Recipe9.13.Controlling Public Folder Replication Settings

Recipe 9.13. Controlling Public Folder Replication Settings

Problem

You want to change the settings used for public folder replication.

Solution

Using a graphical user interface

To control replication settings on an individual folder, do the following:

1. Launch the Exchange System Manager ( Exchange System Manager.msc ).

2. In the left pane, expand the appropriate Administrative Groups container.

3. Expand the Folders and Public Folders nodes.

4. Right-click the target folder and select Properties.

5. Switch to the Replication tab as shown in Figure 9-6.

6. To change the replication schedule for the folder, click the Customize button. When the Schedule dialog box appears, fill in the replication schedule that you want applied to this folder, and click OK.

7. To control the priority of replication messages for this folder, use the Replication message priority pulldown. The setting you apply here is used by the public folder store and the SMTP engine to determine the relative priority of replication messages for all folders.

8. Click OK.

Figure 9-6. The Replication tab lets you provide folder-specific replication settings

Discussion

Each public folder store has its own replication settings. However, these settings may be overridden for individual folders. Note that the replicas can't have their own individual settings; when you make changes to the replication interval or priority for a folder, it applies to all replicas. Folder-specific settings override the corresponding settings on the public folder store.

The Exchange_PublicFolder WMI class allows you to specify custom replication settings by creating an array of start/stop times, then assigning them to the specific folder's ReplicationSchedule property.

See Also

Chapter 3 of Working with the Exchange Server 2003 Store :

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/Exchange/guides/WorkingE2k3Store/cbdaaffd-750c-4a3d-8bb6-4d0474ef6eea.mspx

Appendix E of the Exchange Server 2003 Administration Guide :

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/Exchange/guides/E2k3AdminGuide/e2bd3cd4-33be-4aa7-9042-886046c53cc7.mspx

and MS KB 273479 (Understanding Public Folder Replication and Referrals)

Recipe 9.14. Finding or Changing the Site Folder Server

Problem

You want to know which public folder server is holding the role of site folder server, or you need to change that role to fix a public folder replication problem.

Solution

Using a graphical user interface

To find out what server is the site folder server for an administrative group , do the following:

1. Open ADSI Edit ( adsiedit .msc ).

2. Find the msExchAdminGroup object for the administrative group whose site folder server you want to check. The object you're looking for will be tucked away under:

   CN=
   
   
   Administrative Groups
   
   
   ,CN=
   
   
   Organization
   
   
   ,CN=
   
   
   Microsoft 
   Exchange
   
   
   ,CN=
   
   
   Services
   
   
   ,CN=
   
   
   Configuration
   
   
   ,DC=
   
   
   Domain
   
   
   ,DC=
   
   
   com
   
   
   

   
   

3. Right-click the object for your administrative group and select Properties.

4. Click the Attribute Editor tab.

5. Under the Attributes column, click SiteFolderServer.

6. Click Edit. The distinguished name in the Value field is the full path to the server that currently holds the site folder server role.

To change the server designated as the site folder server for an administrative group, do the following:

1. Open ADSI Edit ( adsiedit.msc ).

2. Find the msExchAdminGroup object for the administrative group whose site folder server you want to change.

3. Expand the administrative group object and its child CN= Servers object.

4. Locate the server that you want to act as the site public folder server. Expand its object and the CN= Information Store object it contains, then expand whichever storage group object has the public folder store.

5. Right-click the public folder store object and select Properties.

6. Click the Attribute Editor tab.

7. Under the Attributes column, click distinguishedName, then click Edit.

8. Copy the distinguished name to the clipboard, then close the String Attribute Editor dialog and the public store object properties dialog.

9. Right-click the object for the administrative group and select Properties.

10. Click the Attribute Editor tab.

11. Under the Attributes column, click SiteFolderServer.

12. Click Edit, then paste (or type) the distinguished name you copied in step 8. Click OK.

13. Stop and restart the information store service on all servers in the administrative group.

Discussion

The site folder server is normally the first server installed in an administrative group. If you remove or rename that server without following the procedures in MS KB 822931, the other servers in that administrative group will still be using the old value for the site folder server. This will result in unreliable public folder replication; it also breaks the ability of Outlook and OWA clients to check free/busy times, since (as you learned in Recipe 9.12) that free/busy data is stored in a system public folder.

See Also

Recipe 9.12 for recreating the Schedule+ Free/Busy folder, MS KB 822931 (How to remove the first Exchange Server 2003 computer from the administrative group), and MS KB 822444 (How To Reset a Site Folder in Exchange Server 2003)