Top Exchange Servers Interview Questions Part – 3

1.What must be done to an AD forest before Exchange can be deployed?

Setup.exe /forestprep

2.What connector type would you use to connect to the Internet,and what are the two methods of sending mail over that connector?

SMTP Connector:

Forward to smart host or use DNS to route to each address

3.What is the maximum amount of databases that can be hosted on Exchange 2003 Enterprise?

20 databases. 4 SGs x 5 DBs.

4.How would you optimize Exchange 2003 memory usage on a Windows Server 2003 server with mre than 1Gb of memory?

Add /3Gb switch to boot.ini

5.What Exchange process is responsible for communication with AD?

DSACCESS

6.What 3 types of domain controller does Exchange access?

Normal Domain Controller,Global Catalog,Configuration Domain Controller.

7.What are the standard port numbers for SMTP,POP3,IMAP4,RPC,LDAP and Global Catalog?

* 25SMTP
* 110 POP3
* 143IMAP4
* 135RPC
* 389LDAP
* 636LDAP (SSL)

8.What are the pre-requisite for installation of Exchange Server?

The pre-requisite are IIS,SMTP,WWW service ,NNTP,W3SVC

* .NET Framework
* ASP.NET
* Then run Forestprep
* The run domainprep

9.What is Disaster Recovery Plan?

Deals with the restoration of computer system with all attendant software and connections to full functionality under a variety of damaging or interfering external conditions.

10.What are the new features in Exchange 2003:

* Updated Outlook Web Access.
* Updated VSAPI (Virus Scanning Application Programming Interface) but in Exchange Server 2003 Enterprise,there are Specific

Features which :

* Eight-node Clustering using the Windows Clustering service in Windows Server (Ent.and Datacenter)
* Multiple storage groups.
* X.400 connectors which supports both TCP/IP and X.2

11.What would a rise in remote queue length generally indicate?

This means mail is not being sent to other servers. This can be explained by outages or performance issues with the network or remote servers.

12.What would a rise in the Local Delivery queue generally mean?

This indicates a performance issue or outage on the local server. Reasons could be slowness in consulting AD,slowness in handing messages off to local delivery or SMTP delivery. It could also be databases being dismounted or a lack of disk space.

13.What is Semaphore? What is deadlock?

Semaphore is synchronization tool to solve critical-section problem,can be used to control access to the critical section for a process or thread. The main disadvantage (same of mutual-exclusion) is requiring busy waiting.

It will create problems in a multiprogramming system,where a single CPU is shared among many processes. Busy waiting wastes CPU cycles. Deadlock is a situation when two or more processes are waiting indefinitely for an event that can be caused by only one of the waiting processes. The implementation of a semaphore with a waiting queue may result in this situation.

14.What is Virtual Memory?

Virtual memory is a technique that allows the execution of processes that may not be completely in memory. A separation of user logical memory from physical memory allows an extremely large virtual memory to be provided for programmers when only a smaller physical memory is available.

It is commonly implemented by demand paging. A demand paging system is similar to a paging system with swapping. Processes reside on secondary memory (which is usually a disk). When we want to execute a process,we swap it into memory.

15.What is SSL?

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer,a protocol developed by Netscape for transmitting private documents via internet. It works by encrypting data sent over SSL connection. URLs that require a SSL connection starts as https. Browsers like Netscape navigator and Internet Explorer support SSL.

16.What two protocols are used in Java RMI technology?

Java Object Serialization and HTTP. The Object Serialization protocol is used to marshal call and return data. The HTTP protocol is used to “POST” a remote method invocation and obtain return data when circumstances warrant.

17.What are sites? What are they used for?

Site is a collection of well-connected TCP/IP subnets. Sites are used for defining the topology of Active Directory replication.

18.What’s the difference between a site link’s schedule and interval?

Schedule enables you to list weekdays or hours when the site link is available for replication to happen in the give interval. Interval is the re occurrence of the inter site replication in given minutes. It ranges from 15 – 10,080 mins. The default interval is 180 mins.

19.What is the KCC?

The KCC(Knowledge Consistency Checker) is a built-in process that runs on all domain controllers and generates replication topology for the Active Directory forest.

The KCC creates separate replication topologies depending on whether replication is occurring within a site (intrasite) or between sites (intersite). The KCC also dynamically adjusts the topology to accommodate new domain controllers,domain controllers moved to and from sites,changing costs and schedules,and domain controllers that are temporarily unavailable.

20.What is the ISTG? Who has that role by default?

Intersite Topology Generator (ISTG),which is responsible for the connections among the sites. By default Windows 2003 Forest level functionality has this role. By Default the first Server has this role. If that server can no longer preform this role then the next server with the highest GUID then takes over the role of ISTG.

21.What are GPO Preferences?

Group Policy Preferences are a heap of new Group Policy settings that were released with Windows Server 2008 that allows IT administrators to pretty much do anything they want to configured computers in an corporate environment.

Preferences only require a Windows 2000 Active Directory and they need to be managed from a minimum of Windows Vista/2008 however they can be applied to Windows XP Service Pack 2 (or greater) workstations.

22.What are the major changes in AD in Windows Server 2008 R2?

The following changes are available in Windows Server 2008 R2: Active Directory Recycle Bin Active Directory module for Windows PowerShell and Windows PowerShell™ cmdlets Active Directory Administrative Center Active Directory Best Practices Analyzer

Active Directory Web Services Authentication mechanism assurance Offline domain join Managed Service Accounts Active Directory Management Pack Bridgehead Server Selection

23.What is the AD Recycle Bin?How do you use it?

Active Directory Recycle Bin helps minimize directory service downtime by enhancing your ability to preserve and restore accidentally deleted Active Directory objects without restoring Active Directory data from backups.

By default,Active Directory Recycle Bin in Windows Server 2008 R2 is disabled. To enable Active Directory Recycle Bin,your environment must meet the requirements to completed scenario.

24.What is tombstone lifetime attribute?

The tombstone lifetime in an Active Directory forest determines how long a deleted object – aka a ‘tombstone’ – is retained in Active Directory. The tombstone lifetime is determined by the value of the tombstone Lifetime attribute on the Directory Service object in the configuration directory partition.

Tombstone Lifetime assists in removing objects from replicated servers and preventing restores from reintroducing a deleted object. Actually when an object is deleted from Active Directory,it is not physically removed from the Active Directory for some days.

Instead,the Active Directory sets the ‘isDeleted’ attribute of the deleted object to TRUE and move it to a special container called ‘Tombstone’.

25.What are AD Snapshots?How do you use them?

Snapshots are a feature of Active Directory introduced in Windows Server 200

8. In order to use them you don’t have to have your domain running in Windows Server 2008 mode but you do need at least one Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2 domain controller. Snapshots are created and manipulated using the ntdsutil.exe command line utility.

Once you have an Active Directory snapshot you can export it using dsamain.exe (otherwise known as the Active Directory database mounting tool),and you can then interact with it using any Active Directory or LDAP tool.

26.What is Offline Domain Join?How do you use it?

Offline domain join is a new process that computers that run Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 can use to join a domain without contacting a domain controller. This makes it possible to join computers to a domain in locations where there is no connectivity to a corporate network.

First the computer account is created or provisioned on the domain controller and the resulting information is stored in the metadata,and then this information is transferred to the joining computer.

The workstation then performs the joining part without having the connectivity with the domain controller. You need to use Djoin.exe on the domain controller to accomplish above. Please use Djoin.exe /to see the syntaxes. An example is given below: Djoin.exe /provision /domain Name_Of_the_Domain_To_Be_Joined /machine Client_Computer_Name /savefile File_Name.txt

27.What are Fine-Grained Passwords?How do you use them?

Windows Server 2008 Active Directory is a feature called fine grained password policies (FGPPs).In Server 2000 and 200
3. Active Directory domains,you could apply only one password and account lockout policy to all users in the domain,so if you wanted different password and account lockout settings for different sets of users,you had to either create a password filter or deploy multiple domains.

In Windows Server 2008 you can use fine grained password policies to specify multiple password policies,apply different password restrictions and account lockout policies to different sets of users within a single domain. FGPPs become available once the domain has been promoted to Windows Server 2008 Domain Functional Level.

To store fine grained password policies,Windows Server 2008 includes two new object classes in the Active Directory Domain Services schema Password Settings Container and Password Settings. The Password Settings Container object class is created by default under the System container in the domain. It stores the Password Settings objects (PSOs) for that domain.

You cannot rename,move,or delete this container. Policies you create are represented by Password Setting Objects within Active Directory. To manage PSOs you need to use ADSI Edit or an LDIF file.

28.Talk about Restartable Active Directory Domain Services in Windows Server 2008/R
2. What is this feature good for?

Restart able AD DS is a feature in Windows Server 2008 that you can use to perform routine maintenance tasks on a domain controller,such as applying updates or performing offline defragmentation,without restarting the server.

While AD DS is running,a domain controller running Windows Server 2008 behaves the same way as a domain controller running Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Server or Windows Server 200

3. While AD DS is stopped,you can continue to log on to the domain by using a domain account if other domain controllers are available to service the logon request. You can also log on to the domain with a domain account while the domain controller is started in Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM) if other domain controllers are available to service the logon request.

29.What are the changes in auditing in Windows Server 2008/R2?

* Global Object Access Auditing.
* Reason for access” reporting.
* Advanced audit policy settings.

30.How can you forcibly remove AD from a server,and what do you do later?

Demote the server using dcpromo /forceremoval,then remove the metadata from Active directory using ndtsutil. There is no way to get user passwords from AD that I am aware of,but you should still be able to change them. Another way out too Restart the DC is DSRM mode a. Locate the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ProductOptions b. In the right-pane,double-click ProductType. c. Type ServerNT in the Value data box,and then click OK. Restart the server in normal mode its a member server now but AD entries are still there.

Promote the server to a fake domain say ABC.com and then remove gracefully using DCpromo. after you use the dcpromo /forceremoval command,all the remaining metadata for the demoted DC is not deleted on the surviving domain controllers,and therefore you must manually remove it by using the NTDSUTIL command .

31.Can I get user passwords from the AD database?

The passwords in AD are not stored encrypted by default,so they cannot be decrypted. They are hashed. The only way to recover the data from a hash is with some sort of a hacking algorithm that attempts to crack the hash (such tools exist).

32.What’s NTDSUTIL?When do you use it?

NTDSutil is a Windows utility for configuring the heart of Active Directory. Ntdsutil.exe is a command-line tool that provides management facilities for Active Directory .

Use Ntdsutil to perform database maintenance of Active Directory,to manage and control single master operations,and to remove metadata left behind by domain controllers that were removed from the network without being properly uninstalled. By default,Ntdsutil is installed in the Winnt\System32 folder.

33.What are RODCs?

RODCs are additional domain controllers for a domain that host complete,read-only copies of the partitions of the Active Directory database and a read-only copy of the SYSVOL folder contents.

By selectively caching credentials,RODCs address some of the challenges that enterprises can encounter in branch offices and perimeter networks (also known as DMZs) that may lack the physical security that is commonly found in datacenters and hub sites. RODCs also offer a number of manageability improvements that are described in this guide.

This section describes how RODCs work with the rest of the Active Directory environment,the main differences between RODCs and writable domain controllers,and the RODC features that can help resolve a number of security or manageability issues.

34.What are the major benefits of using RODCs?

The following benefits:

* Improved security
* Faster logon times
* More efficient access to resources