Tutorials

How to archive email on SBS 2008

With this article we will show you how to setup the journaling to a public folder and the second part of this article will show you an alternate way to setup archiving. The kicker is to use a transport rule where you will be able to see the content of the email directly.

We will show several ways how to create a public folder and how to configure the journaling so it will archive in that public folder. Then we will show you how to use a transport rule in stead of the journaling rule to archive all email.

Create a public folder

There are several ways to create a public folder. You can use the Exchange Management Console, the Exchange Management Management Shell commands or OWA/Outlook.

With the Exchange Management Console

1. Exchange Management Console, Toolbox, Public Management Console:
   
2. Expand Public folders, select Default Public Folders, in the right pane (Actions) select New Public Folder:
   
   
3. Type a name like Archived Emails:
   
4. Click New:
   
5. Click Finish.
   

With the Exchange Management Shell

1. Open Start, All Programs, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Exchange Management Shell:
   
2. Type the following command:
   New-publicfolder –name foldername
   Where foldername is the name of the public folder you want to create. In this example we are creating folder Archive:
   

With OWA or Microsoft Outlook

1. Select the Public Folders in the left, right click Public Folders, Create New Folder, Mail folder:
   
2. Type the name of the new folder (Archive 2009) and hit the Enter key:
   
3. So now we have created 3 new public folders and they all look the same in the Public Folder Management Console:
   
4. Which method you want to use for creating a public folder is totally up to you. We will have to Mail Enable the public folder though. Select the public folder and click Mail Enable in the Actions pane:
   
   

After mail enabling a folder you will see more options in the Actions pane and the icon that is placed before the name in the middle pane will change.

Public Folder Permissions

By default all public folders are accessible for all users and everyone can create items and view the contents. You can only change and view the permissions from a workstation with Outlook or by using the Exchange Management Shell on the server.

1. With the Exchange Management Shell you can use the following command to see the permissions:
   
   Get-PublicFolderClientPermission –Identity “\foldername”
   
   User Anonymous should have the {CreateItems} right (else the public folder won't be able to receive system messages and messages from external domains).
   
   User Default always gets the {Author} right, but you may want to remove this right from this user on the archiving public folder and change it to {CreateItems} only.
    
2. Let’s change the right for the user Default to only Create items:
   
   Remove-PublicFolderClientPermission –Identity “\archived emails” –user Default –Accessrights Author
   Reply with ‘y’.
   
   Then add the CreateItems right to user Default:
   
   Add-PublicFolderClientPermission –Identity “\archived emails” –user Default –Accessrights CreateItems
   

So only the SBS Admin will have all rights to the public folder Archived Emails. Users won’t even see that public folder anymore, but they can still create items in it.

If you would take all rights from user Default, the Transport Rule or the Journal Rule won’t be able to copy the message to the public folder anymore, which will result in a NDR for the user.

Create a distribution group with the public folder as member

1. As the journal rule and the transport rule will only show mailboxes and no public folders to choose from, we have to create a distribution group.
   
2. In the Exchange Management Console, Recipient Configuration, Distribution Group, select the New Distribution Group from the Actions pane:
   
   
3. We want a new group, so click Next:
   
4. The group type will be a Distribution group and we type in a name (in our example ArchiveList) then click Next:
   
5. The summary shows and you click New to create it:
   
6. The wizard succeeded, click Finish:
   
7. Go to the properties of the ArchiveList, tab Members:
   
8. Click the Add button and select the Public Folder:
   
9. If you don’t see the public folder, please check if you mail enabled it. Click OK:
   
10. Another setting we need to change is to make sure this folder is able to receive email from outside the domain. Select tab Mail Flow Settings, select Message Delivery Restrictions and click Properties:
    
    
11. Uncheck the option “Require that all senders are authenticated”:
    
12. Then click OK and OK.

Configure the Journal Rule (optional)

Now we could setup the journal rule so it will archive all incoming and outgoing email to the distribution list. And because the public folder Archived Email is a member of the distribution list, all email will go to the public folder too.

For having a complete picture we will include the steps on how to proceed, but if you don’t like the result as shown at the end of this chapter, just skip it and proceed to the last chapter (Configure the Transport Rule).

1. In the Organization Configuration, Hub Transport, select tab Journaling, New Journal Rule in the Actions tab:
   
   
2. Type a name for the rule and browse to the ArchiveList to send the journal reports to:
   
3. Click New:
   
4. Click Finish:
   
5. The result is as follows:
   
6. As you can see it will have the message in an attachment and you would have to open the archive message to see the contents of the email.
   

This is not very friendly. The next chapter of this article will show you how to use a transport rule for archiving so you can disable and remove the journal rule (if you created this journal rule at all of course).

Configure the Transport Rule

We will want to archive all incoming and outgoing email. With the New Transport Rule wizard we configure all the details of this rule.

1. In the Organization Configuration node, Hub Transport, select tab Transport Rules and select New Transport Rule in the Actions pane:
   
   
2. Type a name for this rule and type a comment, click Next:
   
3. We will want to archive all email, so we don’t use any conditions:
   
4. Click Next. We will get a warning and acknowledge that:
   
5. We select the “Blind carbon copy (Bcc) the message to addresses”
   
6. Click on the underlined addresses to select the distribution list:
   
7. Click Add and select the ArchiveList:
   
8. Click OK:
   
9. Click OK:
   
10. Click Next:
    
11. We don’t want to use any exceptions, so click Next:
    
12. Summary is shown and you click New:
    
13. Success, click Finish.
14. If you created the Journal Rule in the previous chapter, go to the Journaling tab and disable the Journal rule:
    
15. Click Yes if you are sure to disable the rule. You can leave this rule disabled or you can remove it.
    Result of the Transport Rule:
    

Note when also using Exchange aware AV

Note: if you have an Exchange aware anti virus program running like Sophos PureMessage, you might get problems like email not going out anymore until you disable the transport rule. This can happen if the AV program is putting its rule above the transport agents. With the Exchange Management Shell command you can see the current order and you can change that.

1. For getting a list of the current transport agents open the Exchange Management Shell and type:
   Get-TransportAgent
   If you get an error “No valid agents.config file was found….” your Exchange aware AV program is not using agents and you should have no problem.
2. If you do get a list the Transport Rule Agent will have to be on priority 1. Sophos PM might have put their PmE12Transport agent on priority 1 though. Run the following command:
   Set-TransportAgent –Identity “PmE12Transport” –Priority 2
   This will correct the transport agents order: