Email Scout: Install for Agent

From Documentation

Revision as of 04:44, 29 January 2007

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. Set up Public Store on Exchange Server
2. Create new Exchange User to receive Email
3. Set up Agent Script against Public Store in Outlook
4. Inform Functional Software of details

Setup Account using Public Store

1. . Create a Public Store.
   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.
2. . 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
3. . 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.
4. . Ensure that the user you have chosen has the correct permissions, spelled out in Service Account Setup, below.
5. . Proceed with Outlook Setup, using the assumption that Outlook is set up correctly for collecting mail.

Note

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

Service Account Setup

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
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.
5. . In ESM: Create a new Public Folder for sending email to.
6. . In ESM: Give “Owner” permissions to this public folder for the new account.
7. . 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 service account on 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.
8. . 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.
9. . 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.

Outlook Setup

The easiest thing to do here it 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. If that is not possible, you will need to edit your current Outlook account and either modify the current Exchange User settings, or add them if you are not already using an Exchange Account. Outlook will only allow one Exchange Server account to be active at a given time.

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.

Back in Outlook:

1. 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.
2. Expand "Public Folders" -> "All Public Folders"
3. You should see the name of the Public Folder you created earlier. If not, something has gone wrong and you will need to backtrack.
4. 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.

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 practiceable to try and fix where it went wrong.