Manage Exchange out-of-office notifications centrally

Most users manage the absence notifications themselves via Outlook. Before a planned absence, such as vacation, the user enters the desired message and, if necessary, specifies a deputy. In addition, the helpdesk or a user's line manager should usually also be able to enter an absence notification for users; this is usually useful for an unplanned absence, ... Read more

Tip: Free S/MIME certificate (New!)

In my last article about a free S/MIME certificate for signing and encrypting emails, I made a stupid mistake. In the last article, I recommended the CA DGNCert, which offers free S/MIME certificates, but the CA itself is not stored as a "Trusted Root Certification Authority" in Windows. So as long as the root certificate is not manually ... Read more

Windows updates from February 2019 important for Exchange Server

The updates for Windows Server which were released on February 19, 2019 after the regular patchday are also important for Exchange Server running on Windows Server 2016. Specifically, it is about a problem that has existed since September 2018: KB4457127 causes problems on DCs in connection with Exchange KB4457127 causes problems after installation ... Read more

Review: NoSpamProxy (AntiSpam)

Here is another short review. I am often asked which anti-spam / email security product I would recommend and what my experience with it has been. There are countless solutions on the market and almost the entire spectrum is covered: special hardware appliances, VMs, Windows or Linux, software that runs directly on the Exchange ... Read more

Exchange Server Dashboards: Grafana, InfluxDB, PowerShell, PRTG and Telegraf

Jan Kappen has written a great HowTo on the subject of Grafana, InfluxDB and PowerShell. Jan describes the installation, configuration and use of Grafana and InfluxDB on his blog: Grafana, InfluxDB and Windows PowerShell - Part 1 Grafana, InfluxDB and Windows PowerShell - Part 2 Grafana, InfluxDB and Windows PowerShell - Part 3 Grafana, InfluxDB and Windows ... Read more

Exchange Server: New updates (February 2019)

New updates have just been released for all supported Exchange Server versions, which also fix the critical vulnerability from CVE-2018-8581. The updates should therefore be installed as soon as possible, as an exploit for this vulnerability has existed for some time. Click here to download the updates for Exchange 2010, 2013 and 2016: Cumulative Update 12 ... Read more

Sophos UTM: Monitoring the mail queues

I have already received several emails regarding the monitoring of Sophos EMail Protection. As I also use email protection in my private environment, this topic is also of interest to me. The UTM's Mail Manager already provides a very useful overview, but it is not very practical to have this overview permanently open in the browser. Read more

Exchange DAG: Change database and logfile path

It can happen that the paths or the storage location of Exchange databases and log files have to be changed, for example when changing the storage system. This article is in response to a reader's question about how to do this with as little downtime as possible. There are several options for moving the database and log file paths, ... Read more

Tip: Free S/MIME certificate

Update 25.02.2019: There is a new article here, as this article is no longer valid. Update 29.01.2019: See note/update at the end of the article. DGNcert is not stored as a trusted certification authority in Windows as I claimed. Therefore, please read the update at the end of the article first and then the comments. So far, Comodo has been a reliable ... Read more