Using The SBS 2011 Best Practices Analyzer

Something new to the SBS BPA series for 2011 is the need for a separate download and install to be run prior to installing the SBS 2011 BPA.

• TechNet: Using the Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard Best Practices Analyzer

First, we need to download and install the Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer 2.0.

Once we have the MBCA installed we then need to download and install the SBS 2011 BPA.

Note that we now have the ability to connect and scan the SBS box remotely:

The SB SBPA also has the ability to update itself automatically:

Once the BPA has been installed we can then run it to evaluate the status of our freshly installed SBS 2011 box or VM.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

v1.6.0 of Our SBS 2008 Setup Guide Released

Since we have been doing a number of SBS 2008 setups lately, we have updated and tweaked our SBS 2008 Setup Guide for some of the changes in product service packs and updates, restructured the order of some of the steps to be more in line with the actual workflows, and added some comments on things such as how to install a GoDaddy certificate.

• SBS 2008 Setup Guide V1.6.0

Note that we use the Answer File method to install all of our SBS 2008 and up operating systems.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

SBS 2008 BPA Error – EdgeTransport.exe process should listen on SMTP port 25.

We have started seeing some of our SBS 2008 sites come up with this interesting flag in the SBS 2008 Best Practices Analyzer:

SMTP Port (TCP 25) Status

The Edgetransport.exe process should listen on SMTP port 25, but that port is owned by the _ process.

Note that there is no name associated with whatever the supposed process is that is holding port 25.

When we did a Telnet test to the SMTP port 25 the ESMTP header showed up which indicated that Exchange was listening and happy.

It has been suggested that this error is due to the IP settings on the Receive Connectors listed in the Server Configuration node’s Hub Transport not being assigned to a specific value but instead to “All available”.

After going through each of the connectors we did indeed find the one we created for the copiers to relay e-mail via Exchange:

So, we changed the setting on the server to the server’s IP:

We then restarted the Exchange Transport service:

Then we reran the SBS 2008 BPA:

It seems that Exchange 2007 UR3 brings this situation about as the BPA has been somewhat happy on this server since we implemented it. So, the suggestion was indeed correct.

Thanks to Chris Puckett for that one.

We tend to run the SBS BPA after each round of updates just to make sure nothing was taken out of kilter by the updates. Also, running the BPA on a regular basis is a good idea so that it can update itself and thus catch anything else that may require attention.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer