Exchange Resource Mailboxes

[Jellyman_4eva]

Hi all,

As some of you are aware I am working my way through Exchange 2k3 stuff at the moment and am trying to think at every stage about the "real life" scenario as well as the "exam" talk...

Anyways here are a few questions which I have been unable to find answers for and I was wondering if someone with real life experience could help..

I would like to create a resource mailbox (Basically a shared mailbox between a few people) I do not want to use a Public Folder for this. So I create a new user and create the mailbox, and then give the necessary people the Read and Full Mailbox access permissions. If I hide this new account from the GAL I cannot get access to it? (I believe I could hide it once the people have added it or use the legacy exchange dn value to get it though?)

Also to help security I would like to disable the user account that is the resource mailbox owner (However once I do this again I cannot get access to it). I believe however that this rule may have changed since Exchange 2003 SP2 can someone confirm this?

Did Exchange 2000 act like this as well (ie disabled user account means others cannot access their mailbox) or is this an Exchange 2003 "feature"?

Also related to this I am seeing a few 9548 errors for disabled user accounts (The Exchange box is not fully patched yet its just a test box) is this also resolved in Exchange 2003 SP2?

Sorry for the big post but it all seems interlinked!

[Fergal1982]

as far as disabling the account is concerned, simply set the logon hours to prevent all access. You can do this in the same tab in AD where the account status checkboxes are (Can remember the name off-hand). Theres a logon hours button at the top. Click on it, make sure all the times are selected, and tick the box that disables logon for those hours.

I dont believe you can grant access to accounts when the account is hidden in the GAl or disabled. We certainly couldnt at my old work.

[Stoney]

You can add a mailbox when it is hidden from the GAL, you just need to know the legacyDN from AD.

[Sparky]

Originally Posted by Stoney

You can add a mailbox when it is hidden from the GAL, you just need to know the legacyDN from AD.

Yup, solution 2 in this link shows how to do this.

http://winzenz.blogspot.com/2005/12/...ailbox-or.html

[Jellyman_4eva]

Hi everyone thanks for the replies, especially Fergal's reply, that is literal thinking at its best and we shall make use of that one from now onwards.

[Fergal1982]

Thats no problem. We used resource mailboxes a lot at my old work. Its a problem i've encountered myself before, which is why it came so easily to me.