Article ID: 310315
Article Last Modified on 12/3/2007
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server Standard Edition
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
- Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 Premium Edition
- Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 Standard Edition
This article was previously published under Q310315
SUMMARY
This article describes how to set up Exchange 2000 monitoring and Exchange 2003 monitoring, and describes how to troubleshoot issues with Exchange 2000 monitoring and Exchange 2003 monitoring. It is better to configure monitoring notifications from another Exchange server in the organization, instead of having the server monitor itself. If the Exchange server changes to a state that requires that a notification be sent, a server that is monitoring itself may not be able to deliver the message correctly if the change in state was caused because a service related to Exchange services stopped. The Exchange server has a status of "unreachable" if the server does not have the appropriate permissions set.
Use Exchange System Manager to set the minimum permissions that are required for the local computer account (the Exchange system account). The minimum permissions that are required are Send As rights on the server object.
Note Make sure that there are no explicit Deny permissions set on this account or on the group that contains this account.
MORE INFORMATION
Setting up Exchange 2000 Monitoring and Exchange 2003 Monitoring
To set up Exchange 2000 monitoring and Exchange 2003 monitoring:
- Start Exchange System Manager, locate the server that you want to monitor, open the server properties, and then click the Monitoring tab.
- Select the items that you want to monitor, and then select the status (Warning or Critical) that you want monitoring to react to. Click Apply, and then click OK.
- In Exchange System Manager, locate Tools, and then click Monitoring and Status.
- Right-click the Notification folder, point to New, and then click either Script notification or E-mail notification. Enter all the information that is required.
- Make sure that the value in the Notify when monitored items are in box is the same as the status that you set on the server in step 2, or you will not receive any notification. Click Apply, and then click OK.
Troubleshooting Exchange 2000 Monitoring and Exchange 2003 Monitoring
Microsoft Exchange System Attendant is the component that is responsible for monitoring and status. All connectors and all servers that are in the organization are listed in the status section of Monitoring and Status. The possible states for these objects are Available, Critical, Warning, Unreachable, and Unknown. You can add the following resources to be monitored for a server object:
- Available Virtual Memory
- CPU Utilization
- Free Disk Space
- SMTP Queue Growth
- Windows 2000 Service
- X.400 Queue Growth
When you perform maintenance on a server, it is better to disable monitoring on the server. To do this, open the properties of the server object in Status, and then click to select the Disable all monitoring of this server check box.
If your script notification does not work, make sure that the script is not firing anything that requires the Microsoft Windows user interface (UI) or user interaction. Send a text string to a .txt file, for example:
net time>>c:\notify.txt
If your e-mail notification does not work, try a script notification to make sure that notifications are working.
After you try script notification, try the following:
- Look for the Windows Management Instrumentation service:
- Click Start, point to Programs, click Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
- Make sure that the Windows Management Instrumentation service is present. If the Windows Management Instrumentation service is not present, there is an issue with the operating system.
- View the log files:
- Right-click the My Computer icon on your desktop, and then click Manage.
- Expand Services and Applications.
- Right-click WMI Control, and then click Properties. You receive the following message:
Successfully Connected to: local computer.
- The WMI Control Properties dialog box appears. Click the Logging tab, set the logging level to Verbose, and then note the location of the log files. This location is typically:
\winnt\system32\wbem\logs
- Make your event fire again with both a script notification and an e-mail notification. If the script notification works and the e-mail notification do not work, in Microsoft Windows Explorer, locate the WMI log folder, and then open the Wbemess.log file. This file contains information about what Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) tried to do and contains any error messages.
If you see text that is similar to the following with an SMTP return code of 550, you may have an issue with SMTP relay on the SMTP virtual server:
Consumer provider SMTPEventConsumer does not support IWbemUnboundObjectSink: error code 80004002
SMTP command "VRFY mytestmbx@flaphead.net
" returned 550
Unable to send message: 0xFFFFFFFFTo resolve this issue, use telnet to connect with your Exchange 2000 SMTP virtual server or your Exchange 2003 SMTP virtual server, and then send a test message. If relaying is an issue, you see:
550: 5.7.1 Unable to relay for ....
To resolve this issue, in Exchange System Manager on the Exchange 2000 SMTP virtual server or the Exchange 2003 SMTP virtual server, change the relay settings in the Relay Restrictions dialog box to All Except the list below.
The best resolution (if this change does fix the issue) is to add the TCP/IP address of the local server on servers that are monitoring, to allow mail transmission through SMTP.
Make this change only to resolve issues with SMTP relay on the SMTP virtual server. Do not enable relay for all the servers unless you must because enabling relay for all the servers may expose a security hole.
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