Starting September 11th 2017 Microsoft Teams supports guest access for external users. 

Guest access for Microsoft Teams uses a separate guest license type that must be activated in the services & add-ons section of the Office 365 Admin portal. 

Office 365 Admin portal notification:

When we make this change, the ‘Pick the license you want to configure’ setting in ‘Settings > Services and Add-ins > Microsoft Teams’, will now have an option for ‘Guest’ with a default value of “off” for the ‘Turn Microsoft Teams on or off for your entire organization’ setting.

When you've not activated guest licenses, external user receive an odd error when trying to access your shared team.

Link

• Expand your collaboration with guest access in Microsoft Teams

Enjoy Office 365!

The PowerShell script to purge Exchange Server and IIS log files has been updated to version 2.1.

The function Copy-LogFiles has been slightly rewritten and there has been a change in the cmdlet parameters.

When using ArchiveMode CopyAndZip or CopyZipAndDelete all copied log files in the EXCHANGESERVER\LOGS folder are added to a compressed archive. The script creates a separate archive for IIS and Exchange logs.

 Code updated

function Copy-LogFiles {
  [CmdletBinding()]
  param(
    [string]$SourceServer,
    [string]$SourcePath,
    $FilesToMove,
    [string]$ArchivePrefix = ''
  )

  if($SourceServer -ne '') { 

    # path per SERVER for zipped archives
    $ServerRepositoryPath = Join-Path -Path $RepositoryRootPath -ChildPath $SourceServer

    # subfolder used as target for copying source folders and files
    $ServerRepositoryLogsPath = Join-Path -Path $ServerRepositoryPath -ChildPath $LogSubfolderName

    $ServerRepositoryPath = Join-Path -Path $RepositoryRootPath -ChildPath $SourceServer

    if(!(Test-Path -Path $ServerRepositoryPath)) {

      # Create new target directory for server, if does not exist
      $null = New-Item -Path $ServerRepositoryPath -ItemType Directory -Force -Confirm:$false

    }

    foreach ($File in $FilesToMove) {
      # target directory
      $targetDir = $File.DirectoryName.Replace($TargetServerFolder, $ServerRepositoryLogsPath)

      # target file path
      $targetFile = $File.FullName.Replace($TargetServerFolder, $ServerRepositoryLogsPath)
      
      # create target directory, if not exists
      if(!(Test-Path -Path $targetDir)) {$null = mkdir -Path $targetDir}

      # copy file to target
      $null = Copy-Item -Path $File.FullName -Destination $targetFile -Recurse -Force -Confirm:$false -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

    }    
    
    if($ZipArchive) {
      # zip copied log files
      
      $Archive = Join-Path -Path $ServerRepositoryPath -ChildPath ('{0}-{1}' -f $ArchivePrefix, $ArchiveFileName)
      $logger.Write(('Zip copied files to {0}' -f $ArchiveFileName))
      
      # delete archive file, if already exists
      if(Test-Path -Path $Archive) {Remove-Item -Path $Archive -Force -Confirm:$false}

      try {
        # create zipped asrchive
        Add-Type -AssemblyName 'System.IO.Compression.FileSystem'
        [IO.Compression.ZipFile]::CreateFromDirectory($ServerRepositoryLogsPath,$Archive)
      }
      catch {
        $logger.Write(('Error compressing files from {0} to {1}' -f $ServerRepositoryLogsPath, $Archive),3)      
      }
      finally {

        # cleanup, if compression was successful
        if($DeleteZippedFiles) {

          $logger.Write(('Deleting folder {0}' -f $ServerRepositoryLogsPath))
          $null = Remove-Item -Path $ServerRepositoryLogsPath -Recurse -Force -Confirm:$false -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

        }
      }
    } 
  }  
}

Note

• The script utilizes the GlobalFunctions PowerShell module which needs to be installed first.

Links

• Release 2.1 at Github: https://github.com/Apoc70/Purge-LogFiles/releases/tag/v2.1
• Original blog post: https://www.granikos.eu/en/justcantgetenough/PostId/208/purge-exchange-server-and-iis-log-files

Social

• Twitter @stensitzki
• LinkedIn
• Xing

Description

This script converts Word compatible documents to a selected format utilizing the Word SaveAs function. Each file is converted by a single dedicated Word COM instance.

The script converts either all documents in a single folder of a matching an include filter or a single file.

Currently supported target document types:

• Default --> Word 2016
• PDF
• XPS
• HTML

The conversion is handled by Word itself, utilizing the SaveAs method.

The Word.Document.SaveAs method supports the following wdFormat values:

Implemented document formats are shown in bold.

Examples

# EXAMPLE
# Convert all .doc files in E:\temp to Default

.\Convert-WordDocument.ps1 -SourcePath E:\Temp -IncludeFilter *.doc 

# EXAMPLE
# Convert all .doc files in E:\temp to XPS

.\Convert-WordDocument.ps1 -SourcePath E:\Temp -IncludeFilter *.doc -TargetFormat XPS

# EXAMPLE
# Convert a single document to Word default format

.\Convert-WordDocument.ps1 -SourcePath E:\Temp\MyDocument.doc

Version History

• 1.0, Initial community release

Links

• Download and follow at Github: https://github.com/Apoc70/Convert-WordDocument
• Download and like at TechNet Gallery: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Convert-Word-documents-5ccc1067
• WdSaveFormat Enumeration

Follow

• Twitter @stensitzki
• LinkedIn
• Xing

When you run software solutions that make use of TLS secured communication channels the applications need to have access to the certificate's private key. The private key is part of the certificate stored in the local certificate store of the computer. In most cases the software solution creates a new self-signed certificate and configures access rights appropriately.

When establishing TLS communication channels to external partners, the use of a public SSL/TLS certificate is a must have requirement.

The following step-by-step instructions describe how to assign Read permisson for the Email Security Solution Gateway NoSpamProxy. In this case the solution does not utilize a classic service account, but a so-called virtual service account. Virtual service accounts provide a much better access security when executing Windows services.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Step 1

Open the local computers certificate store using the MMC Snap-Ins.

Step 2

Select the certificate to use and open the context menu (right click).

Select Manage Private Keys to manage the private key permissions.

Step 3

Click Add and add the required service accounts.

In this case the virtual service accounts are part of the local computer entity. Select the local computer and not the Active Directory domain as source when searching accounts. Virtual accounts us the prefix NT Service.

Add the follow accounts to configure read access for NoSpamProxy on a server having the Gateway and Intranet role installed.

NT Service\NetatworkMailGatewayIntranetRole
NT Service\NetatworkMailGatewayManagementService
NT Service\NetatworkMailGatewayGatewayRole
NT Service\NetatworkMailGatewayPrivilegedService

Add the follow accounts to configure read access for NoSpamProxy on a server having the Gateway role installed only.

NT Service\NetatworkMailGatewayManagementService
NT Service\NetatworkMailGatewayGatewayRole
NT Service\NetatworkMailGatewayPrivilegedService

Click Check Names to verifiy the existence of the entered service accounts.

Step 4

When correctly resolved the accounts names are replaced by theis respective display names. Click OK to add the accounts. 

Step 5

Configure read access for all added service accounts and click OK.

The software solution is now capable of accessing the private key of the certificate.

Link

• Service Accounts Step-by-Step Guide, https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd548356(v=ws.10).aspx

The SMTP Simulator project has been started due to a specific demand during a customer project. We needed a solution to test native transport of Exchange Server 2013 and third party addons to Exchange in an isolated lab envrionment having no internet access at all.

While it is pretty easy to send test emails using PowerShell, we wanted to create an automated service which is capable of:

• replies to incoming emails
• has configured internal and external SMTP domains
• creates random local email addresses
• sends emails depending on a schedule to simulate user behaviour
  • fixed number of emails per timeframe
  • random number of emails per timeframe
  • send misformed emails
• adds attachments to outgoing emails
  • documents 
  • archives / password protected archives
  • EICAR files
• simple testing of POP3/IMAP4 remote connections 
• runs as a Windows service
• has a nice web interface for simplified administration
  • access to SMTP send/receice logs

The SMTP Simulator can be used with any Message Transfer Agents (MTA), not only with Exchange. Besides testing the MTA itself, we needed to test some of the following third-party solutions:

• Anti-Malware solutions using an Exchange transport agent
• SMTP gateway solutions

Architecure overview

Web client interface

The Visual Studio solution creates a MSI installer file. The MSI package created installs the SMTP Service itself, but not the required web application (see issue #49).

Documentation is provided by the SMTP Simulator Wiki.

Open Source

The code has been published as open source at Github. Feel free to fork the solution and contribute to the code.

Report any issues or feature requests at Github.

To-Do's

The project still has some open ends and needs some love and attention. Open issues are part of the issue tracker at Github.

• https://github.com/Granikos/SMTPSimulator/issues

Main topics are:

• Authenticated login
• Rebuild of the installer to include the main service component and the web client required for management
• Enhance wiki documentation

Links

• SMTP Simulator project at Github: https://github.com/Granikos/SMTPSimulator
• SMTP Simulator Wiki at Github: https://github.com/Granikos/SMTPSimulator/wiki