Exchange Server Pro » Solutions

Get-MailboxReport.ps1 – PowerShell Script to Generate Mailbox Reports

Paul Cunningham — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:05:54 +0000

One of the Exchange Server administration tasks I perform almost every day is creating mailbox size reports. There are a few different reasons that I create these reports, such as planning a mailbox migration project, responding to a storage capacity alert for a particular database, or providing a specific team of people with a report of their mailbox sizes.

Now it is pretty easy to get the sizes for Exchange mailboxes and to handle the formatting of the Exchange 2010 mailbox statistics so that they are easier to perform calculations on, but it gets a bit boring running those commands day after day.

Even worse, after running the commands to create a CSV report I still had to open that in Excel, remove the unwanted details, use Excel formulas to convert the values from bytes to megabytes, sort them into order, and so on. Again not difficult, just boring after doing it hundreds of times.

So I created a PowerShell script, Get-MailboxReport.ps1, to do all of the heavy lifting for me, and I’m sharing that script with you here.

Download the script file here: Get-MailboxReport.ps1 (downloaded 389 times so far)

Let’s take a look at how the script works. Here if a video to demonstrate:

I’ve included help information within the script itself so you can use Get-Help to discover how to run the script.

[PS] C:\Scripts\demo>Get-Help .\Get-MailboxReport.ps1

NAME
    C:\Scripts\demo\Get-MailboxReport.ps1

SYNOPSIS
    Get-MailboxReport.ps1 - Mailbox report generation script.

SYNTAX
    C:\Scripts\demo\Get-MailboxReport.ps1 [-database ] []

    C:\Scripts\demo\Get-MailboxReport.ps1 [-file ] []

    C:\Scripts\demo\Get-MailboxReport.ps1 [-server ] []

    C:\Scripts\demo\Get-MailboxReport.ps1 [-mailbox ] []

    C:\Scripts\demo\Get-MailboxReport.ps1 [-all] []

DESCRIPTION
    Generates a report of useful information for
    the specified server, database, mailbox or list of mailboxes.
    Use only one parameter at a time depending on the scope of
    your mailbox report.

RELATED LINKS
    For more script details, a video demo, or to give feedback please go to:

http://exchangeserverpro.com/powershell-script-create-mailbox-size-report-exchange-server-2010

REMARKS
    To see the examples, type: "get-help C:\Scripts\demo\Get-MailboxReport.ps1 -examples".
    For more information, type: "get-help C:\Scripts\demo\Get-MailboxReport.ps1 -detailed".
    For technical information, type: "get-help C:\Scripts\demo\Get-MailboxReport.ps1 -full".

Depending on which parameter you use the output will vary.

If you use the -mailbox parameter to query a single mailbox, then the output will appear in the console window. I don’t really see the need to output a single mailbox’s details to a CSV file.
If you use any of the other parameters, -server, -database, -file, or -all, the output will be written to a CSV file in the same folder you’re running the script from.

Once you’ve generated the CSV report you can open it with Excel and begin to analyze the data.

Download the script file here: Get-MailboxReport.ps1 (downloaded 389 times so far)

Change Log:

6/02/2012 – V1.0 – Initial version

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Avoid Running Out of Transaction Log Disk Space on Exchange Servers

Paul Cunningham — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 12:45:12 +0000

Paul Robichaux’s recent Windows IT Pro column contains this passage:

If you don’t know when you’re about to run out of disk space on the log LUN, you’re totally doing it wrong. It leaves me slack-jawed with astonishment that in 2012 we still have administrators who suffer unplanned downtime due to log volumes filling up because of poor design or problems with backups. Stop the madness! Check your backups regularly and use monitoring, be it however primitive, to ensure that you don’t have this problem.

Paul is referring to this post on the MS Exchange Team blog, which mentions that:

…the number one reason why our Premier customers open Exchange 2010 critical situations is because Mailbox databases dismount due to running out of disk space on the transaction log LUN.

Either I missed that post when it was published a few months ago or I glossed over it and it didn’t catch my attention enough.

I’ve been stung by transaction log disks running out of space, even as recently as last year. I work in a very large Exchange environment where backups and storage monitoring are performed by two different teams, both of them outside of my team.

That puts us in the situation where failed backups, combined with either a storage monitoring problem or a human error in the escalation processes can (and has) caused a log volume to fill up. Another situation that can arise is when new servers are provisioned, our help desks begin putting mailboxes on them before they’ve been added to the backups.

Which is why I wrote this script to check the Exchange database backups and alert my team when they have not been backed up in the 48 hours or more. In fact that script is a better version than the one we run in production (I haven’t ported over the improvements I later made at home to the original).

Ever since we put it in place that script has alerted us to numerous situations before they could evolve into disasters.

Setting it up as a scheduled task to run daily is a job that will take you less than half an hour. I highly recommend it, not just because I wrote the script, but because it adds a valuable layer of protection to your environment.

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Error: Outlook Was Unable to Recover Some or All of the Items in this Folder

Paul Cunningham — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:13:26 +0000

While attempting to restore items from the Outlook recoverable deleted items you may encounter the following error message.

Outlook was unable to recover some or all of the items in this folder. Make sure you have the required permissions to recover items in this folder, and try again. If the problem persists, contact your administrator.

The error may occur when you attempt to recover a folder that contains a large number of sub-folders or mail items in it.

On the Exchange Server you may see a corresponding Application event log entry similar to this:

Log Name:      Application
Source:        MSExchangeIS
Date:          11/14/2011 12:57:59 PM
Event ID:      9646
Task Category: General
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      exchangeserver.domain.local
Description:
Mapi session "3bbea118-07e3-4746-b7bf-0e5b65e28314" exceeded the maximum of 500 objects of type "objtFolder".

This can occur due to the default limits configured on the Exchange Server for the number of items that can be opened by a single MAPI session. In the example above the MAPI session was trying to open more than the default 500 allowed objects of type “objtFolder” (in other words, Folders).

The solution is provided by Microsoft in this support article, which refers to Exchange Server 2003 but applies to later versions as well.

Open Regedit and navigate to \\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\ParametersSystem
If the key “MaxObjsPerMapiSession” does not already exist, right-click on ParametersSystem and create a new key of that name.
Create a new DWORD value with a name matching the object type in the event log error on your server (eg “objtFolder” in this example)
Set the DWORD value to a decimal value higher than the default. For the case above I first tried 1000, then 10000 when that did not work.
Wait 15-30 minutes for the registry change to take effect, then retry the Outlook operation.

You may find that you need to try gradually increasing the value until you can successfully recover the items in Outlook. You may also find that after you’ve removed one limit that another object type’s limit may also suddenly come into play, so always check your event log for new errors identifying additional object types that you may need to add a registry value for.

After you’ve successfully recovered the Outlook items revert the registry keys to their default values (listed in the Microsoft support article above) to prevent issues with server resources in the future.

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Initialization Failed: The Operation Couldn’t Be Completed Because a Change Occurred in the Remote Forest

Paul Cunningham — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:23:53 +0000

When you are launching the Exchange Server 2010 management console you may receive the following error message.

Initialization Failed: The Operation Couldn’t Be Completed Because a Change Occurred in the Remote Forest

Initlalization Failed error message launching Exchange 2010 management console

This error can occur when the server the management console is connecting to has been upgraded to a higher Service Pack or Update Rollup version than the server or workstation that you are launching the management console from.

To resolve the issue upgrade your management server or workstation to the same version as the Exchange servers in your organization.

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Error Message “The ‘IIS 6 WMI Compatibility’ component is required” During Exchange 2010 SP2 Upgrade

Paul Cunningham — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 12:40:52 +0000

While attempting to upgrade an Exchange Server 2010 Client Access server to Service Pack 2 you may encounter the following error message.

The ‘IIS 6 WMI Compatibility’ component is required. Install the component via Server Manager.

Error message upgrading Exchange 2010 Client Access server to SP2

This error occurs because a new feature of Exchange 2010 SP2 called Outlook Web App Mini requires that IIS component to be installed on Client Access servers.

You can install the component manually by opening a PowerShell window and running the following commands.

PS C:\> Import-Module servermanager

PS C:\> Add-WindowsFeature Web-WMI

Success Restart Needed Exit Code Feature Result
------- -------------- --------- --------------
True    No             Success   {IIS 6 WMI Compatibility}

Click Retry on the Readiness Checks dialog box above, or if you’ve already cancelled the installation simply start it again.

You can also avoid the error by installing the Service Pack 2 upgrade from the command line. Open a command prompt and navigate to the folder where the Exchange 2010 SP2 files have been extracted, and run the following command:

C:\Admin\ex2010sp2>setup /mode:upgrade /installwindowscomponents

This will automatically install the required components for you when the upgrade process runs.

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OWA Error: The Mailbox You’re Trying to Access Isn’t Currently Available

Paul Cunningham — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 12:07:25 +0000

During the co-existence phase of an Exchange 2007 to 2010 migration, when you have cut over your ISA Server publishing rules for Outlook Web App to point to the Exchange 2010 Client Access server, you may encounter the following error for some OWA users.

The mailbox you’re trying to access isn’t currently available. If the problem continues, contact your helpdesk.

Depending on your Exchange environment you may find that this is only occurring for some users and not all of them. In particular you may find that Exchange 2007 mailbox users in remote AD sites are receiving the error, but Exchange 2007 mailbox users in the internet-facing AD site are not.

This can occur because of how the Client Access servers handle OWA traffic differently, depending on which AD site the mailbox user is in.

For the internet-facing AD site the scenarios are simply as follows.

Exchange 2010 Mailbox user:

Connects to published name for Outlook Web App
The internet-facing Exchange 2010 CAS connects to the mailbox server in that site on behalf of the user

Exchange 2007 Mailbox user:

Connects to the published name for Outlook Web App
The internet-facing Exchange 2010 CAS redirects them to the legacy namespace, which is published to the internet-facing Exchange 2007 CAS
The Exchange 2007 CAS connects to the mailbox server in that site on behalf of the user

For mailbox users in remote AD sites the situation is slightly different.

Exchange 2010 Mailbox user:

Connects to published name for Outlook Web App
The internet-facing CAS proxies the connection to an Exchange 2010 CAS in the remote AD site
The Exchange 2010 CAS in the remote AD site connects to the mailbox server in that site on behalf of the user

Exchange 2007 Mailbox user:

Connects to the published name for Outlook Web App
The internet-facing CAS proxies the connection to an Exchange 2007 CAS in the remote AD site
The Exchange 2007 CAS in the remote AD site connects to the mailbox server in that site on behalf of the user

For this to work correctly there are a few configuration requirements.

The OWA virtual directories on the Client Access servers in the remote AD site must have Integrated Windows authentication enabled
The OWA virtual directories on the Client Access servers in the remote AD site must not have an external URL configured (it should be blank)
The internet-facing Exchange 2010 CAS needs a copy of the OWA resources files from any down-version Client Access servers it will be proxying to

Often people get the first two correct and leave out the third one. However without meeting that third requirement you will receive the error shown at the start of this article. On the internet-facing Exchange 2010 CAS you’ll also see an event ID 46 logged in the Application Event Log, with details similar to the following:

Log Name: Application
Source: MSExchange OWA
Date: 9/6/2011 11:42:35 PM
Event ID: 46
Task Category: Proxy
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: HO-EX2010-CAHT1.exchangeserverpro.net
Description:
Client Access server “https://mail.exchangeserverpro.net/owa”, running Exchange version “14.1.323.3″, is proxying Outlook Web App traffic to Client Access server “br-ex2007-caht.exchangeserverpro.net”, which runs Exchange version “8.3.83.4″. To ensure reliable interoperability, the proxying Client Access server needs to be running a newer version of Exchange than the Client Access server it is proxying to. If the proxying Client Access server is running a newer version of Exchange than the Client Access server it is proxying to, the proxying Client Access server needs to have an Outlook Web App resource folder (for example, “)\ClientAccess\owa\8.0.498.0″ that contains all the same versioned resource files as the Client Access server it is proxying to. If you will be running Outlook Web App proxying with mismatched server versions, you can manually copy this resource folder to the proxying Client Access server. After you copy this resource folder to the proxying Client Access server, you need to restart IIS before proxying will work.

To resolve this issue you simply follow the instructions in the error. Copy the OWA resource files from a down-version Client Access server over to the Exchange 2010 CAS, and then restart IIS on the Exchange 2010 CAS.

You’ll find the folder name matching the server version (eg 8.3.83.4 above) in the location where Exchange is installed, for example C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\ClientAccess\OWA.

After copying the files run IISReset from a command prompt.

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>iisreset

Attempting stop...
Internet services successfully stopped
Attempting start...
Internet services successfully restarted

Outlook Web App should now work successfully for all users regardless of which site their mailbox is located.

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Exchange 2010 Local Move Request Fails with No Available Mailbox Replication Service Error

Paul Cunningham — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 15:18:59 +0000

When you attempt to create a new local move request in Exchange Server 2010 to move a mailbox you may encounter this error:

There are no available servers running the Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Replication service.

Mailbox move requests are handled by the Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Replication service which is part of the Client Access server role. In order for a move request to be successfully created at least one Client Access server within the same Active Directory site must have a running Mailbox Replication service.

Start the MRS on at least one Client Access server. If it will not start the issue may be that the Net.Tcp Port Sharing service is disabled on the Client Access server. If that is the case then run the following command on the Client Access server in a PowerShell window.

PS C:\> Set-Service NetTcpPortSharing -StartupType Automatic

Restart the Client Access server, or manually start the MRS, and then retry the move request again.

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How to Migrate a Relay Connector from Exchange Server 2007 to 2010

Paul Cunningham — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 13:09:42 +0000

In most organizations some applications or devices require the ability to relay email through Exchange servers.

The source IP addresses of applications and devices that integrate with Exchange using SMTP will need to be added to a Receive Connector that permits relay. Over time this can built up to quite a long list, which creates a tedious task of re-entering all of those IP addresses when you want to migrate this relay connector role, for example during a migration from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010.

However if you’d prefer a faster way of doing this you can effectively clone the remote IP address configuration from the existing Receive Connector to the new one by using the Exchange Management Shell.

On an Exchange 2010 server launch the Exchange Management Shell.

The first step is to retrieve the list of remote IP addresses from the existing receive connector by running the following command. This is a single line command, and you should replace the server name and connector name to suit your environment.

[PS] C:\>$ips = (Get-ReceiveConnector "HO-EX2007-HT1\Relay HO-EX2007-HT1").RemoteIPRanges

Next run the following command to create the new relay connector on the Exchange 2010 Hub Transport server with the same remote IP range. Again this is a single line command, and you should replace the server name and connector name to suit your environment.

[PS] C:\>New-ReceiveConnector -Name "Relay HO-EX2010-CAHT1" –Server HO-EX2010-CAHT1” -Usage Custom -AuthMechanism ExternalAuthoritative -PermissionGroups ExchangeServers -Bindings 0.0.0.0:25 -RemoteIPRanges $ips

Identity                                Bindings                           Enabled
--------                                --------                           -------
HO-EX2010-CAHT1\Relay HO-EX2010-CAHT1   {0.0.0.0:25}                       True

With that simple two step process the new relay connector has been created on the Exchange 2010 Hub Transport server with the same remote IP range as the original one.

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Exchange Server 2010 Mailbox Import Request Logging

Paul Cunningham — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 10:43:49 +0000

Exchange Server 2010 SP1 has a useful feature for importing PST files into mailboxes. However if you’ve used this feature a few times you may start to encounter problems with the imports failing, such as when the PST file has corrupt items in it.

Fortunately you can use the built-in logging of mailbox import operations to troubleshoot failed import requests. Each import request creates it’s own report for the import operation that can be accessed using the Get-MailboxImportRequestStatistics command.

Here is an example. First a mailbox import request is started using New-MailboxImportRequest.

[PS] C:\>New-MailboxImportRequest -FilePath \\esp-ho-ex2010a\pst\alan.reid.pst -Mailbox angela.hole

Name                                           Mailbox                                        Status
----                                           -------                                        ------
MailboxImport                                  exchangeserverpro.net/Company/Users/Head Of... Queued

Next, we can see the mailbox import request is in progress.

[PS] C:\>Get-MailboxImportRequest | Get-MailboxImportRequestStatistics

Name                                   Status                    TargetAlias                           PercentComplete
----                                   ------                    -----------                           ---------------
MailboxImport                          InProgress                Angela.Hole                           10

By appending the -IncludeReport parameter to the command we get to see the log for the import operation.

[PS] C:\>Get-MailboxImportRequest | Get-MailboxImportRequestStatistics -IncludeReport

Name                                   Status                    TargetAlias                           PercentComplete
----                                   ------                    -----------                           ---------------
MailboxImport                          InProgress                Angela.Hole                           10

If you run that command the output on screen may be too much to read, so instead you can output it to a text file instead if you wish.

[PS] C:\>Get-MailboxImportRequest | Get-MailboxImportRequestStatistics -IncludeReport | fl >report.txt

By the way here is another tip. If more than one mailbox import request is present then the above command will output all of them, not just the one you are interested in. To get the statistics for just the import request you want you need to know the “identity” of the mailbox import request. You can see that by running this command.

[PS] C:\>Get-MailboxImportRequest | ft name,identity -auto

Name          Identity
----          --------
MailboxImport exchangeserverpro.net/Company/Users/Head Office/Angela.Hole\MailboxImport

That identity string is a bit long to type out. You can just copy and paste it if you want, or use this trick instead.

[PS] C:\>$id = get-user angela.hole
[PS] C:\>Get-MailboxImportRequest -Identity $id.dn

Name                                           Mailbox                                        Status
----                                           -------                                        ------
MailboxImport                                  exchangeserverpro.net/Company/Users/Head Of... Completed

Anyway, back to the log that we want to look at. So once you’ve output the report for an import request to the screen or a text file you will see information such as this:

8/5/2011 11:31:18 PM [esp-ho-ex2010a] 'exchangeserverpro.net/Users/Administrator' creat
ed request.
8/5/2011 11:31:32 PM [esp-ho-ex2010a] The Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Replication servic
e 'esp-ho-ex2010a.exchangeserverpro.net' (14.1.323.0 caps:07) is examining the request.
8/5/2011 11:31:32 PM [esp-ho-ex2010a] Connected to target mailbox 'Primary (edbd7ee2-ac
b6-413a-9736-2851e4f5d122)', database 'MB-HO-03', Mailbox server 'outlook.exchangeserve
rpro.net' Version 14.1 (Build 323.0).
8/5/2011 11:31:32 PM [esp-ho-ex2010a] Request processing started.
8/5/2011 11:31:32 PM [esp-ho-ex2010a] Stage: CreatingFolderHierarchy. Percent complete:
 5.
8/5/2011 11:31:38 PM [esp-ho-ex2010a] Merge initialized for mailbox 'Primary (edbd7ee2-
acb6-413a-9736-2851e4f5d122)': 25 folders total. Estimated data size: 70167 items, 708.
3 MB (742,683,898 bytes).
8/5/2011 11:31:38 PM [esp-ho-ex2010a] Stage: CopyingMessages. Percent complete: 10.
8/5/2011 11:31:38 PM [esp-ho-ex2010a] Copy progress: 0/70167 messages, 0 B (0 bytes)/70
8.3 MB (742,683,898 bytes).
8/5/2011 11:31:39 PM [esp-ho-ex2010a] Merging folder '/Top of Personal Folders/Contacts
 [Contacts]' into '/Top of Information Store/Contacts [Contacts]'.
8/5/2011 11:31:40 PM [esp-ho-ex2010a] Copying 0 items, 0 B (0 bytes). Skipping 0 items,
 0 B (0 bytes).
8/5/2011 11:31:40 PM [esp-ho-ex2010a] Stage: CopyingMessages. Percent complete: 10.
8/5/2011 11:31:40 PM [esp-ho-ex2010a] Copy progress: 0/70167 messages, 0 B (0 bytes)/70
8.3 MB (742,683,898 bytes).

If you’ve had an import request fail then this report should tell you why. Most of the time the failures will probably be due to corrupt mail items in the PST file you’re importing. If that is the case you can simply add the -BadItemLimit parameter to the New-MailboxImportRequest command. If you need to set the bad item limit higher than 50 you’ll also need to add the -AcceptLargeDataLoss parameter as well.

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500 Internal Server Error for Exchange 2007 Outlook Web Access

Paul Cunningham — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 11:36:52 +0000

In an Exchange Server 2007 environment you may encounter the following error when users attempt to access Outlook Web Access.

500 – Internal server error.

There is a problem with the resource you are looking for, and it cannot be displayed.

The error occurs when user access OWA via the /exchange path but not the /owa. For example:

https://mail.company.net/owa (gets no error)
https://mail.company.net/exchange (gets the 500 internal error)

This can occur when the Exchange 2007 Mailbox server is missing the Web-ISAPI-Ext feature. You can check this by logging on to the server and running this command:

C:\>servermanagercmd -q | findstr "Web-ISAPI-Ext"
            [ ] ISAPI Extensions  [Web-ISAPI-Ext]

If there is no check mark next to the feature then it will need to be installed by running the following command:

C:\>servermanagercmd -i web-isapi-ext
..

Start Installation...

[Installation] Succeeded: .
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] Application Development.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] ISAPI Extensions.

Success: Installation succeeded.

When you check the status of the feature it will now show as installed.

C:\>servermanagercmd -q | findstr "Web-ISAPI-Ext"
            [X] ISAPI Extensions  [Web-ISAPI-Ext]

That should resolve the “500 internal error” when accessing OWA via the /exchange path.

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Exchange Server Pro » Solutions

Get-MailboxReport.ps1 – PowerShell Script to Generate Mailbox Reports

Related posts:

Avoid Running Out of Transaction Log Disk Space on Exchange Servers

Related posts:

Error: Outlook Was Unable to Recover Some or All of the Items in this Folder

Related posts:

Initialization Failed: The Operation Couldn’t Be Completed Because a Change Occurred in the Remote Forest

Related posts:

Error Message “The ‘IIS 6 WMI Compatibility’ component is required” During Exchange 2010 SP2 Upgrade

Related posts:

OWA Error: The Mailbox You’re Trying to Access Isn’t Currently Available

Related posts:

Exchange 2010 Local Move Request Fails with No Available Mailbox Replication Service Error

Related posts:

How to Migrate a Relay Connector from Exchange Server 2007 to 2010

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Exchange Server 2010 Mailbox Import Request Logging

Related posts:

500 Internal Server Error for Exchange 2007 Outlook Web Access

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