Recipe9.14.Finding or Changing the Site Folder Server

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)