Difference between In-Place Hold, Retention Hold and Litigation Hold

A short notes on different types of Hold available in Exchange Server 2010/2013

In-Place hold

Enabling the In-Place Hold accomplish the following goals

• Place user mailboxes on hold and preserve mailbox items immutably
• Preserve mailbox items deleted by users or automatic deletion processes such as MRM
• Use query-based In-Place Hold to search for and retain items matching specified criteria
• Preserve items indefinitely or for a specific duration
• Place a user on multiple holds for different cases or investigations
• Keep In-Place Hold transparent from the user by not having to suspend MRM
• Enable In-Place eDiscovery searches of items placed on hold

Retention hold

Retention hold is the option to retain the emails in a mailbox using the Message Records Management feature, MRM allows to perform a do not move or delete items from a mailbox. This works based on the Retention Policy.

Litigation Hold

Legal hold is used to preserve mailbox items for e-discovery during legal investigations. The Goal is to preserve mailbox items from inadvertent or purposefull modification or deletion by the mailbox owner or any user with mailbox access and also prevent from automated deletion by MRM.

How to send a file as email using Shell Command

Normally we used to generate lot of report using Exchange Management Shell and moving output from exchange server to you desktop is little bit tough, where we used to Map the drives and transfer the files to bring the data to our system from Server.

Using Send-MailMessage option in Exchange Management Shell, we can easily send the file as attachment to our email address and below the shell command to send emails

$file = "C:\ScriptOutput.csv"


Send-MailMessage -Attachments $file -To rajkumar.mcitp@outlook.com -From Admin@DomainName.Com -Subject Test -SmtpServer yourexchangeservername.domainname.com

I normally use these shell command to send the Message Tracking Logs csv file as emails to my mailbox.

Accepted Domain and Remote Domain in Exchange Server 2013

In this part, we will have a look on the Accepted Domains and Remote Domains in Exchange Server 2013. So what are Accepted Domain and Remote Domain?

Accepted Domain:

An Accepted Domain name is any SMTP namespace that your organization used to send and receive emails. Also the Accepted Domain includes the domains that are authoritative domain, internal relay or external relay domain.

Authoritative Domain – It is the SMTP name space that is used by your Exchange Organization to send\receive emails

Internal Relay Domain – When an Exchange Organization is sharing the same address space with 3^rd party messaging or other exchange organization, the you need to create a internal relay domain, and you have to configure a Send Connector in Mailbox Server as the source with address space matches to the internal relay domain.

For example: If your company (A) and your partner company (B) is sharing the same SMTP namespace as @Chennai.com and your domain is authoritative to receive emails for Chennai.com. If an email sent for the user rajkumar@chennai.com first received by A and if the user mailbox is not there, then the email will be route to B organization using Send Connector

External Relay Domain - When you configure an external relay domain, messages are relayed to an email server that's outside your Exchange organization and outside the organization's network perimeter

By default the active directory domain name will be created as the default accepted domain for the Exchange Organization

How to create a new Accepted Domain in Exchange Server 2013

To create a new Accepted domain, login to Exchange Control Panel -> Mail Flow -> Accepted Domain and Click New (+) -> Give a Name -> type the accepted domain name -> Choose the Type of Accepted Domain and Click Save

Remote Domain:

Remote Domains are configured to control the settings of message transfer between your Exchange Organization and the remote domains. We control the settings like Message Format, Automatic Replies and NDR using the Remote domains

By default, a Remote Domain with * which includes all domains will be created and the creation of new remote domains and the configurations can be only done via Exchange Management Shell and not using Exchange Admin Center. Below are the configurable parameters using Set-RemoteDomain

Receive Connectors in Exchange Server 2013

Receive Connectors are the connectors that are responsible to handle inbound emails to receive emails both from internal and external domains. Servers having the Transport Roles should have Receive connectors to receive emails from Client or other servers or from external network.

With the architecture changes in Exchange Server 2013, both the Server Roles are having the Transport components where Mailbox Server role has the Hub Transport component and the Client Access Server role has the Front end Transport Component and both the server roles will have a receive connectors

Send connectors are organization specific, where the settings are applied globally but the receive connector are server based and below shows the default Receive Connectors in Exchange Server 2013 and their responsibilities

Default connectors created in Mailbox Server Role

"Default Chennai-EX-01" is the connector created in Mailbox server role which accepts connection from Mailbox Servers and from Exchange 2010 Edge Transport Servers

"Client Proxy Chennai-EX-01" will accept connection from Front End Servers (Client Access Server)

Default Connectors created in Client Access Server Role

"Default Frontend Chennai-EX-01" accepts connection form all SMTP sender using port 25, message enters to the organization using this connectors

"Outbound Proxy Frontend Chennai-EX-01" accepts messages from the send connector on a Mailbox Server with Front end proxy enabled. By default newly created Send Connectors will not be enabled with Front end proxy option and if we need we need to enable this option on respective send connector

"Client Frontend Chennai-EX-01" Accepts secure connections with TLS applied

Note: To find whether the connector is associated to Mailbox Server role or Client Access Server role, we have to check the Transport Role option, where the HubTransport refers the connector is associated with Mailbox Server Role and the FrontEndTransport refers that connector is associated with the Client Access Server Role

How to create a Relay Connector in Exchange Server 2013

If we want to create a new Receive Connector in Exchange Server 2013, login to Exchange Control Panel -> Mailbox Flow -> Receive Connectors and Click New (+)

Enter a name and Select the Role as Hub Transport, and on the Type select Custom to create Relay connector to accept emails from Scanner or Printer in Exchange Server 2013

Note: Role option is used to specify whether to create the receive connector related to mailbox server or client access server and below are the types of receive connectors and their functions, based the type of receive connector selection the required type of authentication and the permission will be assigned to that connector

For more information about the Permission – Click here

For more information about the authentication – Click here

On the Network Adapter Bindings page, check All available IPv4 are added and click next to continue

On the Remote Network Settings, remove all IP address and add the Printer or Scanner or the application IP address and click Finish

Note: By default all the internal Receive Connectors are set to receive 35 MB of emails, based on your requirement modify this limit

Send Connectors in Exchange Server 2013

We will discuss about Send Connectors options and how to configure Send Connector in Exchange Server 2013. Like Exchange 2007 & 2010, Send Connectors in Exchange Server 2010 is to route the internal emails to internet\external domain. We can configure Send Connectors to route external emails using two options

1. Route the emails to a Smart Host or
   
2. Configure DNS to route emails to external domain
   

By default, there won't be any Send Connector created to send emails to external domain. We have to configure the Send Connectors manually to send emails to external domains.

To Create a Send Connector in Exchange Server 2013 -> Open Exchange Control Panel -> Mail Flow -> Send Connectors -> Click New (+)

New Send Connector option allow you to create any of the 4 types Send Connectors as shown below, type a name and select the connector which you want to create and click next

• Custom Send Connector – Create this Send Connectors to send email from Exchange 2013 to Other Non-Exchange Servers
  
• Internal – to send intranet mail
  
• Internet – to send emails to internet\external domain
  
• Partner – route mail to trusted 3^rd party servers
  

On the next page we have the option to select whether to route the external emails via DNS or Smart host. Select the respective option and click next

To route emails via DNS, select "MX record associated with recipient domain" and

To Route emails via smart host, select "Route mail through smart hosts" and you have to specify the smart host IP address

Next option is to select the Address Space. Using Address Space, we are configuring the send to route emails only to allowed emails domain. For example, if we want to route emails only to yahoo\gmail, we have to create a address space with yahoo.com and gmail.com and to route emails to all external domain, create a address space with * as shown below

Next option is to set the source servers which are going to use this send connectors, select the mailbox server and click Finish

Below shows the completion of New Send Connector creation in Exchange Server 2013. By default the new send will allow max of emails with the size of 10 MB, we can modify this as per company's requirement.

Below shows the output of Send connector and it will help you to have a look on the configurable parameters that are available in Exchange Server 20103, you can use all those parameters when using Set-Sendconnector

Messaging Records Management (MRM) in Exchange Server 2013

Messaging Records Management is records management technology to manage email lifecycle and reduce the legal risks associated with the emails. Message Records Management in Exchange 2013 will be implemented using Retentions Policies.

Retention tags with the settings to how long to keep\delete\archive emails will be used to apply retention settings on the mailbox or the default folder on a mailbox like Inbox and these retention tags can also be used apply retention settings on mailbox folders of outlook 2010 or later and OWA. Once the Retention Policy with the Retention Settings applied on folder or a mailbox, the Managed Folder Assistant running on Exchange 2013 Mailbox Server will process all mailboxes and apply the retention settings to the mailbox.

Retention Tags

Retention Tags are the one which will define the settings on how long the emails can be kept\deleted\archived and on where to apply the settings like entire mailbox or individual folders. Retention Tags are used to apply retention settings on messages and mailbox folders. There are 3 types of Retention Tag

Default Policy Tag: Default Policy tag will be applied to all items that do not have a retention tag applied. A Retention Policy can have one Default Policy Tag to move items to Archive Folders, one Default Policy Tags to Delete Items and One Default Policy Tags to delete voice mails

Retention Policy Tag: Created for default folders like Inbox and Sent Items folders. A Retention Policy can have one Retention Tag for each and every default folders

Personal Tag: Personal Tags are used by Outlook later and Outlook Web App users to apply retention settings on custom folders and individual messages. A Retention Policy can have n number of Personal Tags

Retention Policy can have any of these Retention tags

Retention Policy

Retention Policy is a group of Retention Tags applied that can be applied to a mailbox.. Also only one Retention Policy can be applied on a mailbox.

Managed Default Folders option introduced in Exchange Server 2007 are not available in Exchange Server 2013.

Default Messaging Records Management Policy

Installation of Exchange 2013 will have a default Messaging Records Management Policy which can be used when creating a new mailbox. The default MRM policy will have these default Retention Tags

Implementing Message Records Management in Exchange Server 2013

Below are the steps that are to be followed to implementing Message Records Management in Exchange Server 2013

1. Create the Retention Tags
   
2. Create Retention Policy
   
3. Link Retention Tags to Retention Policy to have one default policy tag and one or more Retention Tags and Personal Tags
   
4. Apply Retention Policy to Mailbox
   

Step 1: Create a Retention Tags

This shows how to create a Retention Tags on Exchange Server 2013 using Exchange Control Panel

To create a Retention Tags -> Login to Exchange Control Panel -> Compliance Management -> Retention Tags and Click on New (+) to create a New Retention Tags

To create a Default Policy Tag click on applied automatically to entire mailbox (default) and to create a Retention Policy Tags click on applied automatically to a specified folder and to create a Personal Tag click on applied by users to items and folders (Personal)

On the background, I create 3 Retention Tags, One Default Policy tag to move 60 days old emails to Archive Mailbox

One Retention Policy Tags to permanently delete 30 days old emails from Deleted Items folder

and One Personal Tag with settings not to archive

Step 2: Create a Retention Policy

To create a Retention Policy -> Login to Exchange Control Panel -> Compliance Management -> Retention Policy and Click New (+) -> Type a Name and Click Save

Step 3: Linking Retention Tags to Retention Policy

To Link Retention Tags to Retention Policy-> Login to Exchange Control Panel -> Compliance Management -> Retention Policy -> Select the Policy to which you want link addition Retention Tags and Click edit -> add the Retention Tags as shown below and click save

Step 4: Assign the Retention Policy to a Mailbox

To apply a Retention Policy on a Mailbox -> Login to Exchange Control Panel -> Recipients -> Mailbox -> Select the Mailbox and Click edit ->

Click on Mailbox Features -> Select the Retention Policy and click Save

I believe the above procedure gives a good idea on how to implement Messaging Records Management in Exchange Server 2013. If you need any help on the above please inform us. Please don't forget to have a look on the Second Part of this article to have more idea on MRM in Exchange Server 2013

Exchange Trusted Subsystem is not member of the local administrator group

When designating a non Exchange 2010 or Exchange 2013 servers as a file share witness, you have to assign the Exchange Trusted Subsystem as a member of local administrator group on the file share witness server.

Even if you assign the Exchange Trusted Subsystem as a member of local administrator group on the file share witness server, you may get the below warning



There is no need to find a fix for the above warning, because Microsoft informed this warning is normal and we can silently ignore it. for more info