Vik's Tech Blog

Exchange 2007 and ActiveSync. Which device?

2011-10-04T07:56:00.000-07:00

To find out which device user utilizes to connect to Exchange 2007 following powershell command can be used:
Get-ActiveSyncDeviceStatistics -Mailbox domain\blye |
ft DeviceType, DeviceUserAgent, LastSuccessSync

Taken from here: http://www.simple-talk.com/sysadmin/exchange/identifying-exchange-activesync-users-with-powershell/ (with the small change you do have to use "domain\" in front of account name)

Symantec Enterprise Vault Compliance Accelerator v9 SP2 has synchronization with AD group broken

2011-05-05T13:29:00.000-07:00

We noticed that employee group in EV CA v9 sp2 that synchronizes with AD group is empty after the upgrade from v8 sp4 to v9 sp2. Symantec Tech Support confirmed that issue is re-producible in their lab.

Let me note that the bug is VERY critical making the Compliance Accelerator scheduled searches return zero hits, because the target employee group has no employees.

The workaround is to synchronize the EV CA employee group with “Active Directory Container” and not “Windows group or distribution list”

Netbackup 7.0.1 and Encryption

2011-02-23T13:12:00.001-08:00

Upgrade of the client to Netbackup7.0.1 breaks encryption, which makes the backups of that clients hang.
Here is the solution:
1. Locate and rename the file keyfile.dat (\Veritas\Netbackup\var\keyfile.dat)
2. Run bpkeyutil -client (from \Veritas\Netbackup\bin)
(Keyfile.dat gets re-created)

Scheduled Task as a Clustered Resource

2011-02-04T14:46:00.000-08:00

1.- Modify the following
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SchedulingAgent so that the tasks
folder location is pointed to the tasks subdirectory on the shared disk.

2.- Go into Cluster Administrator to create a new resource in one group and
choose Generic Service
3.- Possible owners and choose Next and for dependencies, add the Disk and
the Network Name
4.- Service Name: “Schedule”, Parameters: “%SystemRoot%\System32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs”; Root Registry Key: Software\Microsoft\SchedulingAgent

Permissions to SQL Database

2011-01-14T15:06:00.000-08:00

I have been working on the problem of Synchronization two vendor databases (to be particular – Symantec Endpoint Encryption (SEE) Database should be synchronized with Symantec Altiris Management Platform – former Notification Server Database). The synchronization did not work. What turned out to be a cause of the problem was a permission issue. I figured that Altiris Server (not an any user account) must have permissions to SEE Database. I added DomainName\AltirisServerName$ to the Users in the Security section of SEE Database with db_datareader and db_datawriter roles and synchronization started working.

Restart the domain controller in Directory Services Restore Mode Remotely

2010-10-04T11:28:00.000-07:00

Extremely useful article when you need to boot domain controller into Directory Services Restore Mode Remotely:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc779687(WS.10).aspx

Assign permissions to the tree of OUs when inheritance turned off (through Powershell)

2010-10-04T11:02:00.000-07:00

Recently I needed to add permission to move computer objects to OUs for the group of users. I added the permissions to the “root” OU and tested it: everything worked great.
After I reported that task is done, I heard from the users in that group that they still get ‘Access is denied’ trying to move computer objects. I discovered that in AD permissions inheritance was disabled for most of the sub-OUs. So, there are more than 1,000 OUs to add permissions to.
Following script took care of the task for me:
#Require Quest "Active Roles Management Shell for Active Directory".

#Put following to the text document saved as *.ps1:

add-PSSnapin quest.activeroles.admanagement
$OU = “root OU DN”
get-qadobject -searchRoot $OU -searchScope 'SubTree'-Type organizationalUnit -SizeLimit 0 |
Add-QADPermission -Account “domainname\user group to add permissions” -Rights CreateChild -ApplyTo All -ChildType
Computer

Email Router for CRM4 and multi-server environment

2010-08-11T14:53:00.001-07:00

We discovered interesting issue with email router when there are few (more than one) CRM4 Servers connected to the same database.

All CRM components in multi-server environment work independently: all requests are being fulfilled by the particular server to which server user connects.

Except e-mails (and mail merge).

Email Router happens to work only on the first CRM server in the environment.

Let me explain a little further:

Let's say you have 3 CRM servers: server1, server2, server3 connecting to the same database. They are combined to the server farm by the load balancer. "Virtual" name of the farm is crm.yourcompany.com. Users access CRM using "virtual" name: http://crm.yourcompany.com.

User requests are answered by one of 3 servers (server1 or server2 or server3) – directed by load balancer.

Let's say, user connects to server3, opens Contact and selects 'Send E-mail'. User fills email fields and click 'Send'. You would expect that email router on server3 processes that email. You would be wrong – email gets processed by email router on server1.

(I wonder what will happen if server1 goes down – would it mean that there will be no email processing by email router? – to me it looks like a single point of failure – hello, Microsoft…)

Email issues in CRM4 (various) – tips of fixing.

2010-08-09T13:05:00.001-07:00

Symptoms:

Can't start Microsoft CRM Email Router Service

Emails are not sent stuck in 'Pending Send' – both regular and Mail Merge.

Cause:

Following file got corrupted:

Microsoft.Crm.Tools.EmailAgent.SystemState.xml

Fix:

2 options:

Either replace that file with the file from "working" CRM server (if you deployed multiple CRM Servers connected to the same database),

Or delete that file – restart should re-create the file

After the fix: re-start the 'Microsoft CRM Email Router Service'

Web site of the sister-company went live!

2010-06-29T19:09:00.001-07:00

www.tacklesoftware.com went live. Home of the brand new Recycle Bin for Microsoft Dynamics CRM4. Product adds easy recovery to CRM4. Other CRM Tools to come. Good luck to the new web site!

File system Anti-virus exceptions for Exchange 2007

2010-06-21T12:40:00.001-07:00

Great article that list how to find out the definite list of files and folders to be excluded from file system anti-virus scanning

http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2007/security-message-hygiene/configuring-file-level-antivirus-software.html

Symantec Enterprise Vault (aka KVS) and showInAddressBook attribute

2010-06-15T13:50:00.001-07:00

showInAddressBook attribute of system or journaling account might get messed up (ie. the value is set to <Not Set>), which would result Journaling Task to fail on starting up with the following error message (among other bad things caused by showInAddressBook not set):

Event Type: Error

Event Source: Enterprise Vault

Event Category: Journal Task

Event ID: 3305

Date: 6/14/2010

Time: 12:36:06 PM

User: N/A

Computer: KVSServer

Description:

The Task 'Exchange Journaling Task for ExchServer' failed to log on to Exchange server 'ExchServer' using mailbox 'SMTP:journalmailbox@mydomain.com'. Please ensure the mailbox has not been hidden, that the server is running and that the Vault account has sufficient permissions on the server.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://evevent.symantec.com/rosetta/showevent.asp

To fix – simply set showInAddressBook attribute properly.

Powershell Tips

2010-06-15T13:36:00.001-07:00

Tip #1: when you have Exchange Powershell installed on the workstation, you might need to load Exchange shell every time you want to run Exchange based command anyways:

add-pssnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.Admin

Tip #2: To get mailbox stats run: get-mailboxstatistics –server mailbox1w | Where-Object {$_.displayname –eq "John Smith"}

Great command to see ‘Services’ in details and ‘StartUps’

2010-02-11T13:30:00.001-08:00

Msconfig:

(I knew similar tool was available from Sysinternals, but did not know it's now incorporated into Windows (including XP)

Redeploying CRM4 from production to Dev environment

2009-12-23T14:01:00.001-08:00

We followed the procedure outlined in this blog below and discovered 3 issues:

During the import database step on mapping the users, the Deployment Manager did not recognize and map users from the trusted domain
The import took hours for the 36 GB production database
Last but not least… J After the import no users could logging to redeployed environment getting "Invalid User Authorization" message – so re-deployment was not successful.

After repeating the procedure while having the Update Rollup 8 installed, all problems went away, and the Import process took 10 min instead of hours.

CRM4 Update Rollup 8 – lots of decent improvements

2009-12-23T13:51:00.001-08:00

Update Rollup 8 for MS CRM 4.0 was released 12/17/09: highly recommend to test and apply it

Avaya PBX and OCS 2007 R2 integration

2009-10-27T12:46:00.001-07:00

Lessons learned while configuring integration through Dialogic 2000 SIP Gateway:

OCS 2007 R2 Mediation Server (unlike Exchange 2007 UM Role Server) does not support OPTIONS command, which results incoming calls from PBX to OCS through Dialogic 2000 to fail, because on the configuration stage the SIP Gateway can't establish the communication to the mediation server

CRM4 Outlook Client

2009-08-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

When, during the configuration process, the CRM server URL supplied as https://crmserver, error pops up. Everything works fine using http://crmserver. Seems that CRM4 Outlook Client can't communicate with CRM server through https. Nice design, Microsoft!

Accessing user mailbox using UPN in the link

2009-08-17T12:05:00.000-07:00

Did you know that to access mailbox using UPN in the link on Exchange 2003 (like: https://servername/exchange/) you need to make sure that msexchuseraccountcontrol is set to 0 on the user object? (You can check it using ADSIEdit.msc)

CRM4 MailMerge does not work over https://

2009-08-04T12:59:00.000-07:00

Looks like CRM4 Mail Merge requires port 80 to be available to work properly. crmroot/_static folder of the Web site should be accessible through port 80. How nice! (Continue investigation).

SSL troubleshooting

2009-05-28T15:12:00.000-07:00

Good posting (did not fix my problem though): http://blogs.msdn.com/saurabh_singh/archive/2008/05/27/ssl-troubleshooting-for-iis-web-sites-contd.aspx

Redeploy the Microsoft Dynamics CRM deployment that includes the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server within the same domain or to another domain

2009-05-27T12:33:00.000-07:00

This procedure also should be used when restoring CRM4 DB from one environment to another (for example, production to QA)

1. Back up the Organization _MSCRM databases. To do this, follow these steps: a. On the computer that is running SQL Server, click Start , point to All Programs , point to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 , and then click SQL Server Management Studio .
b. Expand Databases , right-click the Organization _MSCRM database, point to Tasks , and then click Back Up .
c. Under Destination , add the location to save the backup file, and then click OK .
d. Repeat steps 1b and 1c for any other Organization _MSCRM database that must be moved.

2. Install Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 on the new computer that will run Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server.

Note: When you are prompted to enter the organization name, use a name that differs from the original organization name. You will import the old organization into the new installation. Therefore, you do not want the installation process to create a new organization that has the same name.

3. Restore the Organization _MSCRM databases on the new computer that is running SQL Server. To do this, follow these steps: a. On the new computer that is running SQL Server, click Start , point to All Programs , point to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 , and then click SQL Server Management Studio .
b. Right-click Databases , and then click Restore Database .
c. Under Destination to restore , type the name of the Organization _MSCRM database in the To database box.
d. Under Source for restore , click From device , click the ellipsis button ( ... ), add the Organization _MSCRM database, and then click OK .
e. Click to select the Restore check box, and then click OK .
f. Repeat steps 3b-3e for any additional Organization _MSCRM databases.

4. Import the organization into the new deployment of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. To do this, follow these steps: a. On the new computer that is running Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server, click Start , point to All Programs , point to Microsoft Dynamics CRM , and then click Deployment Manager .
b. Right-click Organizations , and then click Import Organization .
c. If you are using the Professional edition of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you are prompted to delete the existing organization. Click OK to delete the organization that was created during the installation.

Note This action does not delete the actual Organization _MSCRM database from the computer that is running SQL Server.

d. In the SQL Server box, click the computer to which you restored the Organization _MSCRM database, click the organization database in the Organization database box, and then click Next .
e. Type the display name and the name for the organization, and then click Next .
f. Type the URL in the SQL Server Reporting Services URL box, and then click Next .
g. Select the method in the Method for the Mapping of the Users list, and then click Next .
h. Map the users, and then click Next .
i. In the System Requirements dialog box, click Next , and then click Import

Internet Facing Deployment (IFD) for Microsoft Dynamics CRM4 and certificates (SSL)

2009-05-15T08:46:00.000-07:00

Issue: with IFD - server should respond with SSL on both https://orgname.domainname.com and https://servername.domainname.com.

Solution: "wild card" certificates.

1. Create and assign "wild card" certificate (http://blogs.msdn.com/saurabh_singh/archive/2007/11/17/wildcard-ssl-certificate-in-iis-6-0-windows-2003-sp1-and-above.aspx)
2. Run CRM4IFDTool.exe to configure IFD to use HTTPS

Microsoft Dynamics CRM4 Reports (on SRS SQL 2008/ Windows 2008) - tips on fixing

2009-05-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

Configuration:

CRM4 and SRS SQL 2008 co-exist on the same server (Windows Server 2008).

1. When opening the “reports” link constantly being prompted for credentials (on Windows 2008 Server)

Fix:

• disable IE Enhanced Security Configuration
• also, might need to add server name to ‘Trusted Sites’ on IE
• if accessing the “reports” link using virtual name, see following article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956158

2. After fixing the SRS you may need to re-publish reports

To do that:

2.1. Go to cmd
2.2. Navigate to ‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics CRM\Tools’
2.3. Run ‘PublishReports.exe "Org Name"’

Outgoing email processing based on email router in Microsoft Dynamics CRM4

2009-05-08T14:31:00.000-07:00

1. Install E-mail Router (on the CRM server)

1.1. Run Installation CD /Exchange/amd64(for Win 2008)\SetupExchange.exe.

1.2. After series of ‘Next’ – check ‘Microsoft Dynamic CRM E-mail Router Service’.

1.3. After series of ‘Next’ installation is completed.

2. Configure E-mail Router

2.1. Run ‘E-mail Router Configuration Manager’ (either it starts after installation or you can run it at any time by running following file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft CRM Email\Service\Microsoft.Crm.Tools.Email.Management.exe).

2.2. On ‘Configuration Profiles’ Tab click ‘New’.

2.3. Create configuration profile:

Profile Name: whatever - best to name it something logical
Direction: Outgoing
E-mail Server Type: SMTP
Authentication Type: Anonymous (for general SMTP Server)
Location: Server: SMTP server - next in email chain (could be email router server itself - if SMTP Server Service exists on it - for Windows 2003 - default; for Windows 2008 - feature needs to be added)
Access Credentials: Local System Account.

2.4. On ‘Deployments’ Tab – click ‘New’.

2.5. Configure ‘Deployment’ same as following (note - ‘Microsoft Dynamic CRM Server’ field is case sensitive):

Deployment: My company
Access Credentials: 'Other Specified' (specify credentials of the account with System Administrator privileges)
Default Configuration profiles:
Incoming - does not matter - may leave it blank (we configure Outgoing email processing)
Outgoing - Name of profile from step 2.3.

2.6. Go to ‘Users, Queues, and Forward Mailboxes’ – click ‘Load Data’ – it should not error out.

2.7. Click ‘Publish’.

2.8. Open the following file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft CRM Email\Service\Microsoft.Crm.Tools.EmailAgent.xml.

2.9. Change SchedulingPeriod to 30 (default is 1000).

2.10. Save the file, restart ‘Microsoft CRM Email Router’ service.

3. Configure SMTP Server Service in IIS (note: for 2008 you should use IIS (6.0) Manager for configuration).

3.1. Run IIS Manager.

3.2. Right Click ‘Default SMTP Virtual Server’ (for 2008 – [SMTP Virtual Server #1])/Properties.

3.3. Access Tab/Authentication – make sure that ‘Anonymous Access’ is checked.

3.4. Access Tab/Relay – add all E-mail Router Servers IPs into the allowed relay list (including yourself, if email router installed on the SMTP Server).

3.5. Delivery Tab/Advanced – configure how you'd like SMTP Server Service to process email further.

4. Configure CRM Users to use E-mail Router.

4.1. Login to CRM Browser client.

4.2. Click Settings/Users.

4.3. Double click the user.

4.4. On ‘General’ Tab change the E-mail Access Configuration for Outgoing to ‘E-mail Router’.

4.5. ‘Save and Close’.

4.6. Remove tracking token on emails: Setting/Administration/System Settings/Email Tab – deselect ‘Use tracking token’ (optional).