Exchange Server Cookbook: For Exchange Server 2003 and Exchange 2000 Server

2017-07-07 02:10:07

Recipe 4.6. Monitoring Exchange Service Status

Problem

You want to be alerted if the Exchange-related services on your Exchange 2000 or 2003 servers are stopped.

Solution

Using a graphical user interface

Launch the Exchange System Manager (Exchange System Manager.msc).

If you cannot see Administrative Groups in the left pane, right-click the Organization object and select Properties. On the General tab of the Properties page, check the Display administrative groups box. Click OK.

In the left pane, expand the Servers container (if you are using multiple administrative groups, you will first need to expand each group to see the Servers container).

Right-click the first server listed and select Properties.

Select the Monitoring tab.

Ensure the Default Microsoft Exchange Services group is present. If additional services need to be monitored, you may add them by double-clicking Default Exchange Services and using the Add button.

Click OK.

Repeat steps 3 through 6 for all Exchange 2000 and 2003 servers within your organization.

Expand the Tools container in Exchange System Manager, then expand the Monitoring and Status container.

Right-click Notifications and select New Script Notification.

Add a script you want to run, such as a batch file that uses blat.exe or another command-line mailing tool, when a service listed in the Default Exchange Services area is not running. Click OK.

Discussion

This recipe just covers setting up notifications to alert you when a service is down. While there are numerous third-party tools that do a great job of watching over your services, we're not recommending any here, because each tool has its own advantages and disadvantages.

We often use a batch file with blat.exe to do the notification. Blat is a free, simple utility that can send a message over SMTP. Here is an example batch file that uses blat:

blat c:\temp\test.txt -to administrator@backupdomain.com -f exchangeserver@domain.com -server mail.backupdomain.com

The file test.txt consists of a single line:

Exchange Server Service Down - check servers!

While this isn't necessarily the most elegant solution available, it is simple, it works, and there's not a lot of configuration necessary. If your organization has numerous servers, you may want to consider fancying things up a bit so the text file will tell you which Exchange server has a service down. Note that you probably shouldn't rely upon your Exchange server's SMTP service to deliver the notification message, as the message alerting you the SMTP service is down won't get through! If your messaging infrastructure is really important, you should probably consider using a monitoring and performance package such as Microsoft Operations Manager or the NetIQ suite.