Microsoft Exchange Server 2003: Configuring Recipient Objects (part 7) - Moving Mailboxes with the Exchange Task Wizard

Configuring Delivery Restrictions

More often than not, you will configure delivery restriction settings at the virtual server level rather than at the mailbox level, but there are times when it is appropriate to specify delivery restrictions for a specific mailbox or group of mailboxes that are different from the settings at the server level. Delivery restrictions can apply to the size of messages sent from the mailbox, the size of messages sent to the mailbox, and from whom the mailbox is allowed to receive messages. To configure delivery restrictions for a mailbox, edit the user’s properties in the Active Directory Users And Computers console and click the Exchange General tab, and then click Delivery Restrictions. Figure 22 shows the configuration options available.

You might need to configure a specific delivery restriction on a mailbox if you have a customer feedback mailbox, and you know it should be receiving only text messages. You could prevent messages greater than 50 kilobytes (KB) from being delivered to that mailbox, which would prevent the flooding of the mailbox by a malicious user with messages containing large attachments. Or you might need to set a delivery restriction if you have a mailbox configured to send out automatic responses to messages it receives. You could configure a restriction of the sent message size to prevent the mailbox from being used inappropriately to send other types of messages.

Forwarding Mailboxes to Other E-Mail Addresses

While you can grant permissions to a mailbox for another user, sometimes it makes more sense to forward a mailbox rather than have a user monitor two separate mailboxes. For instance, if an employee leaves the company and his mailbox needs to remain active for a period of time, you can grant another user rights to that mailbox. However, a simpler method is to forward the mailbox to the designated user. Then all messages that come in to the mailbox are automatically forwarded to the designated mailbox, so that user gets both her messages and the forwarded messages in one location (you can tell them apart by looking at whom the e-mail is addressed to). Another example of when you would want to forward a mailbox is when a manager needs an assistant to keep track of her e-mail while she is out of town and without access to the network. The assistant can be granted permissions to the manager’s Inbox, but then the assistant will have access to all past messages, too, which is undesirable. Instead, you can forward the mailbox to the assistant while also having the messages delivered to the manager’s mailbox, which accomplishes the goal of allowing the assistant to monitor the manager’s e-mail without being able to see past e-mails. When the manager returns, you simply turn off the forwarding of the mailbox.

To configure mailbox forwarding, perform the following steps:

Moving Mailboxes to Other Servers and Mailbox Stores

As your organization grows and changes, employees will change divisions or locations. Depending on the size and complexity of your Exchange organization, an employee move can result in a situation where he needs to have his mailbox in a different mailbox store or even on a different server. Exchange Server 2003 makes it easy to accommodate mailbox moves, and there are a couple of different ways to accomplish the task.

Moving Mailboxes with the Exchange Task Wizard

If you need to move only a few mailboxes within the same organization, you can use the Exchange Task Wizard and choose the Move Mailbox option, which will open the Move Mailbox page, shown in Figure 23.

In Figure 23, you see the current location of the mailbox. The Server and Mailbox Store drop-down lists provide the available options of where to move the mailbox. In Figure 23, the mailbox is being moved from the first mailbox store on Server1 to the first mailbox store on Server2. Once you click Next on this page, you are prompted to determine how to handle corrupted messages found during the move, as shown in Figure 24.

The default is simply to cancel the mailbox move and generate a report. You may decide that the move should continue anyway and skip the corrupted messages. When you click Next on this page, you are able to determine when the move will take place and when the task should terminate if it hasn’t completed. This is a standard task scheduler page. You can schedule the move to occur at any time, such as overnight or at a later date, or take the default choice to run immediately. If you leave the default setting, the process will begin immediately when you click Next, and you can monitor the progress. If you schedule the move, the task will be entered into the Task Scheduler to run as scheduled.

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