Increasing SBS 2003 MS Exchange 2003 Mailbox / Message store sizes

By default all MS SBS users have a maximum mailbox size of 200MB.

The user will receive a message in outlook indicating their mailbox has reached its limit at 175MB

This can be increased individually per user up to 2GB ( 2097151 KB) using the SBS Server Management, Users, Exchange General Tab and Storage Limits button

However this can mean one user is hogging the whole exchange storage. So lets look at the big picture

ALSO REMEMBER this will also effect the maximum users that you can support of your SBS server, as well as it being harder to administer the system ( if all users max mailbox sizes are different)


All Mail box sizes are displayed from SBS server
Administrator tools, Server Management, Advanced, Exchange, Administrive groups, First Administrive Group, Servers, , First Storage group, Mailbox store, Mailboxes

Total storage group size =(user1+user2+user3)


Default of the whole mailbox store database is limited to 18GB following the installation of Exchange 2003 Service Pack 2. A registry change is required to enable the database to grow to the new 75GB limit

This is covered in step by step instructions via http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=67569

DO NOT go any further unless you have a full system backup including the mailbox stores. Corruption can result if mistakes are made and it may require a complete reload of Windows 2003 SBS and or Exchange 2003.

Once you have unmounted , reconfigured new storage size ( using regedit) for mailbox store and remounted the message store (with no errors in event viewer) you need to configure message store monitoring..... This comes a little tricky

You want event viewer to tell you if the databse is getting full or possibly email you so you can perform maintenance.

But, once again, if you try and use Exchange Mailbox Store properties, Limits, you cant set the value above 2097151 !

So to increase the maximum database size warning threshhold "Issue Warning at" or "Prohibit send and receive" , instead of the Exchange gui, you need to use adsiedit

This tool can create some real damage, so be careful.

First you need to download adsiedit plugin ( Windows Support tools) from

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6EC50B78-8BE1-4E81-B3BE-4E7AC4F0912D&displaylang=en

Then install the support tools in c:\program files\support tools

Run a DOS command prompt from c:\program files\support tools\adsiedit.msc

If you want to increase users mailbox above 2GB you will also need to follow instructions, as once again the gui is set NOT to allow greater size than 2097151

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930366

NOTE: We had Error setting the mailbox store value as detailed by Microsoft on our SR2 SBS 2003 servers.

We saw "the server is unwilling to process this event" using the configuration MS recommend. All values where Greyed out and we could amend the size parameters

Instead we configured using different adsiedit paramters found in

Configuration [YOUR_SERVER.YOUR_DOMAIN.london]

CN=Configuration,DC=YOUR DOMAN,DC=london

CN=ServicesCN=Microsoft Exchange

CN=YOUR_DOMAIN

CN=Administrative Groups

CN=first administrative group

CN=Servers

CN=YOUR_SERVERNAME

CN=InformationStore

CN=First Storage Group

CN=Mailbox Store (YOUR_SERVERNAME)

like

the mDB parameters map to Exchnage gui parameters

mDBStorageQuota Prohibit = Issue warning at (KB)

mDBOverQuotaLimit Prohibit = Prohibit send at (KB)

mDBOverHardQuotaLimit = Prohibit send and receive at (KB)

The user parameters also needed finding for us on SBS too.

Domain [YOUR_SERVER.YOUR_DOMAIN]

DC=DOMAIN,DC=london

OU=MyBusiness

OU=Users

OU=SBSUsers

So you should now have configured a large Database size, and increased the monitoing of when theta data and user mailbox begin to be used again.

The only disadvantage of doing all this, is now you have to configure Database and user limits using adsiedit.smc, the SBS guis wont work above 2GB. I suspect this is resolved in 2008 SBS

Akbel

trace users to hostname on Windows domain - PsTools

After nbtstat was disabled by Microsoft you can now use a utility to search for usernames and PC's on the windows domain and see who is logged in.

Download the utilies from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896649.aspx

then run

psloggedon BrainCant -l ( find where user is logged in )

and see something replied back like

'LONDON\BrainCant logged onto ldn-sales-pc24 locally'


or psloggedon -l \\ldn-sales-pc24

loggedon v1.33 - See who's logged on
Copyright ⌐ 2000-2006 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

Users logged on locally:
Error: could not retrieve logon time
NT AUTHORITY\LOCAL SERVICE
Error: could not retrieve logon time
NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE
13/07/2008 08:25:50 LONDON\BrianCant
Error: could not retrieve logon time
NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM


Other useful utilities are included to run service remotely and dump event logs are useful too

Ie pslist \\ldn-sales-pc24

Process information for ldn-sales-pc24 :

Name Pid Pri Thd Hnd Priv CPU Time Elapsed Time
Idle 0 0 4 0 0 762:12:56.359 0:00:00.000
System 4 8 85 2606 0 9:49:53.109 0:00:00.000
smss 384 11 3 21 164 0:00:00.359 218:21:51.437
csrss 440 13 12 1024 1936 0:05:43.421 218:21:46.671
winlogon 464 13 23 668 10596 0:00:48.781 218:21:39.093
services 508 9 17 487 7556 0:25:07.546 218:21:38.937
lsass 520 9 22 716 5144 0:25:50.796 218:21:38.921
svchost 692 8 22 241 3028 0:00:09.875 218:21:38.249
svchost 740 8 11 552 2492 0:02:44.609 218:21:38.077
svchost 808 8 65 1707 19544 0:04:57.250 218:21:38.015
svchost 924 8 6 87 1412 1:59:58.000 218:21:37.968
svchost 972 8 18 348 3304 0:00:05.437 218:21:37.921
spoolsv 1128 8 12 199 6344 22:05:51.109 218:21:37.405
scardsvr 1176 8 10 109 944 0:00:00.375 218:21:37.343
residentAgent 1288 8 7 106 1152 0:00:03.984 218:21:35.405
DACS_S~1 1336 8 4 74 18100 0:01:25.000 218:21:35.312
GoogleUpdaterService 1388 8 9 188 2496 0:01:56.531 218:21:35.280
LocalSch 1416 8 4 51 520 0:00:13.343 218:21:35.249
pds 1456 8 4 63 940 0:00:01.265 218:21:35.218
tmcsvc 1540 8 12 102 4200 0:00:04.781 218:21:35.077
issuser 1568 8 7 95 1848 0:00:00.765 218:21:35.046
Matrox.PowerDesk.Services 1628 8 2 44 4328 58:59:40.953 218:21:35.
015
FrameworkService 1672 8 35 387 9272 0:02:24.437 218:21:34.983
Mcshield 1744 13 53 432 83476 0:15:50.281 218:21:34.718
VsTskMgr 1780 8 17 307 7388 0:02:57.281 218:21:34.671
MDM 1860 8 4 98 1048 0:00:00.578 218:21:33.749
svchost 1976 8 2 67 1088 0:00:03.812 218:21:33.421
svchost 1988 8 2 69 1196 0:00:01.781 218:21:33.343
sync 2044 8 5 191 1968 0:00:03.031 218:21:33.233
collector 404 8 1 53 604 0:00:04.906 218:21:32.796
SoftMon 668 8 5 88 40492 0:13:36.093 218:21:32.593
svchost 788 8 6 138 2692 0:00:17.250 218:21:32.562
wdfmgr 840 8 4 70 1496 0:00:00.359 218:21:32.343
rvd 1300 8 16 225 41232 2:02:13.812 218:21:30.218
rcgui 2784 8 2 42 1048 0:00:03.250 218:21:15.140
explorer 3868 8 13 520 14632 0:14:39.062 195:14:12.519
UdaterUI 4828 8 5 125 3232 0:00:11.343 195:14:11.394
shstat 3532 8 8 84 1780 0:00:01.250 195:14:11.332
Matrox.PowerDesk SE 3392 8 1 52 4572 0:00:15.296 195:14:11.300
Mctray 4236 8 1 25 564 0:00:08.687 195:14:11.160
SDClientMonitor 5176 8 1 38 864 0:00:04.125 195:14:11.035
SweetIM 3732 8 5 157 1956 0:00:06.078 195:14:10.566
jusched 5132 8 3 205 1716 0:00:06.781 195:14:10.535
aetcrss1 2492 8 2 64 884 0:00:04.093 195:14:10.504
RMC 656 8 26 814 38200 0:04:11.703 195:14:10.441
ctfmon 4068 8 1 188 1156 0:00:34.703 195:14:10.129
VideoAdvantage 4676 8 13 206 13844 0:01:12.296 195:14:09.769
ifagent 2028 8 3 71 876 0:00:14.046 195:14:09.347
YahooMessenger 4168 8 43 2331 37840 0:02:26.734 195:14:09.285
IEXPLORE 4628 8 14 1033 42216 0:04:59.687 195:13:43.218
OUTLOOK 3084 8 27 1175 106664 0:27:30.453 190:18:05.551
WINWORD 680 8 18 932 46992 0:02:50.546 190:17:52.831

pskill 680 \\ldn-sales-pc24

Saves your legs a bit, handy for remote support too

Ringo

Tibco RVD Monitoring stats

Here's a basic perl script to help you monitor the status or RVD clients on your infrastructure -> rvhosts.pl


Ive found this useful to look for any users machines who maybe stuggling on the network due to performance issues ( CPU or RAM limitations).

I.E

Host "172.27.36.155" lost point-to-point message
RV: Lost 1 broadcast messages from host "172.27.36.155"
ERROR: RV: Lost 1 broadcast messages from host "172.27.36.155"
ERROR: RV: Host "172.27.36.155" lost point-to-point message
RV: Lost 2 broadcast messages from host "172.27.36.155"
RV: Lost 2 broadcast messages from host "172.27.36.155"
ERROR: RV: Host "172.27.36.155" lost point-to-point message



What the script basically does is listens to RVD status messages ( which rvd process generates every 90 seconds )and displays in a readable format.The headings are quite useful as its difficult to find documentation on this .

tibrvlisten -daemon ... -network ... - service... "_RV.>"

#hostaddr ip address of host
#sn Serial number or ticket file
#os version of Operating system
#ver rvd version
#up rvd uptime
#ms Messages Sent
#bs Bytes Sent
#mr Messages Received
#br Bytes Received
#ps Packets sent
#pr Packets received
#rx *Retransmitted Packets
#pm *Missed Packets

Adapt this script slightly and you can print stats to a webpage or .csv fomat for excel/reporting.


Best Regards

Chris

Perl Script to email on NT backup failure

Dear All,

Its handy to know when your auto backup product ( in this case Microsoft NT Backup) has failed on your Server or PC.

It maybe because disk space is low or data corruption, either way you want to know about it, so you can resolve the problem before you miss too many backups.

The perl script below checks a log directory for last updated file and looks for Error keywords and then emails out to admin@email.com

Download the Windows Sendmail ' bmail ' client app, this works great


#!C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe
# SEARCH-NEW-ERROR-EMAIL.PL
# list files in a directory and sort by Modified time
# check for 'Error' in last last modofied file and email if exisits
# ----help@infrasup.com March 2008


$dir = "C:\\Documents and Settings\\Administrator\\Local Settings\\Application Data\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\NTBackup\\data\\";
opendir (DIR, $dir);
@dir=readdir(DIR);
closedir(DIR);

@dir = sort { -M "$dir/$a" <=> -M "$dir/$b" } (@dir);


print "@dir\n"; # print all array entries

$file=$dir[0]; # only print files not '.' or '..'
print "$file\n";


# convert unicode log files to ansi file for searching for string

print "$dir$file\n";
open (CONVERT, "|type \"C:\\Documents and Settings\\Administrator\\Local Settings\\Application Data\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\NTBackup\\data\\$file\" > $file ") ;
sleep 5;
print "copied $dir$file to local $file \n";




sleep 2; # little pause to ensure files copied


# search for Error in file
#
#
#
#
open (STRINGS, "$file");
foreach $line ()
{

if ($line =~ m/Error(.*) ./)
{

#$found=1 ;
$description=$1;
print " found Error $description\n" ;
$found="errors found" ;
#print " hello" ; # add new line this is the last field
}

#print "$description" ; # print ; field delimiter for excel

}
print "$found\n";

## email results
if ($found eq "errors found") {

print "MAILED\n";
open (MAIL, "|\"c:/Program Files/bmail/bmail\" -s MAILSVR -t admin\@email.com -a \"Found Error in file backup file '$file' \" -f backups\@email.com -m $file ") || die "bmail failed:$!\n";
}



# note: del .log files in current script directory using a batch file



You can set this script to run every day using Windows Scheduler

Enjoy, Akbel

Reuters DACS check GUI Modifications

Reuters use Sybase ( Even in DACS 6) as the prefered database for storing users permissions to exchange data for RMDS5 and RMDS6.

Oftern its quicker in Sybase to run SQL queries, than wait for DACS to finish its reporting.

ASE ISQL is quite a nice tool to run from your PC ( similar to Toad)that enables you to interigate the Sybase directly ( without need for DACSUI installed)


For Example, if you want a list of the recent user permissions removed by the DACSUI from the dacs_main database ( on Reuters DACS 5.1 and above) , connect to the Sybase Database manager using the connection parameters below in your sql.ini



then run sql to see modifications
select * from user_ae where site like 'your-site' order by deactivation desc

To find who made the distribtuion changes ( assuming dacs admin user have seperate i'd that they use to make changes)

select * from load_control where site like 'your-site' order by commit_time desc


Some of these sql queries could be created into perl html scripts to display view only output in an intranet for example

Best Regards

Chris

Alternative to Microsoft Exchange and SBS 2003

Over the last few months we've been testing alternative open source products to Microsoft SBS 2003 and Exchange.

Open
Source is intended to be an alternative method of writing software,
were you offer the source code to be downloaded on the public domain.

The Methodology prevents previous 'Black Box' proprietary
systems, removing the need for clients to always use the same Vendor.

This has the additional benefit for the authoring company that their
product can be tested on many different Hardware, in the community and
reducing the amount of support needed. Also any suggestions for future enhancements can be receieved from the many community contributors

Many Open source solutions offer a community edition to test ( with most features
enabled) or a 30 dat trail, then you need to purchase the full blown version to get the Business critical parts.

Often a support package is needed as well to insure Updates and Telephone/Web based support is available.


One product we have found to be very impressive is Scalix, a serious alternative to Microsoft SBS and Exchange.

You can download a community edition FREE of charge and Installation, Admin
and Migration manuals and Community forums are well used and supported.

Scalix also has an Outlook connector available so you don't even need to change the clients apps.

Run this on top of Redhat RHEL 5 and you have a great, out of the box, replacement for MSoft's/ Lotus domino bespoke system Freeing you use use non Microsoft Groupware solutions ( Anti Sharepoint)


If you would like a trail on this type of solution, which we are now offering as a alternative for Virtual HQ / VPN cleints, Please contact sales and ask for Mark.

XBox 360 overheats

Apparently early Xbox 360's have issues with overheating.

We would ALWAYS recommend you talk to Microsoft before opening your XBOX.
0870 60 10 100 . They currently offer a FREE repair service

The infamous 3 'red lights of death' display a hardware issue and most times its caused by what appears to be a design fault by Microsoft.

You can debug the error further by extracting a four digit code.
http://www.clevermod.com/index.php?article=38

We've read Various websites and other blogs relating to the VRAM on Main board and Processor issues.

Some users who have sent back their XBOX to Microsoft for repair ( which is the best option - see below) have had Sticky pads fixed to the bottom of the main PCB.

This modifaction appears to fix the main board away from the bottom of the case ( to increase cooling) and to help keep the VRM in position ( some soldering issues have also been mentioned on the VRAM)

So far weve tried 'Pennie mods' and Over heat 'wrapping towel around 360' to clear the lights, but not the ice and vinegar!

But in our experince, after a few minutes the green lights always change back to RED again.


If your XBOX has the S/N sticker and "Microsoft" logo slicker intact, and no obvious signs of opening and was manufactured after Oct 2005, Microsoft will replace your XBOX Free of Charge.

So DONT play with the insides of your XBOX before speaking to Microsoft.

Hope this clarifies things, Ringo