Windows 2008 Server (Activation)

Forward Emails to Multiple External Addresses.

Hello Friends,
I have read about forwarding emails incoming emails on exchange 2003 to multiple external email address.
Lets see how to get this done. :-)

Step 1:

We need to create Mail-Enabled contact for external email addresses.

Go to ADUC, right click on OU in which you want to create object, and point to "Contact"

Step 2:

Enter the required information.

Click Next.

Step 3:

Check "create an exchange email address" option and specify an alias name.

For email click ok "Modify" and you need to select "SMTP Address" from email type selection window.

Step 4:

Specify the external email address associated with this contact.

Click Next

Finish.

Step 5:

Same way create another Mail-Enabled contact and specify the other email address.

Step 6:

Now we will create a group that will hold out mail-enabled contacts that we have created.

Select OU and right click, point to group.

Sepcify the name and select group type as "Distribution"

Make this group also a mail-enabled group by enabling "create an exchange email address"

This completes contacts creating and group creation. You can see we have 2 Contacts with external email address and 1 group which is mail-enabled.

Step 7:

Now go to the user for whom you want to forward emails, and select properties for that user.

select Exchange general tab, and click on "Delivery options" button.

Next you will get a option to search the group that we want to add. Enter the group name and click ok.

Thats it, apply and close all properties windows.

Now whichever email comes to this users "Inbox" will be forwarded to external email addresses specified in contacts and which are added to this group.

Hope this was helpful to you.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Wasim.

MSI-repacking using WinInstall

Today we will see how to re-pack Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.0 so that we can deploy it using GPO. As we all know we are in need of .MSI file to use with group policy, to generate a .msi file we will be using “winInstall”
Download Link:http://rapidshare.com/files/197081183/WinINSTALL_LE.exe
Requirement:
VMWare Workstation.
Active Directory (recommended)
2 Fresh virtual machine setup on VMWare.
WinXP OS on virtual machine.
WinInstall

Step 1:
1st setup 2 virtual machines in vmware name one VM (virtual machine) as “wininstall” and other as “discover” and join them to your domain (if you are having AD)
If you are not having AD setup, put both VM on same network
wininstall IP: 10.10.10.10
discover IP: 10.10.10.11

Step 2:
Exceute “WinInstall.exe” on wininstall VM. Installation will create a shared folder named “winInstall”.

Step 3:
In VMWare we can take snapshot of our VM-state, go to “discover” right click and select “Take Snapshot”. We are taking snapshot so that we can reverse changes to discover vm for another use.

Step 4:

After completion of snapshot, click on start select run and type UNC to browse the shared folder “winInstall” that is on winisntall VM. In this share folder we want to browse “discover.exe” file.

Check the Discover.exe that we need.

Step 5:

Double click and run discover.exeYou will get a warning message as we are running this exe from network location Click Run.

Step 6:

On welcome screen click “Next”

Step 7:

Select the 3rd option “Before” and this is the 1st discovery of fresh system we are going to make.Click “Next”

Step 8:

Here you will give a name to Application as you like. I gave "AcrobatReader9.0”and notice in the Location for the file the output i.e., msi file will be created by default in the same UNC location but in the “Packages” folder file://10.10.10.10./WinINSTALL/Packages/AcrobatReader9.0/AcrobatReader9.msi

You can put your own path. If you are having AD then I will suggest to give UNC path to a shared folder on DC.Click “Next”.

Step 9:

Here you can specify path for application list, this list can be used with winInstall to manage. But I didn’t use it a lot. Even you can keep it blank.

Step 10:

Select the temporary drive for winInstall to save files. I have selected C drive, you can select any other if you have.Click “Next”.

Step 11:

Here select the drive on which you will be installing Acrobat reader, remember this location will be used on clients too, so if you select here other drive then that location should be present on Clients workstation too, otherwise installation will fail.I will suggest keeping default C: drive as every workstation will have C as its default location.Select C drive and click “Add”

Click “Next”.

After this step you will click on Finish on next screen, which will start discovery process of virtual machine.

Step 12:

As the discovery process finish you will get a message box.

Step 13:

Now when you click OK, it will prompt you to setup the program, so we need to copy Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.0 to VM before we go ahead and click OK.. We can copy from our local location and paste it in VM on the fly. It is not important to have setup file on VM, if you have it on CD-ROM then you can use it or can also give a UNC path to setup file.

You can see here, I copied Acrobat Reader v9.0.exe and now click OK button.

Step 14:

Now, browse the setup file, and click “Open”

Step 15:

Acrobat Reader setup will launch and complete the setup as normally we do.But remember to keep installation location as C: in setup also, as we have selected C: drive to scan for changes.

OK, now setup is complete.Step 16: VERY IMPORTANT TASK if you copy setup file to VM then delete it. Don’t forget to delete executable file.After deleting then take next step, if you run the setup from CD-ROM or UNC then go ahead to next step.
If your program needs a restart then go ahead and restart VM.Depending on this next step may change, as Acrobat reader doesn’t needs a restart, we can go ahead.

Step 17:

Again we need to run “discover.exe” using the same UNC path that we used before. This time you will get a different option to select.We need select “Perform the after snapshot” and click “Next”.

Step 18:

When you click Next, it will start discovery process again and here it will copy all the changes done to VM in comparision with previous discovery.Changes files and registry settings will be copied to UNC location that we specified in step 8.

Step 19:Discovery process is complete.

Click Close and Done!

Our .MSI file for Acrobat Reader is ready, we can deploy msi using GPO.

If you check the location if MSI file, you will find folders, registry file, .msi file, and .nai file.

These folders are having the files necessary for acrobat to run, and when the client machine starts the setup it use these files and registry file to place changes in registry. It’s important that you have all these files together. If you want to backup then zip the AcrobatReader9.0 folder and keep it for distribution.Hope this was helpful to you.
If you have problem and questions please mail me mohd.wasim@yahoo.com

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Wasim.

Publishing OWA via ISA 2006

Many Organizations will like to use ISA server as one of their security. Here we will be looking how we can push Outlook Web Access through ISA 2006.

Lets get started by opening ISA Management console.
Right click on Firewall in left panel and point towards New > Exchange Web Client Access Publishing Rule
 

Click on Next.

You will be given with a new window, and we are suppose to put a user friendly name for our rule. Lets name it OWA Publishing Rule.

Click on Next.

Here we need to select the version of OWA that we need to publish, as in this case we are discussing Exchange 2003 server so we will be selecting Exchange server 2003 from version dropdown list.

In service section, we will select "Outlook Web Access" and not others as they will be discussed in later articles one by one.

Click on Next.

Here we will select 1st option i.e., "Publish a single web site or load balancer"
 

Click on Next.

Now we will select the type of connection that we are going to make, here we will use a connection without SSL and hence will select "use non-secured connections to connect the published web server"

Click on Next.

Here we will enter the name that users will use to access OWA. I have created a host record in my DNS with name as "mail" and hence its "mail.msexchange.in" in my case.

Secondly, we will select the exchange server or we can manually enter the IP address of exchange server in second box.

DSAccess - Directory Service Access

What is DSAccess?
DSAccess is a component that optimizes the communication between Active Directory and components within exchange server.

For example, Components such as Information Store and message categorizer.

Exchange components that needs to interact with active directory uses DSAccess to retrieve information instead of directly communicating with Domain Controller or Global Catalog servers.

DSAccess is also helpful for better system performance as it maintains a cache which helps in reducing LDAP queries that exchange server components does on active directory and thus load is reduced on both domain controllers as well as global catalog servers.

Note: Global Address List (GAL) queries from Microsoft Outlook client does not use this cache.

The system Attendant service is responsible for initializing DSAccess which is in form of a DLL file i.e., DSACCESS.DLL. There are also two more dll's associated which are DSCMGS.DLL and DSCPERF.DLL.

Lets say, we want to see which processes are using DSACCESS.DLL. for this we will be using tasklist.exe (windows 2003 and XP) from command prompt.
tasklist -m dsaccess.dll
This will give you output similar as shown below.
 
DSAccess also have another important task to do, and that is "Discovery Process". In this discovery process DSAccess determines the complete active directory structure and accordingly chooses domain controller and global catalog servers that can be used by exchange.

To see which domain controller and global catalog is being used by DSAccess, we need to open ESM (exchange system manager) and drill down to server, then open the properties page of server and go to Directory Access tab.
 
Note: This is available only if Exchange 2003 SP2 is installed. In prior versions you will need to use DSADIAG.EXE to get the list of domain controllers and global catalogs that are being used by DSAccess.

ISA2006 Internet Access Rule

Hello Friends,

Today here I will show you how to give access to internet on workstations after intalling ISA 2006 on your network.

1. Open up ISA 2006 console.
2. Right click on Firewall Policy in left panel and select New > Access Rule.
3. Give a meaning full name which can Identify scope of rule later on. Click Next.
4. Select "Allow" as we want to allow access to internet. Click Next.
5. In Protocols selection keep "Selected Protocols" and click on "Add" to select Protocols on which we will be giving access.
6. Go to "Web" and select "HTTP" and "HTTPS" protocols and click on Add. Close the popup window. Click Next.
7. Now we need to specify the source of traffic, it will be "Internal" network. Click on "Add" and select "Internal" from "Networks" Add it and close popup window. Click Next.
8. Again we need to specify Destination, it means the traffic from internal will go where? ofcouse to "External" network that is internet. Click Add and select "External" network. Click on "Add" and close popup window.
9. Next, we need to select which users are going to have access to this destination that is external network. we can select All users or Authenticated users. In All users case everyone will have access where as in Authenticated only users who logs in with specific credentials will have access. I will show you will All users. Click Next. and Finish.

10. Now go to your workstations, open up browser and go to "Tools > Internet Options" Select "Connections" tab and click on "LAN Settings".
11. In Proxy Server section Enable "use proxy server" and enter the IP Address of your ISA server. Along with Port 8080 which is default port of ISA.
Apply and try to access Internet and Hurry it works..

Well, if you have any problem do post a message and let me know, will surely help you guys out on your issues.

Please Check out this demonstrating video. Hope this will also help you guys.



Thanks.

Wasim.

Unable to Ping ISA 2006

Hello Friends,

How are you all doing? good!!! ... hope everyone is enjoying here..

Ok, so your ISA 2006 is installed!! lets get started with it now. Here I will discuss 1st thing that made me confused when I installed ISA 2006 and that was "Unable to Ping" ISA server, wow!! that was something annoying for me.

Actually the best thing of ISA 2006 is it reject anything that comes to it from any network, yes from any network even if it is the same network in which ISA 2006 is installed. Well at 1st it will sound something stupid thing, but its a very good feature which you will like later as you keep digging in ISA. Image below will show you what exactly is the scenario.

Fine, lets go ahead and enable our Ping(ICMP) traffic to ISA 2006.

1. Open up your ISA 2006 Management console.
2. Select "Firewall Policy" and in right side of window you will see "Tasks Bar"
3. Under tasks you will find "System Policy Tasks"
4. Under this, click on "Edit System Policy"
5. This will give you a new window "System Policy Editor" which will have a list on left side and respective options on right.
6. Find "ICMP (ping)" in list on left, select it and you will get options related to it on right side.
You will have to see under "From" tab. This is the place where we need to tell ISA 2006 server to accept traffic coming from specific network.
7. Click on "Add" button, this will give you a small window of "Network Entities".
8. 1st thing you will find is "Networks".
9. Expand "Networks" (click on + sign) and you will see all the networks that are defined by default in ISA 2006.
10. Now as we want Ping (icmp) traffic from internal network to be accepted by ISA so we will select "Internal" and click on "Add" this will add Internal network definition to From tab, click close.

and click Ok on System Policy Editor window.

Click on "Apply" which appears on yellow bar with warning symbol.
Click "OK" after settings are successfully applied.

Now try to ping from your internal network to ISA 2006. :-)

Hope you found this article helpful.

Regards,
Wasim.

How to Install Windows 2003 SP2

Hello Friends,

You all must have tried to install windows 2003 sp2, but the setup wizard through you back prompting an error of invalid key.
There is a bypass available for this, but I will not post here, as my blog can be blocked.
If you need information, please do let me know. I can guide you via email.

Thanks.

Exchange 2003 System Attendent does not start.

Hello Friends,

Here if have got a new topic to post, may be some of you guys n gals face this problem while setting up exchange 2003 on member server of DC using /DisasterRecovery switch.

We setup exchange 2003 using disasterrecovery switch when information related to our exchange server is already present in AD.
Setup goes smoothly and you get a message which says to restore database from backup, we click ok and then setup wizard resume its job, here it tries to start Exchange System Attendent service and keeps trying to do it for long time, things doesn't goes ahead. but if we see our Event viewer (our friend) you will get error 9022, 9149, and 1005. This is because the exchange server container in AD does not proper permissions.

Ok, now we will solve this issue.
Go to the DC, make sure you have support tools installed. If not then install it from your windows 2003 server CD-ROM, you can find it in support/Tools directory of your CD-ROM.

After finishing installation of support tools,
1. Goto Start > Run.. type adsiedit.msc then press Enter
2. we need to drill down
Configuration > Services > Microsoft Exchange > Administrative Group > First Administrative Group > Servers
3. Here we will see our server name. Right Click on server goto properties, goto Security tab and see the last group "Exchange Domain Servers" click on it and you will get the list of permissions given to this group. You will find "Full Control" is not enabled, and this is what we have to do. Enable it and click Apply.. Ok..
4. Now go to your exchange server and try to restart System Attendent service, also MTA Stack and Information Store will be stopped, start them also..

And its done :-)

NOTE: this article is written with help of my friend Mohd Ismael so i will like to give all the credits for solving your problem related to this system attendent issue.

Reverse NDR Attack

Comming Soon..!!

Exchange 2003 restart slow!!

Hello Friends..!
Ok, here is once again we have something going on in our head, yep, a long long long wait to get our beloved exchange server restarted..
This happens in cases where exchange 2003 is on Domain Controller.
Reason that i have noticed for delay in restart is coz of services, system wants to stop services like Microsoft Exchange System Attendant, IIS Admin Service, Netlogon..
What we can do here is stop these services prior to the process of shutdown, we will do this using a .vbs file, yes a VBScript.
Here is the script copy and paste in notepad and "save as" filename.vbs
--------------------
servername = "localhost"
set wmi = getobject("winmgmts://" & servername)
StopService ("Microsoft Exchange System Attendant")
StopService ("IIS Admin Service")
StopService ("Netlogon")

Sub StopService (ServiceName)
wql = "select state from win32_service " & "where displayname='"& ServiceName & "'"
set results = wmi.execquery(wql)
for each service in results
if service.state = "Running" then
service.stopService
end if
next
End Sub
--------------------

NOTE: Use this script on Exchange 2003 where IIS and Exchange processes are not interdependent.

Hope this article helped you guys.

Exchange 2003 Queue flooded with NDR

Hello Friends,

Ahaan.. so your exchange 2003 queue is flooded with NDR (non-delivery reports), no need to panic as we are going to fix this issue in few minutes.

How to check your exchange 2003 queues?
Start > Programs > Microsoft Exchange > System Manager(ESM)

you will see 'Organization Name' in tree menu which is on left side of window.
Right click and go to 'Properties'
On general tab you will see 'Display Administrative Groups' we need to enable this.

The reason for doing this so that your tree view structure and my view structure should be same, which will help you to find exactly where i am trying to go.

Ok now we need to close and re-open ESM. When you open it, you will see changes in placement of different folders and elements in our tree structure.
Fine, lets go ahead and find our queue.
Drill down to Administrative groups > First Administrative Group > Servers > (Exchange_Server) > Queues
You will see SMTP Connector here and the domains to which they are trying to send emails, moreover you will see number of messages waiting to go through via this SMTP under 'Number of Messages' you will see higher number if emails are stuck in queue.
We need to double click on it to get to know the messages which are not going through, once we double click we get 'Find Messages' window, leave things as is and click on 'Find now' button, soon you will see all the messages down.
Check the 'Sender', if its postmaster@domain.com that means we are having R-NDR attack (Reverse NDR)