Overview

In Exchange 2013/2016, public folders are stored in public folder mailboxes. For large Exchange deployments with a large number of mailboxes and public folders, Microsoft recommends creating two types of public folder mailboxes: hierarchy public folder mailboxes that provide public folder hierarchy information to end users, and content public folder mailboxes that store public folder content. You can learn more about public folder architecture here.

This article contains a script which helps you configure public folder mailboxes on Exchange 2013/2016. The script configures the primary hierarchy public folder mailbox and the requested number of secondary hierarchy and content public folder mailboxes. Note that this script can be executed before or after registering Exchange 2013/2016 servers in Odin Automation.

Preparing Domain with Autodiscover for Email Addresses of Hierarchy Public Folder Mailboxes

Before configuring public folder mailboxes, you need to have a public domain, like exchange.provider.com, for email addresses of hierarchy public folder mailboxes (the domain is specified in the AuthoritativeDomain parameter of the script and is used to set the property PrimarySmtpAddress of hierarchy public folder mailboxes). The DNS zone of the domain must have a special CNAME DNS record: its name must start with autodiscover.; it must point to an Exchange 2013/2016 server where the Autodiscover service is installed (the Exchange2013Autodiscover/Exchange2016Autodiscover service package). For example: autodiscover.exchange.provider.com CNAME server.exchange.provider.com.

Configuring Public Folder Mailboxes

To configure public folder mailboxes, perform the following steps:

  1. Log on to an Exchange Mailbox server as a member of the Domain Administrators group.

  2. Download the CreatePFMailboxes.zip archive and unpack it to a local directory.

  3. Open Exchange Management Shell.

  4. Go to the directory where the archive was unpacked.

  5. Launch the CreatePFMailboxes.ps1 script with the desired parameters (see below) to configure public folder mailboxes. For example, launch the following command to configure public folder mailboxes on a new Exchange installation:

    ./CreatePFMailboxes.ps1 -Database <IDENTITY_OF_MAILBOX_DATABASE> -AuthoritativeDomain <HIERARCHY_PUBLIC_FOLDER_MAILBOX_DOMAIN>

    The script with the provided parameters will create the primary hierarchy public folder mailbox (if it does not exist yet), two secondary hierarchy public folder mailboxes (PublicFolderHierarchy01, PublicFolderHierarchy02) and two content public folder mailboxes (PublicFolderContent01, PublicFolderContent02).

    The full list of script parameters:

    • Database (required) - It defines the mailbox database where new public folder mailboxes will be created.

    • HierarchyMailboxCount (optional) - It defines the number of secondary hierarchy public folder mailboxes which will be created by the script (default value: 2).

    • HierarchyMailboxNamePrefix (optional) - It defines the prefix which will be used to generate names for new secondary hierarchy public folder mailboxes (default value: PublicFolderHierarchy).

    • HierarchyMailboxNameStartIndex (optional) - It defines the start index which will be used to generate names for secondary hierarchy public folder mailboxes (default value: 1).

    • ContentMailboxCount (optional) - It defines the number of content public folder mailboxes which will be created by the script (default value: 2).

    • ContentMailboxNamePrefix (optional) - It defines the prefix which will be used to generate names for new content public folder mailboxes (default value: PublicFolderContent).

    • ContentMailboxNameStartIndex (optional) - It defines the start index which will be used to generate names for content public folder mailboxes (default value: 1).

    • AuthoritativeDomain (required if HierarchyMailboxCount > 0, and optional otherwise) - It is used to specify a public domain with the configured service Autodiscover. This domain will be used to generate email addresses for hierarchy public folder mailboxes. Specify the domain that you prepared earlier.

Internal content