Exchange2K server move....confused!

[speedracercjr]

Ok I have to move from one server to another. Same SP's OS levels and hotfixes. Basically the servers are identical except for the computer name. I have read Q307917 on how to move from one server to another but i still have a few pressing questions.

1. Should i move mailboxes before i rehome PF,OAB,Schedule+ or do i wait until these are replicating between the two server OR do i wait until the new server has full responsibility of them?

2. What about mail delivery? Right now my firewall only allows original server to send and recieve SMTP. Will I need to change that once I am totally ready to turn off original server? Will the original relay emails to the new server?

3. What about the clients? I know that if you leave the original server on long enough the clients will get redirected to the new server BUT do i still need to change their outlook 2000 profiles to point to the new server? All clients but one are running W2K pro.

Thanks for the help as I can't seem to find this information ANYWHERE!!!

 

[speedracercjr]

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[brontosaurus]

1) I would move the mailboxes first, a few at a time in the beginning, just to be safe. While you're doing that, you can be replicating Public Folders, etc...
2) You will need to redirect mails to the new server via your firewall rules.
3) Just have the clients logoff/logon to Outlook at least once after you've moved them and before you shut down the other server. Their profiles will update automatically.

 

[gurner]

Do you run Exchange 2000 on the old machine?

If so you want to create Public folder replication between the two, and when satisfied that it is replicating OK you then want to Re-Home the Public folders and remove the old machine from replication.

Next you want to move the MailBoxes using the AD Users and Computers snapin User Name>Exchange tasks>Move MailBox

Next, does your Firewall route to an IP? if so swap the IP addresses around so the New machine has the IP that the firewall routes to.

OR, is your original Exchange machine running 5.5?

If so you will want to install the ADC (Active Directory Connector) and configure a Recipient Connection Agreement to synchronise your Users Mailboxes with the Active Directory because Exchange2k doesn't have it own Directory Service like 5.5, AD is its Directory Service!

Then you will want to do the Public Folders and Move MailBoxes above.

 

[speedracercjr]

Thanks for the help. Ok now I'm just a little confused on question 2. We are using a firewall to direct SMPT traffic to the correct server. Right now the rule goes something like Internet->Exchange and Exchange->Internet for SMTP traffic only.

Now I can create a "group" and put both the old and new servers in there so it would look something like this Internet->EmailGroup and EmailGroup->Internet. So this would send all SMTP traffic to both servers.

Would both servers be able to figure out who is hosting which mailboxes and get the emails to the right place?

Thank you for your help!
Cory

 

[speedracercjr]

No this is a pure Windows2k E2k enviorment.

 

[brontosaurus]

there's no need to send to both servers. the original will know what mailboxes have been moved.

 

[speedracercjr]

So basically the original server will send emails to the new server. Cool that's good. So when I'm totally ready to uninstall exchange from the original server that's when i want to go into my firewall and change the rules to point to the new server.

Oh wait one more thing...what about OWA? We have users on the outside point to

http://www.domain.com/exchange/

Will it still get them to their email if its on the new server? Sorry for all the questions but yall have the been only ones who seems to have great knowledge of E2K!!

 

[brontosaurus]

what does OWA point at now? the external interface of the firewall? If so, no problem.

 

[speedracercjr]

To be honest with you i really don't know how OWA is working, i've been trying to figure that our for a while. i didn't get to set that up and the guy who did it got fired and never documented what he did. This sucks! I moved one test mailbox over to the new server and you can get emails from Outlook but you can't on OWA using

http://servername/exchange/

 

[brontosaurus]

how about

http://domain.name/exchange

?

 

[speedracercjr]

I get Failed to forward the request to the web server at domain.com:80. This may be due to a firewall configuration error or a DNS failure

Its gotta be a firewall configuration error. Man I wish i knew how the heck he set this up.

 

[gurner]

Did this guy that was sacked trumpet about how he setup OWA?

sorry to disappoint but OWA works out of the box, just type the name of the Machine exchange was installed on and the Exchange //Machine/exchange

And you have access to your Inbox

 

[speedracercjr]

No he didn't say anything. He had documented alot of the stuff he did when we moved to exchange 2k but not OWA!!!! I agree that OWA should work out of the box, and i'm sure its working but whenever i go to

http://servername/exchange

I get this: You are not authorized to view this page

Now I have only moved over one mailbox to the new server. I don't see how this is possible but do you think my mailbox has to be there for it to let me access it? that just doesn't make sense. I'm going to go look on the original e2k server and see what's set up on IIS.

 

[gurner]

Check the IIS (Internet Information Services) settings for your old Mail server, especially under the Virtual Directory called 'Exchange' in your Default Website.

As that error you mentioned sounds like an IIS Permissions error.

 

[gurner]

After the upgrade and migration i was asked why there were several drive mappings to different parts of the Exchange server on the local machine and why were there as well as PUB.MDB and PRV.MDB files also emails in

(typically)
M:\domain.co.uk\MBX

This is the URL location of the 'Exchange' Virtual directory

 

[speedracercjr]

Ok this sounds messed up. Looked on the original server, the go to Directory security/Authentication Methods and the only box that is checked is Basic Authentication. Why would it be set like that? Isn't that somewhat unsecure? Now we are using OWA over SSL, but does SSL kick in before or after you enter your username/password to log into OWA? I set permissions like the ones above on the new server and i can log in fine. Haven't got SSL loaded yet but that's one of today's goals.