If you would like to read the other parts in this article series please go to
- Publishing Exchange 2007 OWA, Exchange ActiveSync and RPC/HTTP using the 2006 ISA Firewall (Part 1)
- Publishing Exchange 2007 OWA, Exchange ActiveSync and RPC/HTTP using the 2006 ISA Firewall (Part 3)
- Publishing Exchange 2007 OWA, Exchange ActiveSync and RPC/HTTP using the 2006 ISA Firewall (Part 4)
- Publishing Exchange 2007 OWA, Exchange ActiveSync and RPC/HTTP using the 2006 ISA Firewall (Part 5)
- Publishing Exchange 2007 OWA, Exchange ActiveSync and RPC/HTTP using the 2006 ISA Firewall (Part 6)
- Publishing Exchange 2007 OWA, Exchange ActiveSync and RPC/HTTP using the 2006 ISA Firewall (Part 7)
In the first part of this series of articles on how to publish Exchange 2007 Web services, we went over the basic principles of remote access to the Exchange Client Access Server, how to configure a split DNS to support the solution, and how to set up the lab network to replicate the steps in this article series. At this point you should have all your virtual machines setup and the DNS server configured on the internal network to support the internal side of the split DNS infrastructure.
In this article we will install the Exchange Mailbox and Hub Transport Server roles on the EXHC2007MB machine, as seen in the diagram below. For more complete coverage of the lab network setup, please see part one of this article at Publishing Exchange 2007 OWA, Exchange ActiveSync and RPC/HTTP using the 2006 ISA Firewall (Part 1)
There a lot of steps in this article and a large number of screenshots. Please read through this entire article before trying anything out in your lab.
Installing the Mailbox and Hub Transport Server Roles
The first step is to download the 32-bit version of Exchange to run in your VM. You can find it at Exchange Server 2007 – Evaluation Software
Double click the E2KEN32.exe file to begin the installation.
This brings up the Choose Directory for Extracted Files dialog box. Enter a path where you want the installation files to be copied to.
Figure 1
When all the files are copied, you will see the Extraction Complete dialog box. Click OK.
Figure 2
Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the folder that you extracted the Exchange setup file to. Then double click on the Setup.exe file in that folder.
Figure 3
This opens the Exchange installer. As you can see in the figure below, the first thing you need to do is install the .NET Framework 2.0. Click on the Step 1. Install .NET Framework 2.0.
Figure 4
Hey! What is up with this? Why didn’t they just put the .NET Framework files on the DVD? Looks like we will need to download these files from the Internet. Find the Download x86 version link and click it.
Figure 5
This takes you to another Web page titled Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package (x86). Click the Download button.
Figure 6
You will then start downloading the 22.4MB file. Unfortunately, my link was slow this day and it was going to take a while to get that file downloaded.
Figure 7
When the download is complete, click the Run button to get the installation of the .NET Framework 2.0 installed.
Figure 8
Click Run in the Security Warning dialog box.
Figure 9
On the Welcome to Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Setup page, click Next.
Figure 10
Read the End-User License Agreement and put a checkmark in the I accept the terms of the License Agreement checkbox. Then click Next.
Figure 11
Whoops! Looks like we need to close Internet Explorer to get the .NET Framework 2.0 installed. Close the Web browser and then click Retry in the Files in Use dialog box.
Figure 12
Setup will continue and when it is done you will see the Setup Complete dialog box. Click Finish.
Figure 13
Now we are back to the Setup page. We do not have to go through step 2 because the new version of the MMC is already installed on Windows Server 2003 SP2. So now we go to step three, which is Install Microsoft Windows PowerShell (aka – PowerHell). Click that link to get things started.
Figure 14
Hmmm. You would think that PowerHell would be included on the DVD, but it looks like we need to go to the Web for this too. On the Windows PowerShell 1.0 English Language Installation Packages for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 and Windows XP Service Pack 2 page, find the link to the Windows PowerShell 1.0 for Windows Server 2003 with SP1, x86-based versions and click that. That will take you to a link lower on the same page. Click that link.
Figure 15
This takes you to the Windows PowerShell 1.0 English-Language Installation Package for Windows Server 2003 page. Click the Download button.
Figure 16
This file is only 1.6MB, so it is not going to take nearly as long to download as the .NET installation files did.
Figure 17
When the PowerHell installation file download is complete, click the Run button.
Figure 18
Click the Run button in the Security Warning dialog box.
Figure 19
Click Next on the Windows PowerShell ™ 1.0 page.
Figure 20
Read the License Agreement information and select the I Agree option. Click Next.
Figure 21
It will take a while to get PowerHell installed on the system.
Figure 22
When the installation is complete, click Finish on the Completing the Windows PowerShell ™ Installation Wizard page.
Figure 23
Wow! It has only been an hour and now we are actually ready to install Microsoft Exchange. Click the Step 4: Install Microsoft Exchange link on the Setup page.
Figure 24
Read the information on the Introduction page and click Next.
Figure 25
Read the License Agreement information and then select the I accept the terms in the license agreement option. Click Next.
Figure 26
Read the information on the Error Reporting page. I think it is a good idea to let Microsoft know if there are problems with the Exchange Server, so I always select the Yes (Recommended) option. Go ahead and select that option and click Next.
Figure 27
On the Installation Type page, select the Custom Exchange Server Installation option by clicking that big button. We need to select this option because this machine will be configured as only a Mailbox and Hub Transport Server. Click Next.
Figure 28
On the Server Role Selection page, put checkmarks in the Mailbox Role and Hub Transport Role checkboxes. Then click Next.
Figure 29
On the Exchange Organization page, enter the name of the Exchange Organization. The truth is that I have no idea what this entry does or what it means, so I always go with the default. I suppose you can have multiple Exchange organizations, but I cannot tell you why. Maybe an Exchange Organization is like an ISA Enterprise Edition Enterprise? I do not know, so let us just go with the default here and click Next.
Figure 30
Read the information on the Client Settings page. Apparently, if you are not running Outlook 2007 or above, you need a Public Folder database to be created. Since most of us are running Outlook 2003 (especially on laptops, since the cache mode for Outlook 2007 is painfully slow on the low RPM disks installed on laptops), we will select the Yes option indicating that we are running older version of Outlook and therefore we want setup to create a Public Folder database. Click Next.
Figure 31
The Readiness Checks page appears. I wonder why we did not start up with a readiness check. If we started with a readiness check, we could have fixed everything before getting this far into the wizard. And look what happened! In the Hub Transport Role Prerequisites section, it shows that we need to download some more software. Why isn’t this software included on the DVD? I do not know, I was not at that meeting. 🙂
In addition, it says in the Mailbox Role Prerequisites section that it cannot read data from the Metabase and that I should make sure that IIS is installed. Why didn’t the installer tell me that before getting this far into the install routine? There is nothing we can do about this now, so let us start getting things fixed up by clicking the Recommended Action link and see what happens.
Figure 32
This takes us to another Web page entitled Microsoft .NET Framework Update Required. Click on the 32-bit download link.
Figure 33
Downloading the 7.54MB file.
Figure 34
Click the Run button when the file completes downloading.
Figure 35
When the download completes, click the Run button in the Security Warning dialog box.
Figure 36
Click OK in the dialog box asking if you want to install the hotfix for the .NET Framework.
Figure 37
Read the EULA and then click I Accept.
Figure 38
Oh no! We have to close down the Exchange Server setup in order to continue. We spent all that time going through the installation wizard and it was all for nothing. Oh well, at least we know what to expect the next time around.
Figure 39
Return to the Exchange 2007 Setup wizard and click Cancel. Click Yes in the dialog box asking if you really want to cancel the wizard.
Figure 40
Return to the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 dialog box and click Retry.
Figure 41
When the installation completes, click the OK dialog box indicating that the installation is complete.
Figure 42
The next thing we need to do is install the IIS server. In the Control Panel click the Add/Remove Programs applet. In the Add/Remove Programs applet, click the Add/Remove Windows Components button on the left side of the window. In the Windows Components dialog box, put a checkmark in the Application Server checkbox. Then click the Details button. In the Application Server dialog box, put a checkmark in the Internet Information Services (IIS) checkbox and click OK. Click Next in the Windows Components dialog box. Let the wizard run and click Finish when done.
Figure 43
We are getting closer to getting Exchange 2007 installed! Maybe this time we will have all the prerequisites installed and we can get closer to the finish. On the Exchange 2007 Setup page, click the Step 4: Install Microsoft Exchange link.
Figure 44
You already read the EULA, so you do not need to read it again. Select I accept the terms in this license agreement and click Next.
Figure 45
Select the Yes option on the Error Reporting page and click Next.
Figure 46
Click the Custom Exchange Server Installation big button and click Next.
Figure 47
On the Server Role Selection page, put checkmarks in the Mailbox Role and Hub Transport Role checkboxes. Click Next.
Figure 48
Accept the default setting on the Exchange Organization page and click Next.
Figure 49
Select the Yes option on the Client Settings page.
Figure 50
On the Readiness Checks page, you will see that we finally completed all the checks. The only things that appear to be of concern is that we are using a 32-bit version of Exchange which is not supported in production and that we do not have a Client Access Server installed yet. That is fine though, we will do that later. Click the Install button.
Figure 51
It is going to take a long time to finish the installation, so be patient.
Figure 52
It looks like it took about 50 minutes to complete the installation. Make sure there is a checkmark in the Finalize installation using the Exchange Management Console checkbox and then click Finish.
Figure 53
This brings us to the end of Exchange Server 2007 installation process. Next we will move to the Exchange Management console to perform initial configuration settings required from a Mailbox and Hub Transport Server.
Configure the Mailbox and Hub Transport Server based on Built-in Help Information
The first thing we see is that our Exchange Server is not licensed. This is a 32-bit version that will work for 120-days. Click OK to dismiss this dialog box.
Figure 54
Our goal here is to make everything work with the guidance provided by the Exchange Server Management console and the built-in Help file. Let us see if we can do that. The figure below says the first thing we need to do is enter the Exchange Server Product Key. Since we do not have one of those, we do not need to worry about that step. The next step is to run the Exchange Server BPA. Click the link for Run the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer.
Figure 55
That will bring up the Exchange BPA. Run a default scan. In the figure below you see the results of the default scan. It informs us that the Offline Address Book is not configured and that the Public Folder database has not been backed up yet. We are not going to worry about backup here, so we can ignore that. However, we will get the Offline Address Book configured later. Close the Exchange BPA.
Figure 56
In the Mailbox section of our to-do list, it says that we need to configure an Offline Address Book for Outlook 2007 clients and an Offline Address Book for older Outlook clients. Click the Configure Offline Address Book (OAB) Distribution for Outlook 2007 Clients link.
Figure 57
This brings up a Help File entry for creating the OAB. Looks like we will not be able to create the OAB for Outlook 2007 clients yet, since you need to install it on the Client Access Server and we do not have the Cient Access Server setup yet.
Close the Help window and then click the Configure Offline Address Book (OAB) distribution for Outlook 2003 and earlier clients link as seen in figure 57.
Figure 58
The Help information indicates that we can create the legacy Offline Address Book on this server. Click the Go to Database Management link as seen in figure 59.
Figure 59
This will take you to the Server Configuration\Mailbox node in the left pane of the Exchange Management console. We see here that there is already a Public Folder database that was created during installation. Return to the Help file page and click the Go to Offline Address Book Management link, as seen in figure 59.
Figure 60
This takes you to the Organization Configuration\Mailbox node in the left pane of the Exchange Management console. Click on the Offline Address Book tab in the middle pane of the console. Right click the Default Offline Address Book entry in the middle pane and click Properties.
Figure 61
In the Default Offline Address Book Properties dialog box, put a checkmark in the Enable public folder distribution and click OK. Note that this will not help us much for external Outlook 2003 or older clients, since there is no mechanism for them to connect to the Public Folders based OAB, or at least I believe that that is the case. The situation is different for the external Outlook 2007 clients, because they can use the Web based OAB access on the Client Access Server. If anyone reading this can tell me otherwise, that would be great information to have and I can update this article with the correct information.
Figure 62
Looking at the guidance provided in the middle pane that we saw earlier (figure 55), it looks like the next step is to configure domains for which this server will accept e-mail. Click the Configure domains for which you will accept e-mail link as seen in figure 63 and let us see where that takes us to.
Figure 63
This takes us to the Organization Configuration\Hub Transport node in the left pane of the Exchange Management console and puts us in the Accepted Domains tab in the middle pane. By default, our Active Directory domain name is already populated. In this scenario we do not need to add any more domains because we are using an integrated split DNS infrastructure. If you are not using an integrated split DNS infrastructure or want to accept mail addressed to additional domains, you can add them here according to the information included in the Help file in figure 64.
Figure 64
The next thing that we are supposed to do according the Exchange Guidance in the Hub Transport section (figure 63) of the Help window is to subscribe an Edge Transport Server. Since we do not have one of those and do not intend to install one at this time, we can move onto the last step, which is to create a postmaster mailbox. Click on the Create a postmaster mailbox link as seen in figure 63 and let us see what happens.
A help file window opens and tells us that we are in for some bad news – yes, in order to view the current settings for the postmaster and to set a postmaster address, we are going to have to drop down into PowerHell. What a shame – this was a simple, no-brainer configuration using the IIS SMTP server in Exchange 2003.
Figure 65
In order to set the postmaster mailbox you have to open PowerHell and enter the following command:
Set-TransportServer [server name] –ExternalPostmasterAddress [postmaster e-mail address]
It would have been nice to be able to copy and paste that command (I invariably make a typo or two everytime I have to use PowerHell), but the Exchange Team wanted to test the limits of our patience by making it impossible to copy out only the command. That’s right, you can use Ctrl+C to copy the entire contents of the Help page, and then paste it into Notepad and then try to fish out the command of interest. Those Exchange guys have a real sense of humor.
In the figure below you see what commands I entered to create the postmaster address and then ran the Get-TransportServer command to confirm that it worked.
Figure 66
Now that we set the postmaster address, we should create the postmaster e-mail account. In the left pane of the Exchange Management console, click on the Recipient Configuration\Mailbox node. Right click on an empty portion of the middle pane and then click New Mailbox.
Figure 67
On the Introduction page of the New Mailbox wizard, select the User Mailbox option and click Next.
Figure 68
On the User Type page, select the New user option and click Next.
Figure 69
On the User Information page, enter the information as seen in the figure below, then click Next.
Figure 70
Review the information on the Mailbox Settings page and then click Next without making any changes.
Figure 71
Check the settings on the New Mailbox page and click New.
Figure 72
Click Finish on the Completion page.
Figure 73
Summary
In this article we installed the Mailbox Server and Hub Transport Server roles on the machine named EXCH2007MB. After installing the pre-requisite software and completing the initial Exchange Server installation, we completed the process by performing a number of post installation tasks that are specific to the Mailbox Server and Hub Transport Server roles. In the next article in this series we will finish up with configuring the Hub Transport Server. In the article after that, we will install and configure the Client Access Server. See you then!
If you would like to read the other parts in this article series please go to
- Publishing Exchange 2007 OWA, Exchange ActiveSync and RPC/HTTP using the 2006 ISA Firewall (Part 1)
- Publishing Exchange 2007 OWA, Exchange ActiveSync and RPC/HTTP using the 2006 ISA Firewall (Part 3)
- Publishing Exchange 2007 OWA, Exchange ActiveSync and RPC/HTTP using the 2006 ISA Firewall (Part 4)
- Publishing Exchange 2007 OWA, Exchange ActiveSync and RPC/HTTP using the 2006 ISA Firewall (Part 5)
- Publishing Exchange 2007 OWA, Exchange ActiveSync and RPC/HTTP using the 2006 ISA Firewall (Part 6)
- Publishing Exchange 2007 OWA, Exchange ActiveSync and RPC/HTTP using the 2006 ISA Firewall (Part 7)
