Tag Archives: Office 365

Exchange Online, Mail, Microsoft, Office 365

Testing Office 365 SMTP relay

March 15, 2021 moh10ly Leave a comment

In order to test Office 365 SMTP relay you will have to create a user with an Exchange online license. After the email is activated for this user you can test this user for relay with the following powershell.

First connect to Microsoft Online service with this user that you’ll be using for relaying.

$msolcred = Get-Credential

Next edit the following powershell with the user’s e-mail and the recipient’s too

Send-MailMessage -From Office365User@Domain.com -To info@moh10ly.com -Subject “Test Email” -Body “Test SMTP Relay Service” -SmtpServer smtp.office365.com -Credential $msolcred -UseSsl -Port 587

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn554323(v=exchg.150).aspx

This test is known as Client SMTP submission you can also use a different method for multiple devices where you can configure them all to point to a single server (IIS) in a method known as IIS for relay with Office 365 however, all the methods what involve office 365 (Only) for relay will require a user with Exchange online license assigned to it.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn592151%28v=exchg.150%29.aspx

Note:

The use of this command is not recommended for security reasons in particular for not supporting the modern protocols. use it on your own risk and make sure the user assigned to this service has no privilege’s or not any Office 365 feature admin or power user.

Exchange Online, Office 365, Security

Mimecast trust cert hacked in Microsoft supply chain

January 20, 2021 moh10ly Leave a comment

The Threatpost.com and other cyber security news published articles claiming that A Mimecast-issued certificate used to authenticate some of the company’s products to Microsoft 365 Exchange Web Services has been “compromised by a sophisticated threat actor,” the company has announced.

Mimecast provides email security services that customers can apply to their Microsoft 365 accounts by establishing a connection to Mimecast’s servers. The certificate in question is used to verify and authenticate those connections made to Mimecast’s Sync and Recover (backups for mailbox folder structure, calendar content and contacts from Exchange On-Premises or Microsoft 365 mailboxes), Continuity Monitor (looks for disruptions in email traffic) and Internal Email Protect (IEP) (inspects internally generated emails for malicious links, attachments or for sensitive content).

A compromise means that cyberattackers could take over the connection, though which inbound and outbound mail flows, researchers said. It would be possible to intercept that traffic, or possibly to infiltrate customers’ Microsoft 365 Exchange Web Services and steal information.

Reference:

https://threatpost.com/mimecast-certificate-microsoft-supply-chain-attack/162965/

https://www.crn.com/news/security/hackers-compromise-mimecast-certificate-for-microsoft-authentication

Microsoft Teams, Office 365, Skype for Business, VoIP

3- Migrate Users from Skype for Business 2015 to Teams

January 10, 2021 moh10ly Leave a comment

Hybrid Integration

In my last post about Skype for Business / Office 365 Skype for Business Online/Teams migration article I discussed the steps of how to create a hybrid environment between Skype for Business on-premises and went through the troubleshooting of each issue I have been through. In this article I am going to discuss the migration of users from on-premises to the cloud through UI and PowerShell.

Migrating users

This article will assume that you are planning to migrate users from Skype for Business Frontend 2015 Server and that you already have a hybrid configuration in place. If so then you’re going to fulfill the following prerequisites:

Update your PowerShell to 5.1 Framework https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=54616
Install Skype for Business Online Powershell Module https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39366
Create a temporary admin user with MFA disabled.

To check the currently installed PowerShell run the following cmdlet

$PSVersionTable

After you Download and install PowerShell 5.1 you might need to restart the server. In which case the PowerShell will show that it is updated to the required version.

After Installing the Skype Online Connector Module, We will be able to connect right after launching PowerShell

To do so type:

Import-Module SkypeOnlineConnector

Connecting to Office 365 (Teams Online or Skype for Business Online)

The process of connecting to Office 365 Online PowerShell sounds easy but with MFA enforced in your environment you’ll have a nightmare mix of errors when you try so.

I have came through a lot of errors trying to force the use of PowerShell with MFA user authentication but eventually came to realize that Microsoft still does not support MFA for some cmdlets like Move-CsUser for instance.

So In short, to connect you’ll need to have a global or Teams admin user with MFA disabled to do so.

To create a new Skype Online Session enter:

– Make sure you start the regular PowerShell as admin and not Skype for Business Management Shell.

If you run these commands from SfB Management Shell you’ll get an error

So first, We will import the Skype Online connector Module

Import-Module SkypeOnlineConnector

Then get the OverRidePowershell URI using the command:

Get-CsOnlinePowerShellEndPoint

Next, We will connect and authenticate to our tenant using the following cmdlet

$sfbsess = New-CsOnlineSession -Username User@domain.onmicrosoft.com -OverRidePowerShellUri https://admin4a.online.lync.com/OcsPowershellOAuth –Verbose

Moving Users to Teams

To Move users to Office 365, You need to first provide credentials of the User with MFA disabled and then use the command Move-CsUser

An Example:

$Creds = Get-Credential

Moving User

Move-CsUser –Identity user@domain.com –target “sipfed.online.lync.com” –hostedMigrationOverRideUri https://admin4a.online.lync.com/HostedMigration/hostedmigrationservice.svc –ProxyPool “YourFEPool.Domain.local” –Credential $Creds

Let’s check the status of the migrated user, The hosting provider attribute is what we care about as it tells us where the user is homed at.

Checking the user from Teams Portal

Users seems to be licensed, online and can now login using the Microsoft Teams app.

Bulk Enable Users and assign Tel URI numbers to them

In case you have a big number of users that you want to enable them online

# Please provide your O365 admin credential

$creds = Get-Credential

-PSSession (New-CsOnlineSession $cred) -AllowClobber

$csv = Import-csv “C:\Users\Mohammed\users.csv”

ForEach ($user in $csv) {

Write-host now enabling $user.alias

Move-CsUser –Identity $user.alias –target “sipfed.online.lync.com” –hostedMigrationOverRideUri https://admin4a.online.lync.com/HostedMigration/hostedmigrationservice.svc –ProxyPool “YourFEPool.Domain.local” –Credential $creds

}

The CSV File will look like this

Alias

user@domain.com

user2@domain.com

Errors you might face

Error 1:

When you have your on-premises user enabled for dialin you will probably get the following error if you try to migrate them to Skype for Business online or teams.

Move-Csuser :: HostedMisrat ion fault: Error=(511), Description=(The user could not be moved because he or she is enabled for dial-in conferencing on-premises, but has not been an assigned an Audio Conferencing license in Office 365. Users must be licensed before they can be moved to Teams or Skype for Business Online.)

If you are sure do want to use migrate this user without an Audio Conferencing license, specify the

“BypassAudioConferencingCheck” switch. ) At line: 1 char: 1

The Solution is to either provide an audio conferencing license or as it is showing in the error itself as it says use the switch -BypassAudioConferencingCheck to ignore that.

Error 2:

When trying to import the session, I got the following error

the runspace state is not valid for this operation for PowerShell Online.

Solution: To overcome this problem you’ll need to use the overridePowershellUri Parameter in the New-CsOnlineSession in order to connect to Skype online powershell.

To get your tenant’s PowerShell URI use the cmdlet Get-CsOnlinePowerShellEndPoint

What you need to use is the AbsoluteUri

Error 3:

When you try to import the SkypeOnlineConnector module and then run the New-CsOnlineSession cmdlet from Skype for Business Management Shell you’ll get the following error after authenticating.

Sorry, but we’re having trouble signing you in.

AADSTS50011: The reply URL specified in the request does not match the reply URLs configured for the application: ‘7716031e-6f8b-45a4-b82b-922b1af0fbb4’. More details: Reply address did not match because of case sensitivity.

Troubleshooting details

If you contact your administrator, send this info to them.
Copy info to clipboard

Request Id: f0f97265-4669-4e4f-bcf7-609469e92f00

Correlation Id: 829c8a2b-f697-416f-bfa6-4a794a229a13

Timestamp: 2021-01-10T23:00:10Z

Message: AADSTS50011: The reply URL specified in the request does not match the reply URLs configured for the application: ‘7716031e-6f8b-45a4-b82b-922b1af0fbb4’. More details: Reply address did not match because of case sensitivity.

Advanced diagnostics: Disable

If you plan on getting support for an issue, turn this on and try to reproduce the error. This will collect additional information that will help troubleshoot the issue.

Solution:

Run the cmdlets from Windows PowerShell as admin not Skype for Business Management shell.

References:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/upgrade-to-teams-on-prem-overview

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/34339.skype-for-business-online-enable-your-tenant-for-modern-authentication.aspx

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/skypeforbusiness/hybrid/move-users-from-on-premises-to-skype-for-business-online

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-powershell-install

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/skypeforbusiness/troubleshoot/hybrid-move-sfb-online/move-csuser-hostedmigration-fault-507

Microsoft Teams, Office 365, Skype4Business

error when Installing Nuget module for Microsoft Teams integration

January 9, 2021 moh10ly Leave a comment

Story

I got a client requesting to integrate Skype for Business 2015 with Microsoft Teams. Skype for Business 2015 is installed on Windows Server 2012 R2 which has PowerShell 4.0

I already installed PowerShell 5.1 and restarted the server in question.

When I tried to install the Microsoft Teams PowerShell Module to integrate Skype for Business with Teams I got the following error:

Error

PS C:\Users\Admin> Install-Module MicrosoftTeams

NuGet provider is required to continue
PowerShellGet requires NuGet provider version ‘2.8.5.201’ or newer to interact with NuGet-based repositories. The NuGet
provider must be available in ‘C:\Program Files\PackageManagement\ProviderAssemblies’ or
‘C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\PackageManagement\ProviderAssemblies’. You can also install the
NuGet provider by running ‘Install-PackageProvider -Name NuGet -MinimumVersion 2.8.5.201 -Force’. Do you want
PowerShellGet to install and import the NuGet provider now?
[Y] Yes [N] No [S] Suspend [?] Help (default is “Y”): y
WARNING: Unable to download from URI ‘https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=627338&clcid=0x409′ to ”.
WARNING: Unable to download the list of available providers. Check your internet connection.
PackageManagement\Install-PackageProvider : No match was found for the specified search criteria for the provider
‘NuGet’. The package provider requires ‘PackageManagement’ and ‘Provider’ tags. Please check if the specified package
has the tags.
At C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\PowerShellGet\1.0.0.1\PSModule.psm1:7405 char:21
+ …     $null = PackageManagement\Install-PackageProvider -Name $script:N …
+   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     + CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (Microsoft.Power…PackageProvider:InstallPackageProvider) [Install-Pac
    kageProvider], Exception
     + FullyQualifiedErrorId : NoMatchFoundForProvider,Microsoft.PowerShell.PackageManagement.Cmdlets.InstallPackagePro
    vider

PackageManagement\Import-PackageProvider : No match was found for the specified search criteria and provider name
‘NuGet’. Try ‘Get-PackageProvider -ListAvailable’ to see if the provider exists on the system.
At C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\PowerShellGet\1.0.0.1\PSModule.psm1:7411 char:21
+ …     $null = PackageManagement\Import-PackageProvider -Name $script:Nu …
+   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     + CategoryInfo          : InvalidData: (NuGet:String) [Import-PackageProvider], Exception
     + FullyQualifiedErrorId : NoMatchFoundForCriteria,Microsoft.PowerShell.PackageManagement.Cmdlets.ImportPackageProv
    ider

More Details:

Although I have PowerShell 5.1 module installed but still it seems problems wont go away. It’s part of Microsoft’s main requirement to have Windows PowerShell 5.1 and to import the Microsoft Teams Module for an easy installation and integration with Teams as it leverages the Module MicrosoftTeams to make things easy.

When looking at the details of the error, it seems as if PowerShell is trying to connect to a particular link to download and install the NuGet Provider which is part of installing the MicrosoftTeams Module.

The error below can be noticed to be the cause.

Resolution:

After doing some digging it turns out that since April 2020 Microsoft has disabled the use of TLS Version 1.0 and 1.1 so people who are working on old Windows Server edition or any application servers that utilize these protocols will now have to force PowerShell or any other app to use the TLS 1.2 Version.

In order to fix this, You will need to run the following Script on your PowerShell as an Admin

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12

See the announcement here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/gallery/installing-psget?view=powershell-7.1

After running this script, I was able to install NuGet and run the installation of MicrosoftTeams PowerShell Module

Hope this helps

ATP, AZURE, Linux, Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Security

Onboarding Linux Client (DEEPIN) to Microsoft Azure Threat protection ATP using ubuntu repository

May 18, 2020 moh10ly Leave a comment

Installing Microsoft Azure Threat Protection (ATP) on Linux Devices

While playing with ATP on some windows devices, I was in the mood of trying the new Deepin 20 desktop flavor which is a famous Chinese Linux OS based system.

Microsoft doesn’t indicate anywhere that installation of ATP on a Linux client is possible but Linux server is mentioned in the official ATP installation documents.

How to Install?

After I installed the Deepin OS, I was really impressed by the new beautiful Linux design so I plan to use it and have it secure with ATP.

Prerequisites:

Configure the Linux software repository for Ubuntu and Debian
Application Installation
Download the onboarding Package
Client Config

1-Configure the Linux software repository for Ubuntu and Debian

You will need to install the required libraries, install Gpg, apt-transport-https and update repository metadata using the following commands one by one.

sudo apt-get install curl

sudo apt-get install libplist-utils

curl -o microsoft.list https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/18.04/insiders-fast.list

sudo mv ./microsoft.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/microsoft-ubuntu.list
sudo apt-get install gpg

curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo apt-key add –
sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https
sudo apt-get update

After successfully installing all the libraries, I will go ahead and install the application

2- Application Installation

From the Linux client Terminal using sudo power user run the following script

sudo apt-get install mdatp

Once finished, You can go back to the ATP portal and download the Linux Onboarding package on the linux server/client you want to onboard

3- Download the onboarding Package

Since I am doing a single deployment not bulk, then I will go to the Microsoft Defender Security Center’s setting page and download the Linux package from the device management section.

The steps for the onboarding is already mentioned on that page so after you download the script you’ll know exactly what to do next.

The file is 9kb python in size

Copy the file to your Linux Desktop

4- Client Config

From the terminal type in chmod a+x MicrosoftDefenderATPOnBoardingLinuxServer.py and hit enter

Note: python must be installed on this linux dervice.

Then type python /MicrosoftDefenderATPOnBoardingLinuxServer.py

This will run pretty quick and will assign your Linux server/client with your Organization ID.

To see the Organization ID type:

mdatp –health orgId

Few minutes later you’ll be able to see the installation completion and the status through this command

Check if WDATP is functioning as expected

mdatp –health healthy

Check if WDATP agent is enabled

mdatp –health realTimeProtectionEnabled

Let’s check on our ATP portal and see if the machine is showing there.

Note: It might take 5-15 mins to update the definitions of WDATP when onboarding.

Running a detection Test:

curl -o ~/Downloads/eicar.com.txt https://www.eicar.org/download/eicar.com.txt

In few seconds the file has disappeared

Checking for threats

mdatp –threat –list –pretty

Let’s see this on the ATP Portal

This is just a test malware not a real one therefore it wont harm your machine at all.

Hope this helps you with your deployments

Ref:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/microsoft-defender-atp/linux-install-manually

Deepin 20 Beta version

https://www.deepin.org/en/2020/04/15/deepin-20-beta/

ADFS, Microsoft Azure, Office 365

ADFS and wAP trust breaks with 500 Internal Server error

April 21, 2020 moh10ly Leave a comment

Error code

Yesterday my colleague sent me a message informing me that ADFS is not working. When I tried to login to Office 365 Portal page with a federated domain’s user I got a 500 Internal Server Error.

When it occurs:

If you are using Office 365 with ADFS Integration in place, You might get this error when trying to authenticate your users to login to Office 365 or any of its services.

WAP Server

In this environment I am using WAP Proxy server behind ADFS and when installing this I configured a trust using a Public Certificate but for some reason this trust was broken.

Investigation and Solution:

After investigating the WAP proxy it seems it had couple of problems:

1- Could not resolve ADFS server name on WAP Server.

In my environment where we are using Sentinel, We have isolated the primary DC in the environment and due to this the WAP server could not reach to the DNS Server. I solved this by pointing the machine to the secondary DC and add the ADFS hostname to the host file.

2- The Web Application Proxy Service would not start.

The errors related to the service not starting in the event viewer were all pointing to a certificate thumbprint which didn’t even exist in the WAP’s personal store.

Event Viewer Errors

There were couple of errors related to the certificate and Service issue, Event ID 224, Event ID 12025, Event ID 7023 and Event ID 224.

The one which mostly got my attention was the 224:

The federation server proxy configuration could not be updated with the latest configuration on the federation service.

Retrieval of proxy config data from federation server using trust certificate with thumbprint failed with status code unauthorized. The remote server returned an error code 401.

Resolution:

From WAP server’s fire up PowerShell as an admin and list the certificate you have got on your Personal store and match the ThumbPrints of the certificate in the error to make sure it exists or not.

Even if the certificate exists you will still need to re-establish trust with ADFS to make sure WAP can connect to ADFS without an issue.

Dir Cert:\localmachine\my

This should show the certificates you have got on your store.

Now pick up the valid Public certificate which you want to use for the trust and use the below command to establish the trust

Install-WebApplicationProxy –CertificateThumbprint “Enter Certificate ThumbPrint here” –FederationServiceName “ADFS Public FQDN Here”

After few moments you should see that WAP services went back to normal and you can now login your users to Office 365 portal through ADFS.

Exchange 2019, Exchange Online, Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Powershell

Upgrading Exchange Online PowerShell to V2 Module

January 28, 2020 moh10ly Leave a comment

Managing Exchange Online

If you have Exchange Online and your users are MFA enabled then you most likely will be using Exchange Online’ s ECP (Exchange Control Panel or Admin Center) to connect to Exchange Online PowerShell through the Hybrid Windows since this is the only supported way with MFA.

Clicking on Configure would install the PowerShell Module of Exchange Online which looks like the below screenshot.

New PowerShell with MFA support

If you have launched Exchange Online PowerShell today then you most likely have noticed there’s a red line stating the possibility to try the new (Preview Version) of Exchange PowerShell V2 .

Microsoft has recently released a new version of Exchange Online PowerShell Module which supports MFA and can be run directly from your computer without the need to login to Exchange Online Admin Center and download any files from there. Check details in this link

As stated in the article, the Module is just in preview so it has some known and maybe unknown bugs as well.

How to Install it?

The installation process is pretty straightforward, Launch Windows PowerShel as an Administrator (It’s required for the installation).

Run these 4 cmdlets

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
Install-Module PowershellGet –Force
Update-Module PowershellGet
Install-Module -Name ExchangeOnlineManagement

You might get a warning that the Module you’re about to install is from an Untrusted Repository, Accept it by typing Y and hit enter

Type the following cmdlet to ensure that Exchange Online Management module is installed

Import-Module ExchangeOnlineManagement; Get-Module ExchangeOnlineManagement

Connecting to Exchange Online

To connect to Exchange Online, Run the following cmdlet along with the new parameter –EnableErrorReporting which gives the ability to record all the cmdlets that you have run along with errors generated as well.

Connect-ExchangeOnline -EnableErrorReporting -LogDirectoryPath e:\ExchOnlineLogs.txt -LogLevel All

After connecting, I am going to try and run two commands the Old Cmdlets and New Cmdlet and see the difference between them:

Get-CASMailbox -ResultSize 10
Get-EXOCasMailbox -ResultSize 10

The new Cmdlet has much more details, although it says that it runs faster but it took few seconds more than the old one to run (Probably first time).

After you run those two Cmdlets, There will be two files generated in the log directory which we have pointed the parameter to save files to.

The CSV files have details about the two cmdlets and the HTTP Method they are utilizing in order to connect along the Request and response latency.

This new version seems to be extremely useful esp in environments where such deep details are needed for troubleshooting issues.

Stay tuned for more

Reference:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/exchange/exchange-online/exchange-online-powershell-v2/exchange-online-powershell-v2?view=exchange-ps

ADFS, CRM Dynamics, Microsoft ADFS, Microsoft Azure, Office 365

Error After Migrating ADFS from 2012R2 to 2016

January 6, 2020 moh10ly Leave a comment

The Story:

You might have got a request to upgrade from ADFS 2012 R2 to Windows ADFS 2016.

This process can be complicated especially if you’ll have to migrate the Database as well and it would be more of an issue when the Database is WID (Windows Internal Database) since there’s no much documentation about troubleshooting issues involving WID on ADFS.

I have got a request from a client whom have done a migration with another consultant and obviously it was not done right.

Symptoms

On Windows 2016 ADFS when trying to update the ADFS SSL certificate I get the following error:

Set-AdfsSslCertificate -ThumbPrint A7etc : PS0159 : The Operation is not supported at the current Farm Behavior Level ‘1’. Raise the farm to at least version ‘2’ before retrying.

At line:1 char:1

Trying to update the database from 1 to 2,3 will also fail with the following error:

Invoke-AdfsFarmBehaviorLevelRaise

Error:

Database upgrade cannot be performed on AdfsServer.domain.com. Error: A database for the target behavior level already exists.

Troubleshooting:

If you’re installing ADFS on WID (Windows Internal Database) you should run the following to get the database name/Connect String

On ADFS Server

Open Windows PowerShell

Enter the following:
$adfs = gwmi -Namespace root/ADFS -Class SecurityTokenService

and hit Enter
Enter the following:
$adfs.ConfigurationDatabaseConnectionString

and hit enter.
You should see the connect string information.

Go to Service Console and stop ADFS Service or from Powershell type Net stop adfssrv

Run SQL Server 2017 Database Engine Tuning Advisor as an administrator

Use the Server name as this

\\.\pipe\MICROSOFT##WID\tsql\query

As for Authentication, Use the Windows Authentication with the user you’re logged into if you know that’s a privileged user and can authenticate, If not try with a user which you’ve done the upgrade of ADFS with.

After authenticating, You will be able to see AdfsConfiguration , AdfsConfigurationV3 and AdfsArtifactStore. What we need to see is that AdfsConfigurationV3 has data in it and is not totally empty.

After checking and comparing the size between V1 and V3, It appeared that V3 database is empty. So what next?

Solution

Deleting the AdfsConfigurationV3 was the first thought that hit my mind however, before deleting anything I always take a snapshot of the VM since backing up the WID is more painful and takes more time than simply backing up the VM (Checkpoint, Snapshot).

So the steps to fix this issue is

Taking a VM Snapshot/Checkpoint/Backup.
Download Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio from this link https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=864329
Install Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio on ADFS Server
Run MS SQL Server Management Studio as Administrator
In the Server Name type :

\\.\pipe\MICROSOFT##WID\tsql\query

Leave the Authentication as it is and logon.

From the SQL Object Explorer right click and Delete the AdfsConfigurationV3 and leave AdfsConfiguration Database only.

After deleting the Database, Start ADFS Service to make sure that it can load the old database without an issue.
Then run the cmdlet Invoke-AdfsFarmBehaviorLevelRaise and Accept by typing Y and Enter.

This might take about 5 minutes to finish.

When this process is done, You should see the following message indicating the success of the Database Upgrade.

To double check, We will run the cmdlet Get-AdfsFarmInformation

Updating Certificate

After this success, I am going to run the cmdlet below to replace the current certificate with the new one

Set-AdfsSslCertificate -Thumbprint 9b19426e17180c0b9c5d4atye53dda3bce9dbff

And here we go. It works perfectly fine

References:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/identity/ad-fs/troubleshooting/ad-fs-tshoot-sql

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/identity/ad-fs/design/federation-server-farm-using-sql-server

Exchange Online, Licensing, Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Powershell, Scripting

Use Group Based Licensing to Active Office 365 Users

December 25, 2019 moh10ly Leave a comment

The Story

I got a request to place users into Security Groups for management purposes, The client have already users active but many of those users have left the work place and still have E3 or E1 Licenses which they should not have since this is pricey licenses and backing up users details is the easiest and most cost effective way of handling this.

So, To start (Prerequisites):

The Group based licensing management is a new feature, Was introduced in 2019 and not many people know that it is there however, This feature doesn’t come for free as you know (Since it’s Microsoft) and you must have a license for it or at least have users with E3 licensing model. So the requirements are:

– Azure AD Premium P1 or Higher
– Office 365 E3 or Higher.
– EMS or Higher.

How does it work?

In order for you to get this to work you need to make sure you have planned from where you want to manage those groups and their licenses, Online? Or On-Premises?

IF Online

If you’re going to do this online, then you need to create a group for each Licensing Model which represents the intended License and its users e.g. Office365-E1 is going to be created as a security group and dedicated to E1 License users.

Office365-E3 will also be created the same way and users of License type E3 will be added to it.

If On-Premises

If you’re going to manage those groups on-premises, Then you must have ADConnect (Azure AD Sync) tool to sync those groups after creating them.

In my case I have created those groups in the following manner:

After creating those groups, You will need to sync them to Office 365 using ADConnect. To force this to sync immediately fire up Powershell on Azure Connect Server and type

Start-ADSyncSyncCycle -PolicyType delta

What If I have users already assigned with License?

If you have users already assigned licenses and want to manage them using Group Based licensing then you’re going to have to get a list of all your users with their Licenses information into a CSV file and Import those users to the groups you created base on the license they have.

I created a PowerShell that would match user’s names and based on the license mentioned in the CSV file would add them to the relevant group but first you need to export Users from Office 365.

Export Users and their license from Office 365

First of all we’ll connect to Office 365 MSOL Service using Online Powershell

Get-MsolUser -All |Where {$_.IsLicensed -eq $true } |Select DisplayName,UsageLocation,@{n="Licenses Type";e={$_.Licenses.AccountSKUid}},SignInName,UserPrincipalName,@{n="ProxyAddresses";e={$_.ProxyAddresses}}| Export-csv -Path C:ExportlicenseUsage.csv -notype

So this is how my CSV look right after I exported the users, We need to do some tuning on this CSV file to clean it and get it ready for our PowerShell.

There are total of 6 columns in this folder, If for whatever reason you wanted to use the ProxyAddress to distinguish users feel free to keep them in the script but in my case I didn’t need them so I deleted the entire column.

So I will keep the following (Remove Spacing between License Type)

DisplayName
UsageLocation
LicenseType
SignInName
UserPrincipalName

The Value of the License Type is usually formatted like this “TenantName: License” and in order to make this column useful I am going to remove the Tenant name from all the cells.

Find and Replace can easily remove and clean these values for you.

After cleaning the column, this is how it looks

This should be useful for us now along with the PowerShell to add the users to their relevant groups.

On Active Directory from an elevated PowerShell

Run PowerShell ISE from a privileged account and copy + paste this script in ISE,

$ImportedUsers = Import-csv "C:\Users\AD\Desktop\ExportlicenseUsage.csv"

Foreach ($ImportedUser in $ImportedUsers){
$License = $ImportedUser.LicensesType
$E3 = "E3-Office365"
$E1 = "E1-Office365"
$EMS = "EMS-Office365"
$Sam = $ImportedUser.SamAccountName
$ImportedUPN = $ImportedUser.UserPrincipalName

$AllUsers = Get-ADUser -Filter * -Properties *
Foreach ($User in $AllUsers)
{
$UPN = $User.UserPrincipalName

if($user.UserPrincipalName -eq $ImportedUPN -and $License -match "EMS")
{
Add-ADGroupMember -Identity $EMS -Members $Sam
Write-Host $($UPN) "User has EMS License and has been added to the Group EMS" -ForegroundColor DarkGreen -BackgroundColor White
}
ElseIf ($user.UserPrincipalName -eq $ImportedUPN -and $License -Contains "STANDARDPACK")
{
Add-ADGroupMember -Identity $E1 -Members $Sam
Write-Host $($UPN) "User has E1 License and has been added to the Group E1" -ForegroundColor black -BackgroundColor green
}
ElseIf ($user.UserPrincipalName -eq $ImportedUPN -and $License -Contains "ENTERPRISEPACK")
{
Add-ADGroupMember -Identity $E3 -Members $Sam
Write-Host $($UPN) "User has E3 License and has been added to the Group E3" -ForegroundColor Blue -BackgroundColor White
}
}
}

Enabling Group Based License from Azure Portal

After this script finishes, I can open Azure Portal

From Azure Active Directory > Licenses > All Products

I will choose the license which I want to assign to a group of which I have created on my on-premises AD

Click on the License (Office 365 E1) and choose Assign from top menu

Make sure you select assignment options and customize the license according to the products you want your group members to use then click on Users and Groups and select the relevant Group which you’ve created (In my case it’s E1-Office365)

Here, The group has been assigned

Click assign and you should be done

We will do the same for E3 Users

NOTE

From now on, Removing any user from this group will revoke their license and any service connected to it, You must be very careful when removing users from this group.

Microsoft has done great job covering this thoroughly and in a great detail including Scripts to be able to do many things like grabbing users who have an inherited license from a group or manually assigned. I am writing down the references if you’re more curious into these.

References:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/users-groups-roles/licensing-groups-assign

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/users-groups-roles/licensing-ps-examples

Active Directory, Exchange 2016, Exchange 2019, Exchange Online, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Active Directory Sync, Microsoft Exchange, Office 365

How to Sync Cloud User to On-premises AD ?

December 19, 2019 moh10ly Leave a comment

The Story:

I have got this client who constantly keeps on making the mistake of create user from Cloud and provision them with a license in an Exchange Hybrid environment.

Although this is not difficult to fix but it’s not the recommended approach when creating a new user especially in a Hybrid environment since Exchange on-premises won’t recognize this user and most likely will consider any incoming emails from it as spoof or spam.

How to Create a Cloud user from Exchange On-premises?

From Exchange on-premises ECP Admin panel you have the option to directly create user on-cloud which will also create a user object on on-premises AD.

Second option – Using Powershell

It’s not that much different than the Web UI option but it’s just for people who prefer using PowerShell than GUI

Enable-RemoteMailbox –Identity User –RemoteRoutingAddress user@yourTenant.mail.onmicrosoft.com

The reason to follow those two methods is due to the need of Exchange on-premises being aware of each of those users so mail flow between Exchange on-premises and Online would not get affected and route this users mail to the wrong place or flag it as spammed or spoof …etc.

The Real Question now is: How to Sync Cloud User to On-premises AD ?

If by mistake we created a user on Cloud (Office 365) and we forgot to create an AD User for this account, that user might already have started using his account on Office 365 (Sharepoint, Exchange, Teams) etc.

There also might be the intention of moving users from Cloud to On-premises Exchange in case the company wanted to decrease their spending on cloud users and in this case when Migrating a cloud user to on-premises you will get the following errors:

test3@domain.com

Status: Failed

test3@domain.com Skipped item details

User status

Data migrated:

Migration rate:

Last successful sync date:

Error: MigrationPermanentException: Cannot find a recipient that has mailbox GUID ‎’03c9764e-8b8e-4f33-94d1-ef098c4de656‎’. –> Cannot find a recipient that has mailbox GUID ‎’03c9764e-8b8e-4f33-94d1-ef098c4de656‎’.

So how do we overcome this situation since syncing a user might require you to delete the cloud user and recreate it on AD?

Solution:

To sync the user from the Cloud to on-premises you will need to follow these steps :

1- Create an on-premises Mailbox where the following attributes would be matching the cloud user

UserPrincipalname
ProxyAddresses
SamAccountName
Alias

2- The Location of the OU where the On-premises user is going to be created must be provisioned by ADConnect (Azure AD Connect)

You can look which of these OU are provisioned by Starting AD Connect Sync Manager

By verifying the user you created in the AD is in the right OU, You can now start AD Sync from PowerShell to speed up the process.

Below, You can see the user has been successfully synchronized to the cloud without any issue.

Now we’ll see it from the portal to confirm the user is synced with AD

Depending on the Source anchor being used in ADConnect there might be a GUID conflict or not, You will get an error similar to when trying to migrate the user in the beginning however you can solve this by replacing the cloud user’s GUID (ImmutableID) with the on-premises user which will force the user to merge with the On-prem user.

Let’s confirm in our case if the user on-cloud has a matching GUID with the one on-premises.

From AD run CMD or Powershell you can use the following command to get the user’s ImmutableID (ObjectGUID) .

ldifde -f c:\Test.txt -d “cn=Test3,DC=Domain,DC=com”

From Notepad checking the user we just exported you can see the Immutable ID on AD for the User test3 is IkTni9mw7Ee4YefeGpz7IA==

To be able to see the user on Office 365, We need to logon to MSOL through Exchange Online PowerShell

Connect to Exchange Online’s powershell using your Online ECP.

Once you click on Configure this should download an executable file that will launch PowerShell Online which allows you to use the Modern Authentication (MFA) to use PowerShell safely.

Connect-Msoluser will connect you to Office 365 and you’ll be able to get the user’s properties and see if the Immutable ID is matching to the user’s GUID.

Once you’re connect you can use the following cmdlet to get the user’s properties.

Get-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName test3@domain.com |fl DisplayName,ImmutableID

You can see they are matching each other, In case there’s a conflict then you can simply set the online user’s Immutable ID to match the on-premises user’s ImmutableID.

Once done, Go and force ADConnect to sync the user and you’ll see if the problem has been resolved. The command for changing the Immutableid is as follows:

Set-MsolUser -UserPrincipleName test3@domain.com -ImmutableID IkTni9mw7Ee4YefeGpz7IA==

Ref:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2956029/migrationpermanentexception-cannot-find-a-recipient-that-has-mailbox-g

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/hybrid-deployment/create-cloud-based-archive

Note:

Hybrid Integration

Migrating users

To check the currently installed PowerShell run the following cmdlet

Connecting to Office 365 (Teams Online or Skype for Business Online)

To create a new Skype Online Session enter:

Moving Users to Teams

An Example:

Moving User

Checking the user from Teams Portal

Bulk Enable Users and assign Tel URI numbers to them

Errors you might face

Error 1:

Error 2:

Error 3:

Solution:

Story

Error

More Details:

Resolution:

See the announcement here:

Installing Microsoft Azure Threat Protection (ATP) on Linux Devices

How to Install?

Prerequisites:

1-Configure the Linux software repository for Ubuntu and Debian

2- Application Installation

3- Download the onboarding Package

4- Client Config

To see the Organization ID type:

Check if WDATP is functioning as expected

Check if WDATP agent is enabled

Running a detection Test:

Checking for threats

Ref:

Deepin 20 Beta version

Error code

When it occurs:

WAP Server

Investigation and Solution:

1- Could not resolve ADFS server name on WAP Server.

2- The Web Application Proxy Service would not start.

Event Viewer Errors

Resolution:

Managing Exchange Online

New PowerShell with MFA support

How to Install it?

Connecting to Exchange Online

Reference:

The Story:

Symptoms

Set-AdfsSslCertificate -ThumbPrint A7etc : PS0159 : The Operation is not supported at the current Farm Behavior Level ‘1’. Raise the farm to at least version ‘2’ before retrying.

Error:

Troubleshooting:

On ADFS Server

Solution

Updating Certificate

The Story

So, To start (Prerequisites):

How does it work?

IF Online

If On-Premises

What If I have users already assigned with License?

Export Users and their license from Office 365

So I will keep the following (Remove Spacing between License Type)

On Active Directory from an elevated PowerShell

Enabling Group Based License from Azure Portal

NOTE

References:

The Story:

How to Create a Cloud user from Exchange On-premises?

Second option – Using Powershell

The Real Question now is: How to Sync Cloud User to On-premises AD ?

So how do we overcome this situation since syncing a user might require you to delete the cloud user and recreate it on AD?

Solution:

1- Create an on-premises Mailbox where the following attributes would be matching the cloud user

2- The Location of the OU where the On-premises user is going to be created must be provisioned by ADConnect (Azure AD Connect)

The Troubleshooting Guy