In part 1 of this two part article, we looked at how to prepare the AD forest and domains for Exchange 2013. In this part, I’ll demonstrate how to install Exchange in our selected child domain.
Introduction
We’ve already gone through the AD preparation tasks in part 1. These are:
1) Prepare Schema
2) Prepare Active Directory
3) Prepare Active Directory Domains
AD is now ready for the first install of Exchange. If you remember back to the last part, our forest has a root domain of contoso.com and two child domains: uk.contoso.com and us.contoso.com. We’ll be installing Exchange in uk.contoso.com
Preparation
Before we go ahead and install Exchange, we need to go through a few tasks.
1) Sizing.
To ensure that we size up Exchange correctly, we should analyse our current infrastructure and use the Exchange sizing guidance to work out how much RAM/CPU each Exchange server requires. If you’re virtualizing your Exchange servers, you can always add RAM, vCPU and disks to your VMs after you first install them.
2) System Requirements.
Check that the system you are going to be installing on meets the System Requirements.
3) Release Notes.
Often this is missed out but is usually quite useful. Always ensure that you read the Release Notes as there is useful information which can prevent problems down the line.
4) Windows Updates
Ensure that the server you will be installing Exchange on has the latest Windows Updates.
5) Join to domain
Join the server to the domain in which you will be installing Exchange.
6) Add storage
Add additional disks for storage as required. In our case, we will add a single disk to be used for the mailbox database and log files for simplicity. This is the E drive in our case.
Installation
Once you’ve gone through the preparation steps above, it’s now time to install Exchange.
The recommendation from Microsoft is to install multi-role servers, i.e. servers that run both the CAS and MBX roles. If you do have a requirement to install separate roles, for example the requirement to use NLB then install the mailbox role first.
1) Assign correct permissions
For the first Exchange server in the organization, the user that performing the install must be a member of the Enterprise Admins group, assuming that the Schema has already been prepared as per part 1. If you haven’t already prepared the Schema then you also need to be a member of the Schema Admins group.
If you’re not installing the first Exchange server in the organization then you don’t need to be an Enterprise Admin or Schema Admin but you do need to be a member of Organization Management role group.
In our case, we’ve added the the Domain Admin account of the uk.contoso.com domain, to the Enterprise Admins group. This account is UKAdministrator in our case.
We’ll then go on to install the pre-requisites for Exchange in step 2.
2) Install .Net 4.5.2 from here. Accept the license terms and click install:
3) If you are not using Server 2012 R2 then you also need to install the Windows Management Framework 4.0. In our case we are using Server 2012 R2 so this is not required.
4) Install the Unified Messaging Communications Managed API 4.0 Runtime.
5) Install the required Windows features
Use the below command to install the required Windows features. This command needs to be run on a single line and run from a PowerShell window with elevated privileges.
Install-WindowsFeature AS-HTTP-Activation, Desktop-Experience, NET-Framework-45-Features, RPC-over-HTTP-proxy, RSAT-Clustering, RSAT-Clustering-CmdInterface, RSAT-Clustering-Mgmt, RSAT-Clustering-PowerShell, Web-Mgmt-Console, WAS-Process-Model, Web-Asp-Net45, Web-Basic-Auth, Web-Client-Auth, Web-Digest-Auth, Web-Dir-Browsing, Web-Dyn-Compression, Web-Http-Errors, Web-Http-Logging, Web-Http-Redirect, Web-Http-Tracing, Web-ISAPI-Ext, Web-ISAPI-Filter, Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console, Web-Metabase, Web-Mgmt-Console, Web-Mgmt-Service, Web-Net-Ext45, Web-Request-Monitor, Web-Server, Web-Stat-Compression, Web-Static-Content, Web-Windows-Auth, Web-WMI, Windows-Identity-Foundation,RSAT-ADDS
The AD tools are included in the above command – this prevents issues with AD operations and the EXSetup program.
6) Download Exchange 2013 CU10 from here or the latest Exchange CU. The Cumulative Update includes the entire Exchange package. There is no need to install Exchange then install the CU.
7) Once downloaded, double click to extract Exchange.
Select a location to extract the files to. In this demo, we’re extracting to C:tempExchange2013-x64-cu10.
8) Run Setup
We’ll be installing Exchange from the command line. Open up a elevated command prompt and change directory to where you extracted the files as per step 7.
We’re going to install both the mailbox and client access roles together. We’re also specifying our Exchange Organization name, Contoso. By default, Exchange will install a mailbox database with the mailbox role and this is installed in the installation path for Exchange but in our case, we’ll specify the mailbox database name, edb file path and log file path. In summary:
Roles to install: Mailbox and Client Access
Organization Name: Contoso
Mailbox database name: UKMDB01
Database file path: “E:Program FilesMicrosoftExchange ServerV15MailboxUKMDB01UKMDB01.edb”
Log folder path: “E:Program FilesMicrosoftExchange ServerV15MailboxUKMDB01”
To install with the above configuration, run the below command on a single line:
setup.exe /Mode:Install /Roles:mb,ca /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms /OrganizationName:Contoso /MdbName:UKMDB01 /DbFilePath:”E:Program FilesMicrosoftExchange ServerV15MailboxUKMDB01UKMDB01.edb” /LogFolderPath:“E:Program FilesMicrosoftExchange ServerV15MailboxUKMDB01”
The /MdbName, /DbFilePath and /LogFolderPath settings are optional and you can omit these if you prefer. Exchange will create a default mailbox database in the Exchange installation path which is on the system drive by default.
9) Confirm the installation was successful
To do this, run the command below. This will list all the Exchange servers, their roles and version. Check that your new Exchange server is listed with all the required roles.
Get-ExchangeServer | ft -AutoSize
Also, review the setup log for any issues. This log file is C:ExchangeSetupLogsExchangeSetup.log.
Conclusion
In part 1, we went through the steps required to prepare the Active Directory forest and domains for an Exchange 2013 install. In this second part, we’ve gone through the steps required to install the first Exchange 2013 server in a forest and this was installed in a child domain.
In upcoming posts, I’ll walk through how configure Exchange – including autodiscover and mail routing configuration etc.