Using the Windows PowerShell in an Exchange Server 2007 Environment : Using EMS to Do Administrative Server Tasks

Thus far, most of the examples have been for managing mailbox resources. EMS can also be used to manage the Exchange servers in your environment. The following example shows how to disable a Unified Messaging server. This allows the administrator to start or stop call processing on a Unified Messaging server so that the Unified Messaging server can be brought online or taken offline in a controlled way.

Disable-UMServer UMserver3

This example uses the Set-AttachmentFilterListConfig command to modify the configuration of the Attachment Filter agent on the computer running the Edge server role.

Set-AttachmentFilterListConfig -action remove

And in this example, the set-dsnmessage command is used to modify the configuration for delivery status notification (DSN) messages on Hub Transport and Edge servers.

set-dsnmessage en\internal\5.2.2 -text "The message you attempted to send could not
be delivered because the recipient's mailbox is full."


					  

These are just a few examples of what can be done with the Exchange Management Shell. Many, many more commands are available to the administrator.

Provisioning Storage Groups with EMS

Exchange 2007 storage groups can easily be provisioned, configured, and moved using the Exchange Management Shell. This first example creates a new storage group on SERVER3 called “Marketing Storage Group” with the logs on the L: drive.

New-StorageGroup -Server SERVER3 -name "Marketing Storage Group" -LogFileLocation
"L:\Marketing Storage Group Logs"


					  

Set-StorageGroup "Test Storage_Group_2" -CircularLoggingEnabled $true

Use the Move-StorageGroupPath command to set a new path in Active Directory for the specified server object and then move the related files to the new location.

Move-StorageGroupPath "Sales Storage Group" -LogFolderPath "L:\Sales Storage Group Logs" 
–SystemFolderPath "E:\Exchange Databases\Sales"


					  

Managing Mailbox Stores with EMS

All facets of database administration can be handled with the Exchange Management Shell. Using the following examples, mailbox stores can be created, dismounted, and moved. The first example creates a new Sales Database in the First Storage Group on SERVER2:

New-MailboxDatabase -StorageGroup "SERVER2\First Storage Group" -name "Sales Database"


					  

Mount-database "SERVER2\First Storage Group\Sales Database"

Use the move-DatabasePath command to set a new path location on a database object in Active Directory under the specified mailbox server and to move the related files to that location.

move-DatabasePath "SERVER2\Sales Database" -LogFolderPath "E:\New Folder\Sales Database"


					  

The next example shows how to delete a mailbox database object in the storage group container under the specified server object.

Remove-MailboxDatabase "SERVER2\sales database"

When this command is run, Exchange Management Shell deletes the database and provides a warning, letting the administrator know that the database has been removed from Active Directory but the physical files remain. You will get a warning as follows:

WARNING: The specified database has been removed. You must remove the database file
from your computer manually. Specified database: Sales Database

					  

Managing Connectors with EMS

All types of connectors can be managed with the Exchange Management Shell. Receive and Send connectors can be created, deleted, and configured. This example gets the existing credential object and creates a new secured Send connector on an Edge or Hub Transport server role and configures it to use that credential:

$CredentialObject = Get-Credential
New-SendConnector -Name "Secure E-Mail to Companyabc.org" -Type ToInternet -AddressSpaces companyabc.com 
-AuthenticationCredential $CredentialObject -AuthenticationMechanism Login

					  

This example modifies an existing Receive connector. The Identity parameter is required when you are running the Set-ReceiveConnector command. This example sets the number of hops from the Edge server, sets the SMTP banner message, and configures the connection timeout value:

Set-ReceiveConnector -Identity "Internet Receive Connector" -NumberOfHopsFromEdge 1 
-Banner "220 Authorized access only" -ConnectionTimeout 00:15:00


					  

This command deletes the object and the configuration information for a Receive connector. After this task completes, the object and the configuration information for the Receive connector are deleted.

Remove-ReceiveConnector "Companyabc.com Receive Connector"