Administering an Exchange Server 2010 Environment : Performing Common Tasks (part 1) - Creating User Mailboxes

Some tasks can be performed in the ECP, more tasks can be performed in the EMC, and all tasks can be performed in the EMS—but for something as simple as changing the department for a single user, determining the PowerShell cmdlet and parameters might be more challenging than simply using the GUI or Web interfaces.

Creating User Mailboxes

The creation of a new user mailbox, either for an existing user or in conjunction with the creation of a new user, is an example of a task that can be accomplished from any of the three administrative tools. For this example, we show how to perform the task using all three tools.

Exchange Server 2010 allows for the creation of four different types of mailboxes:

However, only a user mailbox can be created with the ECP. For our following examples, we create a User Mailbox for a user named Oscar B. Hayve.

Creating a New Mailbox in the Exchange Management Console

Creating a new mailbox using the GUI interface of the EMC is easy and familiar to those who have worked with previous versions of Exchange Server. To do so

1.	Start the Exchange Management Console.
2.	In the Console Tree, navigate to the Recipient Configuration node.
3.	In the action pane, click New Mailbox. The New Mailbox Wizard appears. Alternatively, administers can select New Mail User, which defaults to creating an actual user mailbox (as opposed to a room, equipment, or linked mailbox) and skips step 4.
4.	On the Introduction page, as shown in Figure 1, select User Mailbox, and then click Next. Figure 1. New Mailbox Introduction page.
5.	On the User Type page, click New User, and then click Next.
6.	On the User Information page, complete the following fields: Specify the organizational unit rather than using a default one— Select this box if you want to specify a particular organizational unit. If checked, click the Browse button and select the desired OU for the user account. For our example, we leave this box unchecked. First name— Type the first name of the user. This field is optional. Initials— Type the initials of the user. This field is optional. Last name— Type the last name of the user. This field is optional. Name— By default, this field is populated with the user’s first name, initials, and last name, if entered. You can modify the name in this field or type one manually if no previous fields were populated. User logon name (User Principal Name)— This is the name that the user uses to log on to the mailbox. The user logon name consists of a username and a suffix. Typically, the suffix is the domain name in which the user account resides. User logon name (pre-Windows 2000)— This is also known as the Security Account Manager Account Name (SAMAccountName) and is used for Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS) name resolution. This name must be unique within the domain and is, by default, automatically populated based on the preceding User Principal Name. Password— Type the password that the user must use to log on to his mailbox. Confirm Password— Retype the password that you entered in the Password field. User Must Change Password at Next Logon— Select this check box if you want to require users to reset the password after their first logon (recommended).
7.	When finished, click Next.
8.	On the Mailbox Settings page, complete the following fields: Alias— Enter the desired alias for the user, based on your organization’s policies. For our example, we use the user’s first initial, middle initial, and last name—OBHayve. Specify the mailbox database rather than using a database automatically selected— If desired, select this option and use the Browse button to select a specific database. For our example, we leave this option blank. Managed folder mailbox policy— If desired, select this box and click the Browse button to select the MRM mailbox policy to be associated with this mailbox. For our example, we leave this option blank. Exchange ActiveSync mailbox policy— To specify an Exchange ActiveSync mailbox policy, select this check box, and then click Browse to select the Exchange ActiveSync mailbox policy to be associated with this mailbox. For our example, we leave this option blank.
9.	When finished, click Next.
10.	New to Exchange Server 2010 is the Archive Settings page. Selecting the box beside Create an Archive Mailbox for This Account will, as indicated, create a link to an online archive for the mailbox. Items will be moved automatically from the primary user mailbox to the archive based on the default retention policy settings or those defined by the administrator. For our example, we leave this option blank.
11.	On the New Mailbox page, review the Configuration Summary. To make any configuration changes, click Back. To create the new mailbox, click New.
12.	On the Completion page, the summary states whether the mailbox was successfully created. The summary also displays the Exchange Management Shell command that was used to create the mailbox. This command can be copied and pasted into a text editor as the first step toward creating future mailboxes from the command line interface of the EMS.
13.	Click Finish.

Creating a New Mailbox in the Exchange Management Shell

Creating a new mailbox from the EMS can be complicated because there are so many parameters to consider. However, by copying the EMS Shell command created by the Management Console in the previous steps, we can now paste that command into a text editor and modify the contents, allowing us to create our next test user.

Note that we must also remove the Password System.Security.SecureString and ResetPasswordOnNextLogon $true portions of the command because these were created in the EMC command to populate the password for the account.

We can create our new user, Yasmine B. Guud, by using the following command:

New-Mailbox -Name 'Yasmine B. Guud' -Alias 'YBGuud' -UserPrincipalName '[email protected]' 
-SamAccountName 'YBGuud' -FirstName 'Yasmine' -Initials 'B' -LastName 'Guud'

					  

After running the preceding command in the Exchange Management Shell, we are prompted for the Password. Enter the desired password (carefully, there will not be an option to confirm it) and press Enter.

As you can see, every option configured during the creation of the account in the GUI interface, with the exception of the user password, can be replicated using the Exchange Management Shell command.

Creating Multiple Mailboxes in the Exchange Management Shell

Given the complexity of creating a new mailbox in the EMS, why would anyone want to do so? Generally, they wouldn’t. But what if your Human Resources department handed you a list of 50 new employees and requested that you create new mailboxes for all of them? Doing so through the GUI interface of the EMC would not only take hours, but would also result in the increased likelihood that misspellings or mistakes might occur.

That’s where the power of the EMS comes into play.

By putting the list of names in a .csv file, we can quickly create multiple accounts from only two lines of code. To do so, perform the following steps:

1.	Create a text file called newusers.csv in a directory called (for our example) c:\scripts.
2.	For our example, we create several column names and populate the data, as shown in Figure 2. The columns we will populate are Name, Alias, UPN, First, Middle, and Last. Additional column names can be added, if desired, to populate more data in the user accounts. Figure 2. Creating the .csv file for multiple mailbox creation.
3.	When the .csv file is complete, we are ready to begin. Each user account will be created with a default password, with the user required to reset the password when they first log in. From the Exchange Management Shell, type the following command. (Type it word-for-word, do not attempt to enter the password yet.) $Password = Read-Host "Enter Password" -AsSecureString And press Enter. You will be presented with a prompt stating Enter Password. Type the password you want to apply to all your newly created users and press Enter. Your password will now be assigned to the variable $Password for use in our script.
4.	Next, we run two cmdlets, piping the results of the first into the second, to create the new mailboxes from the .csv file. The syntax will be as follows: Import-Csv "c:\scripts\newusers.csv" | foreach { New-Mailbox –name $_.Name –alias $_.Alias –UserPrincipalName $_.UPN -FirstName $_.First -Initials $_.Middle -LastName $_.Last -Password $Password –ResetPasswordOnNextLogon:$true}

The result, as shown in Figure , is the creation of the new mailboxes. The existence can be confirmed by viewing the mailboxes in the Exchange Management Console. (Remember to refresh the screen if you already had it open.)

Figure 3. End result of multiple mailbox creation script.

Again—while this is a significant amount of work for three users, the same concept can be used to create 50 users (or 500) and can prove to be a valuable time saver.

Creating a New Mailbox in the Exchange Control Panel

Before administrators can create a new mailbox in the Exchange Control Panel, they must be granted the rights to do so using RBAC.

Once they have the appropriate permissions, creating a new mailbox in the Exchange Control Panel is so easy that it’s hardly worth the time to explain it. However, because the ECP is brand new, this section runs through the process to show how quick and easy it is.

To create a new mailbox user in the Exchange Control Panel, perform the following steps:

1.	Log in to the OWA server with administrative credentials.
2.	From the OWA page, select Options.
3.	Select Manage Your Organization.
4.	Ensure My Organization is selected in the UI Scope Control, Users & Groups is selected in the Primary Navigation Panel, and Mailboxes is selected in the Secondary Navigation Panel.
5.	Click the New Mailboxes icon.
6.	On the New Mailbox page, enter the information for the new account. Those marked with asterisks (*) are required fields. An example of the New Mailbox page is shown in Figure 4. Figure 4. Creating New Mailbox with Exchange Control Panel.
7.	When finished, click the Save button.

The ECP passes the information on to the CAS server, which, in turn, uses Remote PowerShell commands to perform the actual operation and create the account.