Post-installation Considerations

This section discusses some of the results of the Exchange installation. During the installation of Exchange, the activities of setup.exe include creating Exchange services, creating an Exchange directory structure, copying files to that directory structure, creating share points to the directory structure, and adding keys and values to the Windows Registry. Knowing the results of these activities is helpful for the Exchange administrator, especially in troubleshooting situations (which will be discussed later in this chapter).

Exchange Services

After a successful installation of Exchange Server 2003, you can verify that the required services are installed. When you examine the Services console, you should see the following new Exchange services listed:

• Microsoft Exchange Event

• Microsoft Exchange IMAP4

• Microsoft Exchange Information Store

• Microsoft Exchange Management

• Microsoft Exchange MTA Stacks

• Microsoft Exchange POP3

• Microsoft Exchange Routing Engine

• Microsoft Exchange Site Replication Service

• Microsoft Exchange System Attendant

  Note ‚  

  Not all of the services listed will be configured for an automatic startup. For example, until you configure and start using POP3, it will remain in a disabled state. In addition, you may have other services installed depending on the type of installation you have performed.

Default Directory and File Structure for Exchange

The default root directory for Exchange is \Program Files\Exchsrvr. Setup creates subdirectories under that root directory and copies Exchange files to those subdirectories. Table 3.2 is a listing of the default Exchange subdirectories under the root and the type of files in those subdirectories.

Table 3.2: Default Exchange Directories and Their Contents

Folder	Contents
ADDRESS	This directory contains subdirectories with program files (DLLs) that can be used to generate foreign addresses for Exchange recipients. When an Exchange server uses a connector or gateway to create interoperability with a foreign system, the System Attendant component automatically generates a foreign address for each Exchange recipient. This foreign address, also referred to as a proxy address or simply an e-mail address, is what the users of the foreign mail system see and where they send mail. The program files in the subdirectories can generate these proxy addresses. The complete installation downloads files for the following foreign mail systems: Lotus cc:Mail, Microsoft Mail, Novell GroupWise, Lotus Notes, Internet mail (SMTP), and X.400 mail.
BIN	This directory contains many of the files that are the components and services of Microsoft Exchange Server.
CONNDATA	This directory contains subdirectories that hold the files that are the Microsoft connectors. The complete installation downloads files for the following connectors: the Microsoft GroupWise Connector, the Microsoft Schedule+ Free/Busy Connector, and the Lotus Notes Connector.
ExchangeServer_ computername	This directory is named using the NetBIOS name of the computer and holds miscellaneous files for global Exchange support.
exchweb	This directory holds files for Outlook Web Access.
Computername .log	This directory holds log files for message tracking.
Mailroot	This directory holds working directories for message transfer.
MDBDATA	This directory is one of the most important on your server, because it contains the Information Store database. This database is composed of the following files: the Private Information Stores (EDB and STM), which are the serverbased storage of mailboxes; the Public Information Stores (EDB and STM), which are the server-based storage of public folder data; and the database transaction log files (LOG), which are the files to which data is initially written in order to provide for faster performance and fault tolerance.
MTADATA	This directory holds the files that make up and relate to the Message Transfer Agent (MTA).
OMA	This directory holds files for Outlook Mobile Access.
RES	This directory holds files that contain message strings used when Exchange logs events to the Windows Event Log.
SCHEMA	This directory holds the XML files that support the Exchange extension of the Active Directory Schema.
SRSDATA	This directory holds Site Replication Service ‚ related data.

Share Points and Permissions for Exchange Directories

Table 3.3 lists the Exchange directories that are shared on the network, with the specified share names and permissions, assuming that Exchange was installed on the C: drive.

Table 3.3: Microsoft Exchange Network Shares and Permissions

Folder	Shared As	Permissions
C:\EXCHSRVR\ADDRESS	Address	Administrators group: Full Control Everyone group : Read
C:\EXCHSRVR\RES	Resource$	Administrators group: Full Control Everyone group: Read
C:\EXCHSRVR\ COMPUTERNAME .LOG	COMPUTERNAME .LOG	Administrators group: Full Control

Exchange Entries in the Windows Registry

During installation, Setup creates entries in the Windows Registry. Some of these entries are mentioned here.

Registry information about the presence of the Exchange application on a machine, as well as the directory location of the installation, is found in the following Registry location:

 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE  \SOFTWARE  \Microsoft  \Exchange  \Setup 

The following Registry location records the settings for the various Event Logs created by the different Exchange components:

 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE  \SYSTEM  \CurrentControlSet  \Services  \EventLog  \Application  \<Exchange components> 

The Exchange component settings are stored in the Registry at the following location:

 \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE  \SYSTEM  \CurrentControlSet  \Services  \<Exchange component> 

License settings for Exchange are stored in the following location:

 \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE  \SYSTEM  \CurrentControlSet  \Services  \LicenseInfo  \MSExchangeIS 

Note ‚  

Although these Registry locations are good to know, don ‚ t expect to be tested on them during your exam.

Exchange System Manager

One powerful feature of Microsoft Exchange is the ability to centrally administer an entire Exchange organization. This is accomplished through a snap-in for the Microsoft Management Console named Exchange System Manager (see Figure 3.2). This snap-in can run on any Windows 2000, Windows XP Professional, or Windows Server 2003 computer on the Exchange network. From this single point, an administrator can administer all the Exchange servers in an organization. This is sometimes referred to as single-seat administration.

Figure 3.2: The Exchange System Manager

The actual snap-in file for System Manager is Exchange System Manager.msc and is stored in the \EXCHSRVR\BIN directory. While the Exchange Setup program can install the snap-in on the Exchange Server machine, the administrator will probably also want the Exchange System Manager on their workstation. Installing the Exchange System Manager onto a computer also installs a new version of the Windows Backup utility and extensions to the Active Directory Users and Computers and Performance Monitor programs. These changes enable those programs to work with Exchange Server 2003.

Deploying Exchange Server 2003 in a Large Organization

You are the lead network administrator for a large manufacturing corporation that has 45 geographical locations within North America. In the past, your company has never had a real company-wide network that spanned all locations and linked all users and resources together. You have just completed the installation of a new Windows Server 2003 Active Directory network that provides one unified network to all users and all locations within your organization.

Your network consists of a single Active Directory forest and five domains under the root domain named canada.manufacturing.com, mexico .manufacturing.com, west.manufacturing.com, central.manufacturing.com, and east.manufacturing.com.

The root domain of manufacturing.com contains no user accounts or member servers. You have two assistant administrators for each of the five child domains that have Domain Admins permissions for their applicable child domain. Only your user account has the Enterprise Admins and Schema Admins permissions configured. As well, only your user account has the Domain Admins permissions for the root domain. You have local administrative access on the servers in the root domain, and your assistant administrators have local administrative access on all computers and servers in their child domain. Your office is located within the east.manufacturing.com child domain.

To facilitate the process of installing Exchange Server 2003 on six Windows Server 2003 computers in each child domain, you have provided network shares in each child domain that contain the installation source files. As well, you have run the ForestPrep portion of the Exchange Setup program to extend the Active Directory Schema to support the installation of Exchange Server 2003.

After ForestPrep has been run, your domain user account now has Exchange Full Administrator permissions. In order to allow your assistant administrators to perform the installation of Exchange Server 2003 in their respective domains, you will need to delegate the Full Administrator permissions to their domain user accounts. Before you can perform this delegation, however, you must install the first Exchange Server 2003 computer in one of the child domains. In order to perform this installation, you instruct one of the assistant network administrators in the east.manufacturing.com domain to run the DomainPrep command to prepare that domain for the installation of Exchange Server 2003. After DomainPrep has been run, you can install the first Exchange Server 2003 computer and delegate the Exchange Full Administrator permission to the rest of your assistant administrators. You may, however, want to consider installing the Exchange System Manager first to create and customize your Administrative Group and Routing Group structure for the Exchange organization.

Once your assistant administrators have been delegated the Exchange Full Administrator permission, they may begin to install the 29 other Exchange Server 2003 computers using the installation source files located on their local network shares. As you can see, the Exchange installation process can be quite lengthy and complicated in a large network environment; however, careful planning and execution can lead to first-time success.