One of the tools available from Microsoft free is Exmerge.  It allows individual mailboxes to be individually exported to PST files, which can then either be re-imported back into Exchange or simply opened in Outlook.  Exmerge is available from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=429163ec-dcdf-47dc-96da-1c12d67327d5&displaylang=en

Extract and save to the Exchsrv/bin directory, and when the appropriate mailboxes have been selected, destinations set save the configuration.  This will create an exmerge.ini file.

This can then be scripted in a batch file and run as a scheduled task.  I create a folder on the local disk of the Exchange server (although this can be done to a mapped drive) for each day I want the backup to run.

My exmon.bat file reads:

D:\exchsrvr\bin\exmerge.exe -F C:\scripts\exmon\exmerge.ini -B

Which runs the exmerge.exe, with the options specified in scripts\exmon\exmerge.ini and runs the script as a batch job using the -B switch.

To clean the folder prior to running, I have a separate batch file that runs earlier on the same day that runs

del /F /Q /S z:\Exchange\exmon\*.*

Subsequently to back up the PST files to a separate server I use the excellent BackupPC running on a Debian server.  Installation instructions for Debian are here: http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/backuppc.htm

The BackupPC box is confugured to access the SMB share that the PST’s are stored in, as well as additional file shares on the server.  BackupPC supports incremental backups and backups via a variety of methods (including SSH and rsync, as well as SMB).

It’s also possible to archive off historic backups for off-site using the archive functions within BackupPC.  As a free solution for backing up mailboxes and beiong able to recover easily (with version control) this is very effective…

Finally, Evolution is behaving as you might expect it to when connecting to an Exchange server – the improvements are immense, both in stability and functionality.

The OpenChange site is here for more information:

http://www.openchange.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

Hopefully this will be an end to using a buggy interface and the all to frequent crashes, along with the curse of occasional missing mail items.  I’ve only been using it for a day, but already I’m loving it!

https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-August/msg00012.html

This kind of begs the question, which is the lesser of the 2 evils here?  A security breach can occur on any platform and across many platforms…..mistakes do happen.  The real trick is how these breaches and vulnerabilities are actually dealt with.  To Debian’s credit, it dealt with protecting the users as a first priority, whereas in this case Fedora/Red Hat’s first priority appears to have been covering it’s own arse, with the users put at risk being the second priority.  Maybe this is the difference between the 2 vendors outlook and corporate responsibilities….

There’s an interesting discussion on Slashdot here:

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/10/029231

First of all, ping the remote host, then run an

arp -a

at the command line.  This will give you the MAC details.  The catch is that this only works on the same subnet – when trying to do this on a remote subnet (on the other side of a router, etc) you won’t get a response…there is a solution for this though, as long as the remote host you want to determine the MAC for is a Windows host.

NBTscan is a tool that can do this (and is available from the repositories on most linux distros (or at least on Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora, and is  also downloadable for Windows )

At the moment I use a KVM switch to swap between the 2 desktops I use (one is XP the other Ubuntu Hardy Beta).  I spend about 99% of my day in Ubuntu, but can’t escape windows completely….this means 2 machines under the desk – which at best is not very environmentally sound, and at worst is downright inconvenient.

The solution? well a virtualised copy of Windows running on the Linux box is the obvious solution, but what about all the apps and data accumulated on the Windows machine over the last x years…..this may seem like a small concern, but it would take a LONG time to reinstall these apps – because of the custom nature of them they are heavy on configuration time, and while they could be installed, it would be a pain in the backside….

Along come the nice people at VMWare though with the Vmware Converter (http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/) a tool that simply installs and then allows you to convert a physical install of an OS into a Virtual OS that can then be opened in VMware Workstation, Server or Player!

While it is designed to allow for the virtualisation of server environments this is the perfect solution for the likes of myself who still need to use Windows apps, that aren’t Wine compatible but REALLY want to ditch the spare Windows machine sat under the desk…

It’s worth clarifying that sending an email is the digital equivalent of sending a postcard….anyone, on any number of the hops between the sender and the recipient, could read the contents of that email with relative ease, in the same way that if you sent a postcard, anyone en route between the sender and the recipient who handles that card could read the contents.  Worse yet, there are methods of spoofing (pretending to be) the recipient mail server – causing all emails that are destined for the recipient to be captured then forwarded on without the recipient even knowing that this has happened….

There are methods of securing email, however – one of these is worth noting as a free solution – GNUPG http://www.gnupg.org/ and it is worth considering if you need to send any information that you feel is sensitive.  GNUPG can be used for digital signing of emails (proving that the email is really from you) and also for the encryption of emails using a private key pair.

There are resources on the use of GNUPG on the site, and it can be used on a variety of platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac) etc.

http://www.cmready.com/polyoperable/?p=7

theres more info on using SSH to proxy outbound connections here:

http://www.debuntu.org/2006/04/08/22-ssh-and-port-forwarding-or-how-to-get-through-a-firewall

and on creating transparent socks proxys and reverse tunnels here:

http://www.linuxlogin.com/linux/admin/sshtunnels.php

http://souptonuts.sourceforge.net/sshtips.htm

$evolution –force-shutdown
$ cd ~/.evolution
$ rm -rfv exchange/

Then restart Evolution and it should poll the mailbox and work!

EDIT:  This stopped working – now I have to run evolution as root and it seems to work again.  Very odd (& not very secure)

Edit the /etc/bashrc file to include the following function….

function setprompt
{
local RED="[$(tput setaf 1)]"
local RESET="[$(tput sgr0)]"
if [ `id -u` = 0 ] # check if user is root
then
PS1="$RED[u@h:W]$RESET "
else
PS1="[u@h:W]$RESET "
fi
}
setprompt

This then changes the prompt colour to red (or any colour you like) when logged on as root…..