Tag Archives: Exchange

Exchange

SenderID, SPF, DKIM and DMARC in Exchange 2016 – Part I

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SenderID has been used in Exchange as a means for anti-spam for quite some time, as far as I can remember this was first used in Exchange 2010. Related to SenderID is SPF (Sender Policy Framework). SPF looks like SenderID functionality, but it differs in the way how it checks email messages.

Both use public DNS records with TXT records where information is stored regarding the sending SMTP server, and this information is used by the receiving (Exchange) server to validate if the sending server is allowed to send email on behalf of the sender.

Getting more popular for fighting spam are DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance). Just like SenderID and SPF, these solutions use public DNS for additional information as well, but since encryption is used most Exchange admin have some doubts about the complexity of DKIM and DMARC.

In the upcoming blogpost I’ll discuss SPF, DKIM and DMARC as implemented in my lab environment which looks like this:

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There’s an Exchange 2016 CU2 Mailbox server hosting several Mailboxes. The server is accessible via webmail.exchangelabs.nl and autodiscover.exchangelabs.nl (same IP address, behind a Kemp LM3600 load balancer) and configured with a Digicert UC certificate.

In addition to this there’s an Exchange 2016 CU2 Edge Transport server with FQDN smtphost.exchangelabs.nl. Besides the regular A and MX record, the IP address is also configured in Reverse DNS. The Edge Transport server is also behind a Kemp LM3600 load balancer, and it has a Digicert SSL Certificate with the same domain name. There’s an Edge Synchronization configured between the Mailbox server and the Edge Transport server, and all inbound and outbound mail is handled by the Edge Transport server. Continue reading SenderID, SPF, DKIM and DMARC in Exchange 2016 – Part I →

Exchange, Office365

Office 365 Directory Synchronization without Exchange server Part III

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In my previous blog post I explained how to manage your Email attributes in Office 365 by directly editing the Exchange attributes in your on-premises Active Directory. This works fine, but it is not recommended nor is it supported by Microsoft.

In this blogpost I’ll discuss how to add an Exchange server on-premises (or keep the last Exchange server when you’ve moved all Mailboxes to Office 365 for that matter) and manage your Exchange Online environment properly.

Exchange Server on-premises

So, what options do you have? Add an Exchange server on-premises, or keep one of the existing (hybrid) Exchange servers for management purposes. Since this is a green field Active Directory, and there’s no Exchange server on-premises you can use the free Microsoft Hybrid License to for this management server. For additional details on this free Exchange license you can check the Microsoft knowledgebase article KB2939261: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2939261.

Continue reading Office 365 Directory Synchronization without Exchange server Part III →

Exchange, Office365

The operation on mailbox failed because it’s out of the current user’s write scope

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When you want to change an email address on a Mailbox in Office 365 you get the following error message:

The operation on mailbox “<mailbox>” failed because it’s out of the current user’s write scope. The action ‘Set-Mailbox’, ‘EmailAddresses’, can’t be performed on the object ‘Stacey Brown’ because the object is being synchronized from your on-premises organization. This action should be performed on the object in your on-premises organization.

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This issue is caused by the fact you’re synchronizing user objects from a local Active Directory using DirSync or WAADSync, and you want to change properties in Office 365. This is not possible since the Source of Authority is your local Active Directory, and not Windows Azure Active Directory. This means you have to change all the user’s properties in Active Directory, including his email address.

Continue reading The operation on mailbox failed because it’s out of the current user’s write scope →

Exchange

Configure disks using PowerShell in Windows 2012 R2

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When installing and configuring a large Exchange environment you most likely will have a lot of disks attached to the Exchange servers. Manual configuration of the disks is no fun so PowerShell is your friend here.

These are the steps that need to be done:

  • Create directory structure for the Mount Points (New-Item).
  • Set the disks online and initialize them (Initialize-Disk).
  • Create the partitions (New-Partition).
  • Link them into the Mount Point structure (Add-PartitionAccessPath)
  • Format them (Format-Volume).

Continue reading Configure disks using PowerShell in Windows 2012 R2 →