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LoKout
Apr 2, 2003

Professional Fetus Taster
The reverse DNS for your mail server isn't setup correctly. You'll need to fix that in order to send mail to them (and likely others).

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Mithra6
Jan 24, 2006

Elvis is dead, Sinatra is dead, and me I feel also not so good.
So if their e-mail domain is "orange.org" I have to set the reverse DNS to resolve as that right?

Lordshmee
Nov 23, 2007

I hate you, Milkman Dan
I've got just three words.

Exchange Web Services.

What a loving nightmare. You want to enumerate messages in a folder and get some basic info about each one? Hope you like creating 500 objects to do it!

You cannot get any further away from intuitive as this horrible poo poo. It's like the engineers at Microsoft sat around and said, "How can we make this more difficult? We surely don't want people to actually USE this poo poo. BTW - scrap CDO while you're at it!"

:byodood:

Mithra6
Jan 24, 2006

Elvis is dead, Sinatra is dead, and me I feel also not so good.
The client I just posted about has a nightmare network. I'm trying to talk them into using Microsoft's Exchange hosting. They can get that poo poo literally for free. I think there's a mental disconnect since they think they have to have their own server. They only have 15 users. I think I'm starting to convince them.

In the meantime I'm trying to get them in a good place for now. I think their network was never set up right.

LoKout
Apr 2, 2003

Professional Fetus Taster

Mithra6 posted:

So if their e-mail domain is "orange.org" I have to set the reverse DNS to resolve as that right?

No, your domain needs to have a pointer record so it can be resolved from the IP address. That's the error their server is sending you. You said you recently changed your external IPs. That likely is the cause.

Drumstick
Jun 20, 2006
Lord of cacti
My exchange logs are filling up my hard drive. My backups have not been running. Im running one now, will this clear up the logs in exchange log storage?

Mithra6
Jan 24, 2006

Elvis is dead, Sinatra is dead, and me I feel also not so good.

Drumstick posted:

My exchange logs are filling up my hard drive. My backups have not been running. Im running one now, will this clear up the logs in exchange log storage?

It should. I've had this happen before.

Drumstick
Jun 20, 2006
Lord of cacti
It does! Thankfully. I wasnt expecting the backups to be done so soon and wanted to make sure I had everything covered just in case. drat, I dont know nearly enough about exchange.

Internet Explorer
Jun 1, 2005





Yeah, and make sure your boss does not save an Exchange backup to your log drive. :v:

A Proper Uppercut
Sep 30, 2008

I've been agonizing on whether to make a new thread for this question, but I figure posting in this one is safe, as you guys obviously know what the hell you're talking about, even though it might not end up being about Exchange. If it isn't appropriate, let me know.

Essentially, I'm looking for an email solution for my employer. We're a small-ish company, and would have about 8 clients. I'm the de facto IT guy because I know how to build PCs and clean out viruses, but I don't have much experience when it comes to this kind of thing.

Anyway, I've been looking into renting a hosted Exchange Server. We want to keep this as simple as possible, and want an IMAP type setup where all the mail will stay on the server, and everyone can access it from any computer in the shop. What is making me hesitant about all this is that almost all the emails we get have attachments, ranging from 2-10 Mb.

What we're doing right now is just using one computer to access a hotmail account with Outlook, saving any attachments into a network folder, and saving the email in Outlook local folders. We want to keep the attachments with the emails. The thing is, these attachments add up and would use up the storage space on a Exchange server pretty quickly.

I realize I may not be getting my question across all that well, and I blame it on my inexperience. Ideally, I would like to do one of two options, if possible. When an email comes in, whoever reads it can remove it from the server and save it locally, yet anyone on any other PC in the network can access those same local folders, using Outlook.

Another option, which I don't know is viable for someone with my level of experience, would be to host our own mail server, whether it's Exchange or not.

Again, I apologize if this is the wrong place for this, and any help would be greatly appreciated.

Internet Explorer
Jun 1, 2005





Have you taken a look at Google Apps or Microsoft 360? With most small companies it makes sense these days to host stuff externally. Your other option would probably be Microsoft Small Business Server, of which they just recently released a new version.

A Proper Uppercut
Sep 30, 2008

Internet Explorer posted:

Have you taken a look at Google Apps or Microsoft 360? With most small companies it makes sense these days to host stuff externally. Your other option would probably be Microsoft Small Business Server, of which they just recently released a new version.

I did a little experimenting with Gmail and IMAP, but it was slow as hell with Outlook. I didn't know Microsoft 365 was a thing, and I'll look into that.

As for MSBS, does that have the capability to handle email on it's own, or would that involve setting up an Exchange server too? I also like this idea because our current backup system is kind of wonky.

Edit: Okay, the Office 365 looks pretty sweet. One quick question about that. Is there a way for multiple clients to share the same inbox? Because essentially there is no email being addressed to any specific person, we all need access to the same emails. Would we even need multiple clients for that? Also, has anyone here been using 365? How is the speed with Outlook?

A Proper Uppercut fucked around with this message at 00:02 on Aug 16, 2011

Mithra6
Jan 24, 2006

Elvis is dead, Sinatra is dead, and me I feel also not so good.

Zubumafoo posted:

I did a little experimenting with Gmail and IMAP, but it was slow as hell with Outlook. I didn't know Microsoft 365 was a thing, and I'll look into that.

As for MSBS, does that have the capability to handle email on it's own, or would that involve setting up an Exchange server too? I also like this idea because our current backup system is kind of wonky.

Edit: Okay, the Office 365 looks pretty sweet. One quick question about that. Is there a way for multiple clients to share the same inbox? Because essentially there is no email being addressed to any specific person, we all need access to the same emails. Would we even need multiple clients for that? Also, has anyone here been using 365? How is the speed with Outlook?

Exchange will be totally on the cloud. No backups necessary.

LoKout
Apr 2, 2003

Professional Fetus Taster

Zubumafoo posted:

I did a little experimenting with Gmail and IMAP, but it was slow as hell with Outlook. I didn't know Microsoft 365 was a thing, and I'll look into that.

As for MSBS, does that have the capability to handle email on it's own, or would that involve setting up an Exchange server too? I also like this idea because our current backup system is kind of wonky.

Edit: Okay, the Office 365 looks pretty sweet. One quick question about that. Is there a way for multiple clients to share the same inbox? Because essentially there is no email being addressed to any specific person, we all need access to the same emails. Would we even need multiple clients for that? Also, has anyone here been using 365? How is the speed with Outlook?

I've seen gMail's IMAP act really slow before, so I know where you're coming from. Especially with large mailboxes. I don't really know if Outlook is more to blame than gMail, though.

MSBS comes with a somewhat limited version of Exchange built in. You'd have to configure it, which isn't super easy, but totally doable if you can read some well written documentation.

Office 365 is cloud based Exchange. It might be faster than gMail due to the aforementioned reasons. It would use Outlook's Exchange support for connectivity, which is likely quite a bit more efficient than IMAP. The full suite contains the other Office apps as well. You could also use web-based Outlook with it and that would be fast, depending on your internet connection speed.

Edit: Mithra6 isn't totally correct that backups are not necessary with Office 365. It would totally depend on your situation. Microsoft does redundancy and stuff for you, but user error could still screw you up. There is a deleted item retention built into Exchange/Office 365 (like a hidden deleted items folder that everything goes to for a little while), but things can still go wrong. Industry compliance may also require backups, if you're in that situation.

LoKout fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Aug 16, 2011

A Proper Uppercut
Sep 30, 2008

Thanks, you guys have been a lot of help. Honestly, if it isn't too drat slow, Office 365 really sounds like it would be ideal, especially for the cost. With a 25Gb mailbox, I don't think saving the emails with attachments would be a big deal.

Though the one thing I'm still wondering about with that is multiple PCs being able to access the same mailbox at the same time.

LoKout
Apr 2, 2003

Professional Fetus Taster
Multiple accounts on the same Exchange mailbox is no problem with locally served Exchange, so I see no reason why putting it into the cloud would make a difference. It can sometimes get a bit messy with a lot of users (3-4+) on the same mailbox, as it doesn't always update the client with changes made on one of the other computers, so operations can occasionally fail (with fun error messages like "this message no longer exists").

Perhaps you can detail why multiple people need to access the mailbox simultaneously and we can provide some suggestions on how to improve that process. Perhaps a ruleset or designees to monitor the mailbox would be more appropriate, but that will depend on your use and needs.

A Proper Uppercut
Sep 30, 2008

Mainly, it's because we only use one email address. Whoever reads the email would save the attachment in the proper place, and save the email in one of several public folders depending on the contents of the email. Nothing really all that complicated.

LoKout
Apr 2, 2003

Professional Fetus Taster
Too small a company to have a receptionist or admin assistant? That seems like the perfect job for them to do all day, and have a backup or two in case of sick days/vacation.

Is the email so time sensitive that it couldn't be delegated to check a few times a day or if someone calls about an email they sent? That doesn't seem likely. Email doesn't always need to mean instantaneously checked or replied to. It's a big time waster to check email whenever it comes in, as opposed to in a batch a few times a day.

A Proper Uppercut
Sep 30, 2008

LoKout posted:

Too small a company to have a receptionist or admin assistant? That seems like the perfect job for them to do all day, and have a backup or two in case of sick days/vacation.

Is the email so time sensitive that it couldn't be delegated to check a few times a day or if someone calls about an email they sent? That doesn't seem likely. Email doesn't always need to mean instantaneously checked or replied to. It's a big time waster to check email whenever it comes in, as opposed to in a batch a few times a day.

Not too small, we have one, but the emails are generally of a technical nature. Nothing a receptionist would know what to do with without a lot of training in things they wouldn't want to be trained in.

The whole thing with this is not really because of time sensitive stuff, it's making sure everyone has access to new and old emails from any PC on our local network. That's why I was asking about an IMAP type system, but just concerned about storage space on a typical hosted server. Which is why I was interested in the Office 365 as the mailboxes are 25Gb.

Also, I don't know why I'm making it sound like I work in some super secret place, it's a machine shop with about 15 employees.

Wicaeed
Feb 8, 2005
So I've recently got myself a job as a Jr. Systems Admin at a smaller enterprise (200ish employee's) that has recently switched over to Exchange 2010 fro 2003.

I have 0 Exchange experience this far and want to make myself valuable to this company.

What reading material would be a good starting point if I wanted to learn Exchange 2010 administration from the ground up?

Thanks :)

Internet Explorer
Jun 1, 2005





If you're talking about serious reading I've heard good things about these, have not had time to read them yet though -

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Exchange-Server-2010-Inside/dp/0735640610/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313515615&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Exchange-Server-2010-Practices/dp/0735627193/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313515672&sr=1-1

Although, honestly, in a 200 person shop if you can make it through the first couple of pages on those you'll probably be leaps and bounds above any coworkers you may or may not have.

Wicaeed
Feb 8, 2005

Internet Explorer posted:

If you're talking about serious reading I've heard good things about these, have not had time to read them yet though -

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Exchange-Server-2010-Inside/dp/0735640610/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313515615&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Exchange-Server-2010-Practices/dp/0735627193/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313515672&sr=1-1

Although, honestly, in a 200 person shop if you can make it through the first couple of pages on those you'll probably be leaps and bounds above any coworkers you may or may not have.

Cool, they actually already have this book on hand, I'll ask to borrow it.

Actually all of my coworkers seem extremely knowledgeable thus far. Good policies in place, people actually following them!

I'm in the twilight zone!!!

Mierdaan
Sep 14, 2004

Pillbug

Internet Explorer posted:

Yeah, and make sure your boss does not save an Exchange backup to your log drive. :v:

Make sure your coworkers (in a foreign office) don't install WSUS on your Exchange server, sync every product Microsoft has ever made, and store the updates on your Exchange log drive! :psyduck:

Internet Explorer
Jun 1, 2005





Wicaeed posted:

Cool, they actually already have this book on hand, I'll ask to borrow it.

Actually all of my coworkers seem extremely knowledgeable thus far. Good policies in place, people actually following them!

I'm in the twilight zone!!!

Shut up. You're just lying to try to make me feel worse.

Mierdaan posted:

Make sure your coworkers (in a foreign office) don't install WSUS on your Exchange server, sync every product Microsoft has ever made, and store the updates on your Exchange log drive! :psyduck:

Shut up. You're just lying to try to make me feel better.

markus876
Aug 19, 2002

I am a comedy trap.

Zubumafoo posted:

Not too small, we have one, but the emails are generally of a technical nature. Nothing a receptionist would know what to do with without a lot of training in things they wouldn't want to be trained in.

The whole thing with this is not really because of time sensitive stuff, it's making sure everyone has access to new and old emails from any PC on our local network. That's why I was asking about an IMAP type system, but just concerned about storage space on a typical hosted server. Which is why I was interested in the Office 365 as the mailboxes are 25Gb.

Also, I don't know why I'm making it sound like I work in some super secret place, it's a machine shop with about 15 employees.

You may want to check out something like Email Center Pro (http://www.emailcenterpro.com/) or similar. It's a product that is designed to be used for more of a "incoming email queue" solution, and would let you guys all have a common history of emails (which is nice if Joe has been communicating with someone and then he is out sick and Harry wants to take over).

Tomahawk513
Jul 18, 2011
Thanks in advance.

Not sure if this will end up being an Exchange issue or a server issue.

We have a virtual terminal server setup. The second server, tsfarm_2 is experiencing issues. Whenever a user remote desktops into their profile on that server, opens outlook, and attempts to create a new/reply/forward mail item it crashes outlook. Only occurs on this particular server, and only when Remote Desktoping in (VNC allows opening New Mail Item just fine). The sys-admin is stumped and I'm just a Help Desk and Networking tech, no experience w/ servers.

What we've done to resolve:
Windows Update on all servers.
Reinstall Outlook on this server.
Wiping local user profiles on that server.
Rebooting server.

None of this made any difference, the instant a person clicks New, Reply, or Forward it crashes Outlook.

Using Standard Exchange profiles, not POP3. We're not using Cached Exchange Mode.

Tomahawk513 fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Aug 16, 2011

Mierdaan
Sep 14, 2004

Pillbug
Tried toggling Cached Exchange Mode?

edit: what kind of email accounts are they using? Standard outlook/MAPI/exchange or like, POP3?

Errant Gin Monks
Oct 2, 2009

"Yeah..."
- Marshawn Lynch
:hawksin:

Zubumafoo posted:

Not too small, we have one, but the emails are generally of a technical nature. Nothing a receptionist would know what to do with without a lot of training in things they wouldn't want to be trained in.

The whole thing with this is not really because of time sensitive stuff, it's making sure everyone has access to new and old emails from any PC on our local network. That's why I was asking about an IMAP type system, but just concerned about storage space on a typical hosted server. Which is why I was interested in the Office 365 as the mailboxes are 25Gb.

Also, I don't know why I'm making it sound like I work in some super secret place, it's a machine shop with about 15 employees.

I know its a day after the question but Microsoft Office 365 should work just fine for you. As well an SBS server comes with Exchange, Sharepoint and AD with a really slick new Remote Web Workplace.

Best thing about SBS is you can have everyone access the shared email via OWA, which would save you from having to buy the newer versions of Office. Make everyone work online.

edit: The main selling point of SBS is you also have the ability to go to a full blown windows domain with all the security and abilities that that contains instead of using crappy workgroups. Also Sharepoint 2010 kicks rear end.

Tomahawk513 posted:

Thanks in advance.

Not sure if this will end up being an Exchange issue or a server issue.

We have a virtual terminal server setup. The second server, tsfarm_2 is experiencing issues. Whenever a user remote desktops into their profile on that server, opens outlook, and attempts to create a new/reply/forward mail item it crashes outlook. Only occurs on this particular server, and only when Remote Desktoping in (VNC allows opening New Mail Item just fine). The sys-admin is stumped and I'm just a Help Desk and Networking tech, no experience w/ servers.

What we've done to resolve:
Windows Update on all servers.
Reinstall Outlook on this server.
Wiping local user profiles on that server.
Rebooting server.

None of this made any difference, the instant a person clicks New, Reply, or Forward it crashes Outlook.

Using Standard Exchange profiles, not POP3. We're not using Cached Exchange Mode.

What version of windows Server are you running?

I suppose it doesn't really matter. If its the server DEP settings you can check those after you isolate the problem Outlook is having. One thing is to have the event viewer open and crash outlook on purpose and see what shows up as the reason. Thats always helpful. You can run through the outlook command line info, that will tell you if its Outlook or if its the server itself
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2000071

go there and definitely check the NormalEmail.dotm troubleshooting. It sounds like its bad and crashing since thats the template that Outlook opens for new emails and reply's. Just run through the list on that KB article and see if anything works there.

Edit: and just for clarification, there is probably (99% chance) absolutely nothing wrong with your Exchange Server. This sounds very much like a local server issue or an outlook issue only. When Exchange fucks up it fucks your entire company, not one server.

Errant Gin Monks fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Aug 16, 2011

Tomahawk513
Jul 18, 2011

Errant Gin Monks posted:

Edit: and just for clarification, there is probably (99% chance) absolutely nothing wrong with your Exchange Server. This sounds very much like a local server issue or an outlook issue only. When Exchange fucks up it fucks your entire company, not one server.

This is what I'm beginning to think. I'll give the sys-admin that troubleshooting guide though and see what happens. Thanks!

Mithra6
Jan 24, 2006

Elvis is dead, Sinatra is dead, and me I feel also not so good.
Not entirely on topic, but I figured someone here would know.

I read somewhere in SA that O'Reilly has some kind of subscription thingy where you can have access to all of their e-books for a certain flat fee.

I couldn't find it on their website. Am I imagining things?

The Fool
Oct 16, 2003


Mithra6 posted:

Not entirely on topic, but I figured someone here would know.

I read somewhere in SA that O'Reilly has some kind of subscription thingy where you can have access to all of their e-books for a certain flat fee.

I couldn't find it on their website. Am I imagining things?
http://www.safaribooksonline.com

It's a bit pricey if your employer isn't willing to pick it up for you though.

Number19
May 14, 2003

HOCKEY OWNS
FUCK YEAH


Mierdaan posted:

Make sure your coworkers (in a foreign office) don't install WSUS on your Exchange server, sync every product Microsoft has ever made, and store the updates on your Exchange log drive! :psyduck:

I...what? How? Who would...? :stare:

Reading things like makes me glad I'm a one man shop so I can only blame myself for the stupid decisions that are made. I also at least understand them and can fix them more often than not.

citywok
Sep 8, 2003
Born To Surf

captkirk posted:

For Exchange 2010 I know if you want automatic failover for your CAS you need to set up a CAS array, but how can you do manual failover? Our servers are multiroled with a DAG so we can't do a CAS array and I need to know how to fail over in the case one CAS dies.

This is because the DAG role requires Failover Clustering, and the CAS role requires Network Load Balancing, and you can't have both roles on the same server.

The ideal solution is two enterprise servers running DAG (enterprise exchange and enterprise server), and two additional standard edition servers running CAS. This is the model we're using. On top of this, at another location we store another DAG copy, and a CAS for DR.

Don't forget you need server 2008 r2 enterprise to get the failover clustering role, and you need exchange enterprise to go beyond something like 5 mailbox databases. That said I'm not sure if you need enterprise to get the DAG feature itself.

Studebaker Hawk
May 22, 2004

citywok posted:

This is because the DAG role requires Failover Clustering, and the CAS role requires Network Load Balancing, and you can't have both roles on the same server.

The ideal solution is two enterprise servers running DAG (enterprise exchange and enterprise server), and two additional standard edition servers running CAS. This is the model we're using. On top of this, at another location we store another DAG copy, and a CAS for DR.

Don't forget you need server 2008 r2 enterprise to get the failover clustering role, and you need exchange enterprise to go beyond something like 5 mailbox databases. That said I'm not sure if you need enterprise to get the DAG feature itself.

You don't- standard will get you dags as long as your OS is enterprise, but there is a db limit.

A Proper Uppercut
Sep 30, 2008

markus876 posted:

You may want to check out something like Email Center Pro (http://www.emailcenterpro.com/) or similar. It's a product that is designed to be used for more of a "incoming email queue" solution, and would let you guys all have a common history of emails (which is nice if Joe has been communicating with someone and then he is out sick and Harry wants to take over).

You, sir, must be psychic. The day after you suggested this, my boss (who was also trying to figure this email stuff out) showed me this, and said he had already talked to some Customer Service people and thought it was what we were looking for. We've been using it for a couple days now and it is just that. Exactly what we were looking for.

mungtor
May 3, 2005

Yeah, I hate me too.
Nap Ghost
So I've been thrown into planning the infrastructure for our next Exchange migration (2007 -> 2010) and it's been an interesting learning experience (especially since I'm the unix admin and refuse to use Outlook). Currently we're running 5 individual Exchange servers and just under 3.5TB of mail for about 500 people. Things I've been thinking about are:

1. Total storage space - Between losing SIS and DAG copies we're probably going to need something like 8TB of space just to start, right?

2. Backup - How does VSS integrate into something like being able to create a volume snapshot on a SAN? We have some volumes that just get snapped on a schedule but haven't tried to drive it from the client side.

3. SAN connectivity - Are there any issues with housing the databases on a SAN over 10Gbit iSCSI? Would fiber be a better option? We're trying to use this project as a way to leverage in a nice SAN that we can expand to other projects (Compellent, FWIW).

I'm currently working my way through the Exchange 2010 Inside and Out book, but it's not exactly light reading.

Plastic Jesus
Aug 26, 2006

I'm cranky most of the time.
I'm writing an application needs to sync with Exchange via OWA and IMAP, and need a test server that I can seed with data from PSTs. For some inexplicable reason Rackspace's Hosted Exchange does not allow one to access the account via custom code, only from a "real" mail client. There are no pre-built AWIs that include exchange (and I don't want to have to deal with administration anyway). Can anyone recommend a hosted service that costs ~$10/month that I could use as a test server during development?

Moey
Oct 22, 2010

I LIKE TO MOVE IT

Zubumafoo posted:

Mainly, it's because we only use one email address. Whoever reads the email would save the attachment in the proper place, and save the email in one of several public folders depending on the contents of the email. Nothing really all that complicated.

I may be missing something, but why not make that email address a distribution group? Then everyone gets the email, whoever takes ownership of it can save the documents wherever.

ozmunkeh
Feb 28, 2008

hey guys what is happening in this thread

Plastic Jesus posted:

I'm writing an application needs to sync with Exchange via OWA and IMAP, and need a test server that I can seed with data from PSTs. For some inexplicable reason Rackspace's Hosted Exchange does not allow one to access the account via custom code, only from a "real" mail client. There are no pre-built AWIs that include exchange (and I don't want to have to deal with administration anyway). Can anyone recommend a hosted service that costs ~$10/month that I could use as a test server during development?

Can you download the 180 day trial and stick it in a vm?

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nexxai
Jul 17, 2002

quack quack bjork
Fun Shoe

ozmunkeh posted:

Can you download the 180 day trial and stick it in a vm?
This. This is exactly the kind of test scenario MS had in mind when they created the eval versions of all their software.

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