Email Scout: Install for Agent

From Documentation

How the Agent Based Monitor Works

The Agent based monitor works using an agent stored, in the best case scenario, against a public store. This allows multiple email accounts to be monitored from a single public store, as long as all email accounts have access to the same exchange server(s). If a public store is not available, it is possible to store the agent information against a personal mail box, but this means that each account that will be monitored will need to be set up individually. This has the downside of requiring an Outlook seat licence for each account to be monitored, as the agent can only be set up through the MS Outlook interface.

The agent script itself is very similar to the script that runs the Event Sink Monitor, and in fact differs only in the way several elements are called from within the script. The function, and end result, of the script is identical in both cases. A full explanation is offered on the Event Sink Monitor page.

Note

Due to the nature of the Exchange Agent setup, sometimes it can take as long as a minute (60 seconds) to return a result to our monitoring email. This delay should be taken into consideration when looking at your Round Trip metrics.

We have no way of knowing how long it actually takes between the arrival of the email and the running of the agent.

Steps for Setting Up Agent Based Monitoring

1. Create new Exchange User to receive Email
2. Set up Public Store on Exchange Server
3. Configure User Email
4. Set up Agent Script against Public Store in Outlook

Create new Exchange User to receive Email

The following steps detail how to create a service account which executes event service scripts...

1. In Active Directory Users and Computers (U&C): create a new account, specify a password, mark it to never expire and user cannot change, create a mailbox when prompted.
2. In U&C: add this account to the local “Administrators” group. Do not add it to the “Domain Administrators” group, this will enact specific denials on the mailbox store and elevate the permissions unnecessarily within the domain.
3. In Exchange System Manager (ESM): right click on the organization group, select “Delegate Control…” and add the newly created account as an “Exchange View Only Administrator”.
4. In U&C: Give the service “Full Mailbox Access” to any script author accounts by right clicking the author’s account, selecting properties, selecting the “Exchange Advanced” tab, and clicking the “Mailbox Rights” button. You may have many authors or want to enable everyone to author scripts.

Set up Public Store on Exchange Server

1. In Exchange System Manager (ESM) go to Administrative Groups and select your desired Group.
2. Drill down to the Public Folder level, and create a new Public Folder.
3. Right click on the new folder, go to "All Tasks" and click on "Mail Enable". This allows you to forward email to the given public folder.
4. Ensure that the user you are going to use to create the script has "Owner" level abilities in the Permisssions of this folder.
5. In ESM: Select the “Public Folders” node under the “Folders” node of the Administrative Group, right click and select “View System Folders”. Expand the “Events Root” folder and give “Owner” permissions to the account to be monitored in the "EventConfig_<exchange server name>" folder.
   • This folder may not exist if you haven’t tried to start the Exchange Event Service before. Just start the service to create the folder.

Configure User Email

1. In Exchange Users and Computers, right click on the newly created User.
   1. In the Properties of this user, go to the "Exchange General" tab -> Delivery Options Button -> Change the Forwarding Address to the Public Store the Agent is set up against.
2. At this point you either have to wait for these permissions to replicate which could take up to 2 hours or you can restart the Exchange Information Store service.
3. In the Services management console, change the Exchange Event Service to “Logon As” the service account and specify the “Startup Type” as “Automatic”. Then start the Exchange Event Service.

Note

At the moment, the Functional Email Round Trip monitor supports only Exchange Server 2003

Set up Agent Script against Public Store in Outlook

This method does not require the monitoring email account to have an Outlook account. That would require an additional Outlook Licence. However, the account used to set up the email monitoring agent does require privileges on the Public Store.

If you are NOT using an existing user to set up the agent against the public store, the easiest thing to do is to simply log on to any machine in the domain as the chosen user. Then starting Outlook will run you through the account wizard to set up an Outlook account. Please note that Outlook will only allow one Exchange Account to be set up against it at a time, so if you are already using Outlook as your mail client, it may be better to get access to the Public Store and set it up using your account.

Once the account is set up:

1. Go to Tools -> Options.
2. Click on the "Other" Tab
3. Click the "Advanced Options" button
4. Click the "Add-in Manager" button, and ensure that "Server Scripting" is checked on.

Once that is complete, restart Outlook to make sure changes are saved and loaded.

1. By default, not all Public Stores are shown.
2. At the bottom of your left-pane, there should be a series of icons. The second from the left should be "Folder List". Click this to view all Folders associated with this account.
3. Expand "Public Folders" -> "All Public Folders"
4. You should see the name of the Public Folder you created earlier. If not, something has gone wrong and you will need to backtrack.
5. Right Click on this folder and go to "Properties"
   1. In this dialog, there should be a tab labelled "Agents".
   2. If not, more than likely the "Server Scripting" option from above is not checked. Also check that you are not using Cached versions of server information.
   3. Create a new Agent with the following information
      • Name: Anything Meaningful
      • When the Following Events Occur: A new Item is posted in this folder
      • Run the Following Action: Script (provided by FS)
   4. Hit the button to Edit the Script, and copy and paste in the script provided by Functional Software. If you do not have a copy of the script, please email support@fs.com.au and we will send you a copy. Please note that a valid Round Trip Email Subscription is required to get access to this script.
   5. Save the script and OK back to the main page.

Note

You only need to set up a given Public Store one time. It should now work for any emails that you send to that Public Store.

That's it. Your exchange server should now be ready for monitoring. Send an email to support@fs.com.au with the details of the email address you would like monitored, so that we can set up the agent from our end, and once we test that it's returning valid data we will be monitoring your exchange site. If the test fails, we will contact you as soon as possible to try and fix where it went wrong.