The Microsoft Exchange Server management pack has again some big changes. Loads of people already blogged about that. Personally i like the simplicity of it and the fact that Exchange Admins are in control a.k.a. they don’t bother me anymore. However, Windows servers admins started to bother me with script errors related to the Exchange Server 2013 Discovery on servers that didn’t run Exchange 2013 in the first place.
After some investigation it turns out the discovery for Microsoft Exchange 2013 is a powershell script, which is targeted to the windows computer class. This is where it goes wrong. When you are monitoring Windows 2003 or Windows 2008 server chances are you don’t have powershell installed on those servers. Furthermore, why is the Exchange 2013 Discovery running on those servers as it’s a not supported OS for Exchange Server 2013.
So easy enough, i decided to override the discovery for Windows 2003. Simply choosing override for a group, select the Windows 2003 computer group and set the “enabled” value to false. Job done.
Now I wanted to disable the discovery for the Windows 2008 servers as, but not for the Windows 2008 R2 computer. Windows 2008 R2 is a supported OS for Exchange 2013, besides powershell is installed by default so there’s no issue here. The discovery will run and return nothing (or not an exchange server) if exchange isn’t installed. It won’t return a script error because there’s no powershell.
The Windows 2008 computer group in the Windows Server 2008 (discovery) management pack contains also the Windows 2008 R2 computers, so it’s not so easy as with Windows Server 2003. I needed to create a Windows Server 2008 Group which doesn’t contain Windows 2008 R2 server.
Luckily I remembered a blogpost by Kevin Holman about creating a group with computers not containing computers in another group (btw glad he’s back on the support front, I really missed those deep dives in SCOM). I created a new group, edited the xml and set the override. The only difference between my group exclusion and Kevin Holman’s group is I use a reference to another MP in the “notcontained” section as i use the “Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Computer Group” which already exists in the Windows Server 2008 (discovery) mp. This means the reference to that mp needs to be included in the xml below.
The result is here. Save this as ValueBlueOverrideMicrosoft.Exchange.Server.xml (remove the “windows server 2003” override and reference to “Microsoft.Windows.Server.2003” if you don’t run this anymore):
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?><ManagementPack ContentReadable=”true” xmlns:xsd=”http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema” xmlns:xsl=”http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform”>
<Manifest>
<Identity>
<ID>ValueBlueOverrideMicrosoft.Exchange.Server</ID>
<Version>1.0.1.0</Version>
</Identity>
<Name>ValueBlueOverrideMicrosoft Exchange Server 2013</Name>
<References>
<Reference Alias=”Exchange”>
<ID>Microsoft.Exchange.15</ID>
<Version>15.0.620.18</Version>
<PublicKeyToken>31bf3856ad364e35</PublicKeyToken>
</Reference>
<Reference Alias=”MicrosoftSystemCenterInstanceGroupLibrary6172210″>
<ID>Microsoft.SystemCenter.InstanceGroup.Library</ID>
<Version>6.1.7221.0</Version>
<PublicKeyToken>31bf3856ad364e35</PublicKeyToken>
</Reference>
<Reference Alias=”SystemCenter”>
<ID>Microsoft.SystemCenter.Library</ID>
<Version>6.1.7221.81</Version>
<PublicKeyToken>31bf3856ad364e35</PublicKeyToken>
</Reference>
<Reference Alias=”MicrosoftWindowsServer2008Discovery6066670″>
<ID>Microsoft.Windows.Server.2008.Discovery</ID>
<Version>6.0.6667.0</Version>
<PublicKeyToken>31bf3856ad364e35</PublicKeyToken>
</Reference>
<Reference Alias=”Windows”>
<ID>Microsoft.Windows.Server.2003</ID>
<Version>6.0.6667.0</Version>
<PublicKeyToken>31bf3856ad364e35</PublicKeyToken>
</Reference>
</References>
</Manifest>
<TypeDefinitions>
<EntityTypes>
<ClassTypes>
<ClassType ID=”ValueBlue.Microsoft.Server.2008.Only.Group” Accessibility=”Public” Abstract=”false” Base=”MicrosoftSystemCenterInstanceGroupLibrary6172210!Microsoft.SystemCenter.InstanceGroup” Hosted=”false” Singleton=”true” />
</ClassTypes>
</EntityTypes>
</TypeDefinitions>
<Monitoring>
<Discoveries>
<Discovery ID=”ValueBlue.Microsoft.Server.2008.Only.Group.DiscoveryRule” Enabled=”true” Target=”ValueBlue.Microsoft.Server.2008.Only.Group” ConfirmDelivery=”false” Remotable=”true” Priority=”Normal”>
<Category>Discovery</Category>
<DiscoveryTypes>
<DiscoveryRelationship TypeID=”MicrosoftSystemCenterInstanceGroupLibrary6172210!Microsoft.SystemCenter.InstanceGroupContainsEntities” />
</DiscoveryTypes>
<DataSource ID=”GroupPopulationDataSource” TypeID=”SystemCenter!Microsoft.SystemCenter.GroupPopulator”>
<RuleId>$MPElement$</RuleId>
<GroupInstanceId>$MPElement[Name=”ValueBlue.Microsoft.Server.2008.Only.Group”]$</GroupInstanceId>
<MembershipRules>
<MembershipRule>
<MonitoringClass>$MPElement[Name=”MicrosoftWindowsServer2008Discovery6066670!Microsoft.Windows.Server.2008.Computer”]$</MonitoringClass>
<RelationshipClass>$MPElement[Name=”MicrosoftSystemCenterInstanceGroupLibrary6172210!Microsoft.SystemCenter.InstanceGroupContainsEntities”]$</RelationshipClass>
<Expression>
<NotContained>
<MonitoringClass>$MPElement[Name=”MicrosoftWindowsServer2008Discovery6066670!Microsoft.Windows.Server.2008.R2.ComputerGroup”]$</MonitoringClass>
</NotContained>
</Expression>
</MembershipRule>
</MembershipRules>
</DataSource>
</Discovery>
</Discoveries>
<Overrides>
<DiscoveryPropertyOverride ID=”OverrideForDiscoveryMicrosoftExchange15ServerDiscoveryRuleForContextMicrosoftWindowsServer2003ComputerGroupd5787b8329934b19ba24ca637d805307″ Context=”Windows!Microsoft.Windows.Server.2003.ComputerGroup” ContextInstance=”cb87057c-606b-43e7-e861-8e5a0df201f6″ Enforced=”false” Discovery=”Exchange!Microsoft.Exchange.15.Server.DiscoveryRule” Property=”Enabled”>
<Value>false</Value>
</DiscoveryPropertyOverride>
<DiscoveryPropertyOverride ID=”OverrideForDiscoveryMicrosoftExchange15ServerDiscoveryRuleForContextValueBlue.Microsoft.Server.2008.OnlyGroup4700b619d2184cb2af12302026deee09″ Context=”ValueBlue.Microsoft.Server.2008.Only.Group” ContextInstance=”4cc2c8a2-918a-2ec3-f05e-fa1042b4a4db” Enforced=”false” Discovery=”Exchange!Microsoft.Exchange.15.Server.DiscoveryRule” Property=”Enabled”>
<Value>false</Value>
</DiscoveryPropertyOverride>
</Overrides>
</Monitoring>
<LanguagePacks>
<LanguagePack ID=”NLD” IsDefault=”false”>
<DisplayStrings>
<DisplayString ElementID=”ValueBlueOverrideMicrosoft.Exchange.Server”>
<Name>ValueBlueOverrideMicrosoft Exchange Server 2013</Name>
</DisplayString>
<DisplayString ElementID=”ValueBlue.Microsoft.Server.2008.Only.Group”>
<Name>ValueBlueWindows 2008 servers only (no windows 2008 r2 servers)</Name>
</DisplayString>
<DisplayString ElementID=”ValueBlue.Microsoft.Server.2008.Only.Group.DiscoveryRule”>
<Name>Populate ValueBlueWindows 2008 servers only (no windows 2008 r2 servers)</Name>
<Description>This discovery rule populates the group ‘ValueBlueWindows 2008 servers only (no windows 2008 r2 servers)'</Description>
</DisplayString>
</DisplayStrings>
</LanguagePack>
<LanguagePack ID=”ENU” IsDefault=”false”>
<DisplayStrings>
<DisplayString ElementID=”ValueBlueOverrideMicrosoft.Exchange.Server”>
<Name>ValueBlueOverrideMicrosoft Exchange Server 2013</Name>
</DisplayString>
<DisplayString ElementID=”ValueBlue.Microsoft.Server.2008.Only.Group”>
<Name>ValueBlueWindows 2008 servers only (no windows 2008 r2 servers)</Name>
</DisplayString>
<DisplayString ElementID=”ValueBlue.Microsoft.Server.2008.Only.Group.DiscoveryRule”>
<Name>Populate ValueBlueWindows 2008 servers only (no windows 2008 r2 servers)</Name>
<Description>This discovery rule populates the group ‘ValueBlueWindows 2008 servers only (no windows 2008 r2 servers)'</Description>
</DisplayString>
</DisplayStrings>
</LanguagePack>
</LanguagePacks>
</ManagementPack>
JAMA00 