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Month: December 2015

Change Office 365 Distribution Group Restriction

If an Office 365 Distribution Group is being synced from on-premise Active Directory environment then you cannot receive emails to that group from an external source by default. If you try to change the setting in Office 365 the following error appears:

The action ‘Set-DistributionGroup’, ‘RequireSenderAuthenticationEnabled’, can’t be performed on the object ‘[Your Distribution Group]’ because the object is being synchronized from your on-premises organization. This action should be performed on the object in your on-premises organization.

Office 365 Distribution Group Error

This can be changed using the ADSIEdit tool. Navigate through the Active Directory hierarchy and find the Distribution Group then right click and choose Properties. Scroll down to “msExchRequireAuthToSendTo” and change the setting to FALSE. Run a manual DirSync to effect the changes in Office 365.

Office 365 Distribution Group - ADSI Edit

Google Apps SPF / DKIM setup

A Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record indicates mail servers that are authorized to send mail for a domain. Email recipient servers perform a check with DNS to see if the mail came from an authorized server. If not, then the email is most likely SPAM. SPF DNS records lets the recipient server perform this verification.

A DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) record adds a digital signature to emails your organization sends. Email recipient servers perform a check with DNS for the to see if the DomainKey matches the sender. If so, then the email is considered unmodified and from a legitimate sender. DKIM DNS record lets the recipient server perform this verification.

Configure Google Apps SPF

If you use Google Apps for email, you’ll need access to your DNS provider to add an SPF record. In most cases, you simply login and create a new TXT record with the value of:

v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all

Google provides detailed instructions on how this is done. Be sure to save your changes.

Configure DKIM for Google Apps

You’ll need access to your Google Apps control panel and your DNS records to set DKIM. This is a three step process:

1. Create the DKIM key

a. Login to your Google Apps Control Panel (e.g., http://www.google.com/a/cpanel/yourdomain.com)

b. Navigate to the Gmail App Control Panel

c. Scroll down to “Authenticate email” and click on “Set up email authentication (DKIM)”.

d. Your domain name should be displayed. Click on “Generate new record”. Leave the default selector prefix as “google”. Click “Generate”.

e. Leave this browser window open, and then create a new tab or browser window.

2. Create the DKIM DNS record

a. Login to your DNS provider.

b. Create a new TXT record. The name of the TXT record should be:

google._domainkey

This creates a domain that, fully resolved, looks like: google._domainkey.yourdomain.com.

c. The value for the DNS record will be a very long string of characters, something like:

v=DKIM1; k=rsa; t=y; p=MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCG5in7gQIDAQAB

The actual length of the string will be much longer than that above. I find it simplest to copy-and-paste the information from the Control Panel page displaying the information. Save the DNS record.

3. Start Authenticating

a. Wait 24-hours for your changes to propagate, and for Google’s servers to detect the changes.

b. Login to your Google Apps Control Panel (e.g., http://www.google.com/a/cpanel/yourdomain.com)

c. Go to the “Advanced tools” tab, then scroll down to “Authenticate email” and click on “Set up email authentication (DKIM)”.

d. Click “Start authentication”.

As always, check Google’s detailed instructions if your setup is more complex.

Verify that SPF & DKIM are configured

Send an email from your Gmail account to check–auth@verifier.port25.com after you’ve completed the Google Apps SPF and DKIM setup. You’ll receive an email response in a few minutes. If everything is properly configured, you’ll receive a “PASS” for both the Google Apps SPF and DKIM settings. This means your email is now securely being delivered and can be verified as such.

Deploy Office 365 Desktop Apps

Recently had to deploy Office 365 Desktop Apps on a terminal server which did not work with the standard download from the web portal due to licensing issues. Only customers with Office 365 E3 licenses or greater are able to use the deployable version of the Office 365 Desktop Apps in a terminal server environment. Here are the steps needed to deploy the apps:

Deploy Office 365 Desktop Apps on Terminal Server

  • Download the Office Deployment Tool for Click-to-Run here.
  • Run and extract the tool to a folder on your Terminal Server.

    Office Deployment Tool

  1. Edit and configure the configuration XML file as follows including the \\[SERVER]\[SHARE]\ path:

    <Configuration>
    <Add SourcePath=”\\[SERVER]\[SHARE]\” OfficeClientEdition=”32″>
    <Product ID=”O365ProPlusRetail”>
    <Language ID=”en-us” />
    </Product>
    </Add>
    <Display Level=”None” AcceptEULA=”True” />
    <Property Name=”SharedComputerLicensing” Value=”1″ />
    </Configuration>

  2. Please visit this TechNet article for more details on the configuration file settings, like excluding apps from deployment.
  3. From an elevated Command Prompt, navigate to the folder extracted files are located in, and run the following to download the installation files:

    Setup.exe /download configuration.xml

    The Office365 ProPlus installation files will be downloaded to the specified share with the following structure.

    Office365 ProPlus installation files

  4. From an elevated Command Prompt, run following to install Office Click-to-Run:

    Setup.exe /configure configuration.xml

    When the installation is complete, the Office 2016 suite will be available for use.

  5. On starting the application, you will be prompted to Activate Office. Click Next and Sign in.

    Activate Office 365

  6. Once signed in, you are ready to go. Office will automatically activate and configure the applications. This is supposed to work similarly with deployment via Group Policy. If your company is using a terminal server for your remote access and need help to deploy Office 365 Desktop Apps, then contact us for assistance.

My Computer Shows Network Drive Red Xs

Kept getting calls from clients about their network drives “disappearing” or disconnecting throughout the day at “random” intervals, so after much troubleshooting found these steps to take on the workstations and file server to help alleviate the issue:

Network Drive Red Xs On the Workstation:

1. Click on Start button then choose Control Panel
2. In Control Panel open the Device Manager
3. Expand the Network Adapters and open each one used on that workstation
4. Look in the Power Management tab and Advanced tabs to look for any power settings that would disable the device then uncheck them. Click OK button and close all other windows.
5. Open the Registry Editor.
6. Expand the tree to the following key:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Service\lanmanworkstation\parameters

7. If it doesn’t exist then create a REG_DWORD named KeepConn with the Decimal value of 86400 (aka 24 hours)
8. Reboot the workstation for changes to take effect.

Network Drive Red Xs On the Server:

1. Login as administrator
2. Open Command Prompt as administrator
3. Type in the following to disable Auto Disconnect of network drives:

net config server /autodisconnect:-1

4. Reboot the server for changes to take effect.

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