Implementing Edge Services for an Exchange Server 2007 Environment : Managing and Maintaining an Edge Transport Server

Managing and maintaining an Edge Transport server requires the same server hardware maintenance, Windows patching and updating, and ongoing system monitoring . However, there are a handful of things specific to the Edge Transport server, such as exporting the Edge Transport server configuration settings so that if the server needs to be recovered, you can more easily import in the settings after performing a server rebuild. In addition, you can view reports on messages and transport communications managed by the Edge Transport server. The details on how to perform these specific Edge Transport tasks are covered in this section.

Exporting and Importing Edge Transport Server Settings

Exporting the Edge Transport configuration from one server for use on another has two apparent benefits:

• Disaster recovery preparedness

• Cloning the configuration when multiple Edge Transport servers exist in an organization

This section focuses on exporting the Edge Transport configuration for use in these scenarios.

Exporting the Edge Transport server configuration requires the use of a script included with Exchange 2007 when the Edge Transport server role is selected during installation. The script exports the configuration to an XML file, which can later be used to restore the configuration to the same system or another. The name of this script is ExportEdgeConfig.ps1 and is located in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Scripts\ folder on the Edge Transport server. The ExportEdgeConfig.ps1 script is executed through the Exchange Management Shell using the ExportEdgeConfig command.

Importing the Edge configuration data works in a similar manner, using the ImportEdgeConfig command. The name of this script is ImportEdgeConfig.ps1 and is located in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Scripts\ folder on the Edge Transport server. The ImportEdgeConfig.ps1 script is executed through the Exchange Management Shell using the ImportEdgeConfig command.

Exporting Edge Transport Server Configuration

Exporting the Edge Transport server configuration is a four-step process. The steps to export and import Edge Transport server configuration settings are shown next:

./ExportEdgeConfig –cloneConfigData:"C:\temp\CloneConfigData.xml"

The following items are exported to file:

• Log paths for receive and send protocols, pickup directory, and routing table

• Message tracking log path

• Status and priority of each transport agent

• Send and Receive Connector information

• Accepted and remote domain configurations

• IP Allow and IP Block List information (Provider Lists are not included)

• Content filtering configuration

• Recipient filtering configuration

• Address rewrite entries

• Attachment filtering entries

Importing Edge Transport Server Configuration

After you’ve export the Edge Transport server configuration information, you can store the information should you ever need to rebuild the Edge server again, or you might need to configure a secondary Edge server with the exact same configuration settings. The import process brings in the saved configuration settings to a freely installed ISA Server configuration.

To import the Edge Transport server configuration to a system, do the following:

./importedgeconfig -CloneConfigData:"C:\temp\CloneConfigData.xml" -IsImport
$false -CloneConfigAnswer:"C:\temp\CloneConfigAnswer.xml"

./importedgeconfig -CloneConfigData:"C:\temp\CloneConfigData.xml" -IsImport
$true -CloneConfigAnswer:"C:\temp\CloneConfigAnswer.xml"

Export the Edge Transport server configuration file and test importing it on a regular basis, especially when multiple changes have been made to the Edge Transport server and to ensure the configuration will work in the event of a disaster or outage. Network Load Balancing and other mechanisms can also help offset the impact of a disaster or system outage.

Viewing Antispam Reports Using Included PowerShell Scripts

The Edge Transport server includes several antispam reports that contain information about the top blocked items, such as IP addresses, domains, and senders, how frequently those items are blocked, how many times those items have been blocked, and who in the organization receives the most spam. The information contained in these reports can assist administrators in fine-tuning the spam filtering agents to achieve a higher level of spam detection while simultaneously reducing the number of false positives.

Antispam reports can only be generated using an Exchange Management Shell command. Each shell command will parse the logs files to create a report. The logs for each Antispam agent are stored in C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\TransportRoles\Logs\.

To run any of the following scripts to generate the respective Antispam report, perform the following steps:

./Get-AntispamTopBlockedSenderDomains

A handful of PowerShell scripts are included with Exchange 2007 to generate Antispam reports from the log files. Some of the default scripts are as follows:

• Get-AntispamFilteringReport— Generates a report displaying a summary of messages that have been rejected by connection, command, or filtering agent

• Get-AntispamSCLHistogram— Generates a report summarizing the amount of email identified with each SCL threshold (1 to 9 total)

• Get-AntispamTopBlockedSenderDomains— Generates a report summarizing how many times and how frequently a domain has been blocked

• Get-AntispamTopBlockedSenderIPs— Generates a report summarizing how many times and how frequently an IP address of a sending mail server has been blocked

• Get-AntispamTopBlockedSenders— Generates a report summarizing how many times and how frequently a sender’s email address has been blocked

• Get-AntispamTopRecipients— Generates a report summarizing spam volume for recipients and the amount of spam messages received