering how to configure email alerts from Symantec BackupExec. Most are having issues receiving the alerts once they have configured the server settings. The application seems to not want to send email through a local Exchange Server (Relay). I have had this issue in the past myself and have a few ways to get around this that I thought I would share with you - so lets get started.

First off, when configuring the Alert Settings, in older versions of BackupExec (9.X, 10.X, 11.X), you will notice that there are no options for SMTP authentication, which means you need a relay. One way around this is if your ISP allows you to relay through their servers when behind an IP assigned by them. If this applies to you, you can ask them what their outbound SMTP server address is and use that as a relay. This typically works with BellSouth and FDN in my experience. Ask your ISP or just test this configuration and see if it works with your Internet Provider.

The second method is relatively easy and only requires that you use localhost as your SMTP server. You can do this in a few situations. The first is if you have BackupExec installed on your Exchange server or SBS Server locally. Simply open Exchange System Manager, Expand Administrative Groups > First Administrative Group > Servers > [You Server Name] > Protocols > SMTP. Right Click the Default SMTP Virtual Server and choose properties. Go to the Access tab and click the Relay button. You should see that your local subnet as well as the local host are allowed to relay. If you do not see this, add these items to the allow relay list and configure BackupExec to use Localhost (127.0.0.1) as the mail server. Test these settings under the recipients configuration. This should also work for remote machines, just add the IP address of the remote machine that you want to allow to relay.

The third method uses the MAPI configuration. To do this, you will need to create a contact in Active Directory Users and Computers that has the email address that you would like to receive alerts to assigned to it. I am not going to go into how to create a contact in this post. After creating the contact, open BackupExec, go to Email and Pager notifications. Choose the MAPI Configuration tab and specify your Exchange Server under MAPI mail server. For mailbox name, Specify the contact that you created earlier. When messages are sent to this contact, they should go to the email address that is associated with the contact. I am not sure if this works on servers that are remote to the Exchange server though so you will have to experiment if your BackupExec installation is not on the same machine that Exchange lives on.

If all of the above do not work for you, I suggest upgrading to the latest version of BackupExec (version 12.X as of this post) which allows SMTP authentication to be configured for outbound email. Alternatively, you could install SMTP on a remote server (whether it runs BackupExec or not) and allow relay only from the servers that you want alerts sent from. This can be done under Add/Remove Programs > Add/Remove Windows Components: Under – Application Server > Internet Information Services > SMTP Service. I will not go into the details of this configuration but it is fairly easy to set up and as always, google.com can assist.

Jason (Digitalkid)
www.954network.com

Internet Explorer 7 Vulnerability

digitalkid — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:44:49 +0000

Recently, a new vulnerability has been discovered in Internet Explorer 7, affecting Windows XP, Server 2003/2008 and Windows Vista. Known as the “Internet Explorer XML Zero-Day”, it has already been seen in the wild in China. The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to take control of a users PC after successful exploitation. The exploit occurs when a user visits a web site that has been poisoned by the exploit code. The user then inadvertently is infected with a Trojan, allowing remote code execution and full control of the infected computer.

Microsoft has not yet released a patch but is aware of the vulnerability and has released an advisory HERE as well as a work around that can be performed by Administrators HERE. This vulnerability is considered Critical. Users should remain vigilant when surfing the Internet and check often for future updates to patch the flaw if the work around is not performed.

UPDATE: Microsoft has released a patch for this flaw through Windows Update. You can find more information about the patch HERE.

Jason (Digitalkid)
www.954network.com

Install MAC OS X on Lenovo S10 from External Hard Drive

digitalkid — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:19:06 +0000

Before I even begin, I would like to give credit where it is due. I used this article to guide me through the installation but I added a few steps along the way including how to do the installation from an External USB Hard Drive as opposed to an External DVD or USB Thumb Drive (Both are also options). I would also like to thank all of the folks that found all of the drivers mentioned and linked to in this post.

I should also mention (As mentioned in the article above) that the WiFi (Airport) does not work out of the box nor does the sound or power options (Sleep, Dim etc.) or the LAN connection. The wireless is an easy fix but I am still working on the others and will post my results, if any, when I find a solution.

Lets Get Started!

Get a USB External Hard Drive if you do not already have one and Delete Partitions. Then create a 5 Gig FAT32 Partition. You can use the rest of the space as you see fit. I used the rest as an NTFS partition so that I could transfer files back and forth from my Vista Machine to the S10 (MAC) knowing that I would have no network connectivity to download WiFi Drivers.
Download the following applications:
a. Leopard HD Install Helper – HERE
b. MSIWindowsx86.iso – Sorry, you will have to hunt this one down!
Run the Leopard HD Install Helper. Select the Image (MSIWindowsx86.iso) and The Destination drive (The FAT32 Partition) and click the start button. You may notice that the app is in a different language or is all question marks. Included in the Zip file is a GUI reference image.
Once you have accomplished the above tasks, Restart the S10 and During boot, Hold the “FN” key and push the “F11″ key (FN+F11 = F12 for Boot Menu).
Select your USB external Hard Drive to boot. You will receive an error stating “No Operating System Found”, hit enter and you will be presented with the boot selection screen. Choose MAC Installation and Push Enter.
Once in setup, Choose your language and click next.
You should now be at the Welcome Screen. You now need to prepare your internal hard drive for the installation. Click “Utilities > Disk Utility”.
At this point, you need to choose what drive to format and create partitions on. I went with the internal HDD which had XP Pro on it. erase/format the drive. I went with Mac File System (Journaled).
After this step is complete, click the continue button on the Welcome Screen and select the newly formatted drive to install the OS to. Click install and go get some coffee, it will be a while.
Once you reboot after the installation completes, you will be asked if you wan to transfer information from another Mac or backup and various other options. This typically results in an endless loop of rebooting regardless of your choice. You can bypass this step by booting with the -s option as follows:
a. when you boot the machine and before you reach the login page, hit any key.
b. You should now be at the terminal, type /sbin/fsck -fy and hit enter.
c. Then type /sbin/mount -uw / and hit enter.
d. cd to /Volumes/YOUR DISK HERE/var/db and type touch .AppleSetupDone and hit enter.
After completing the steps above, type passwd to set a root password for the laptop. Do not forget this password. Type exit and hit enter to reboot.
At the login window, login as root with the password that you just created. Go to System Preferences and create a regular user to your specifications. Log out as root and back in as the user you just created.

You are now running OS X on your Lenovo S10 but the WiFi still does not work. This is a relatively easy fix and can be accomplished using the instructions below.

Unplug the USB drive from your new OS X Installation and plug it into a machine with Internet access.
Download the Drivers from this thread – HERE and extract the files to your external hard drive on the second partition that you created. Plug the drive back into the S10 and copy the extracted file to your home directory.
To install the Driver, open a terminal window and cd to your home directory if necessary. type sudo ./bcm43xx_enabler_0.5.1pre.sh and enter your password when prompted (Alternatively you can log in as root and follow the same procedure minus the sudo). Accept all defaults and reboot. You should now be able to connect to your wireless network.
I then updated the sysytem with System Preferences > Software Update. It is safe to update to 10.5.5 and all other updates that may be available although You will need to run the network installation script mentioned above after the update. This also breaks the screen resolution requiring you to install yet another driver (Read On!).
Download the video drivers HERE as well as Kext Helper HERE (and please, RTFM with Kext Helper!)
Once you have downloaded those packages, unzip them and drag the Kext files into Kext Helper, type in your Root password and click easy install. Reboot.

That is as far as I have gotten with mine as well like the forum mentioned at the top and the guide that I followed. I am going to try to work on the sound as well as the Power Options and LAN connection over the next few weeks and will post any results in the future.

UPDATE:After alot of google searches, I got the audio to work on the S10 Under OS X. Thanks to THIS post. It was actually pretty easy to execute, just took a while to find the article linked above!:

You need the following applications:

AzaliaAudio.pkg.zip
Audieee 1.0.1
Apple Developer Tools (On DVD or Download from ADC)

Basically, all that has to be done is to Remove AppleHDA.kext if it is installed (System Drive > System > Library > Extensions). Install AzaliaAudio and Re-Boot. Install the Apple Developer Tools. Launch Audieee.

That’s It! Now your sound should work flawlessly. I also put Audieee in my start-up programs under my user preferences so it auto starts when I log in.

Jason (Digitalkid)
www.954network.com

Windows Server 2008 – Initial Thoughts

digitalkid — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:03:21 +0000

I recently had a client that decided to upgrade their enterprise from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008 and Exchange 2007. After working with Windows Server 2003 (and SBS 2003) for so long, and only VERY briefly demoing 2008, I was excited to see what Server 2008 had to offer. After the initial install, I logged into the new OS. The first thing that I noticed is the similarity of the start menu and general GUI to Vista (Minus Aero). The start menu has all of the familiar Vista features such as the Instant Search and single level All Programs as well as The absence of My Computer (Now just Computer) and the presence of the Home directory style file structure. I like this new format in Vista and it is a bonus in server 2008 over the somewhat clunky Administrator Environment of 2003.

Another item that stood out prominently was the new Server Manager interface, which now features a lot more options and control over the servers roles and management tasks. It is basically an MMC Snap in with the most common tasks bundled in one convenient interface that starts at log-in. It includes Roles, Features, Diagnostics, Configuration and Storage management by Default and displays a server summary upon opening which is much more convenient than previous 2003 versions.

Also changed is the ACL Interface when setting files and sharing permissions on NTFS directories. There is now an added step to setting the permissions which was not there before. Basically, upon displaying the properties of a file, directory or share, you can view what permissions are in place but have to click edit to actually change them. This took a little getting used to at first but allows for better management once accustomed to it. Another addition to the properties window for directories is the addition of “Share” and “Advanced Sharing” buttons on the Sharing tab. The “Share” button allows you to configure basic sharing such as share name and permissions while the “Advanced Sharing” button allows you to configure all that Share does plus caching and permissions.

Speaking of Administrative environments! Windows Server 2008 now has a Power Shell which can be used to administer any aspect of the server from a command line (PowerShell). This is a new market for the new Operating System, and as most System Administrators with Linux Experience will agree; it is a long overdue addition to Microsoft’s OS’s. The Power Shell can supplement the GUI for common Administrative tasks for those that are somewhat comfortable in a command line environment or completely replace the GUI for those that prefer a command line environment. This allows the Operating System to take advantage of the resources used by the GUI and gives Administrators more flexibility and granularity when configuring and maintaining their servers.

Another exciting feature added to the new Windows Server 2008 is Server Core. This is basically a GUI-Less server that can be virtualized and administered remotely similar to the way Admins are used to doing things now without ANY GUI on the actual server. This provides a more secure and robust server while allowing the server to once again allocate the resources previously consumed by the GUI back to more critical applications and services.

I am very excited to explore these and all of the other new innovations in Windows Server 2008, and as mentioned in this post, this is my first real look at the OS. I will most certainly be posting a lot more with regards to Server 08 in the coming months as I gain more knowledge and experience administering the Servers that I have deployed it to – So Stay Tuned!

Jason (Digitalkid)
www.954network.com