Red Line Software - we help you manage the efficiency of your office operations.

Introduction

Microsoft released a new version of the Microsoft Transport tool and this new release has new capabilities such as migrating from POP3 and IMAP4 servers to Exchange Server 2007. The process can be summarized in a few steps: create a CSV list with all the mailbox information and import this file into Microsoft Transporter, from there we can choose which accounts will be migrated, time range of the data to be migrated, etc.

In this article series we are going to go through the entire process. We will start with the installation process, how to define permissions to use Microsoft Transporter; and finally migrate some mailboxes from either POP3 (Part 1) or IMAP4 (Part 2) to Exchange Server 2007.

Installing Microsoft Transporter Suite for Internet Mail

The installation process is straightforward, download Microsoft Transporter, the version should be the newest one.

The tool can be installed in either 32bit or 64bit versions of Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista or Windows XP. The software requirements are .Net Framework 2.0, MMC 3.0, PowerShell 1.0 and Exchange Server 2007 SP1.

To install the Microsoft Transporter tool:

On the first screen click on Next.

End-User License Agreement. Click I accept the terms in the License Agreement and click Next.

Select Components and Install Location. In our case we are not going to play with Lotus Domino, then let us install only Transporter for Internet Mail, and then click on Next, as shown in Figure 01.

Figure 01

Ready to install. Just click on Install button to start the Microsoft Transporter installation.

Final screen of the wizard, just click on Finish.

The process is totally straightforward and the Microsoft Transporter Suite can be installed in a workstation or on the Exchange Server 2007 box as well.

Configuring Exchange Server 2007 permissions

In order to migrate from POP3/IMAP4 the user must have the Exchange Recipient Admin and Exchange Impersonation rights in at least a single CAS Server.

To validate if the current user belongs to the Exchange Recipient Admin we can run the following command:

Net user <User Name> /domain

The user must be part of the Exchange Recipient Admin.

To configure Exchange Impersonation we need to figure out first what the Distinguished Name of the CAS Server is. Run the following Get-ClientAccessServer cmdlet (Figure 02):

Get-ClientAccessServer | select name,distinguishedname | fl

Figure 02

The Exchange Impersonate permission can be assigned to a single CAS Server or all of them, if we are going to specify the CAS during the mailbox migration wizard. To add the permission use the Add-ADPermission cmdlet (Figure 03), using the following syntax:

Add-ADPermission 'Identity <CAS Server Distingued Name> -User <user> -ExtendedRights ms-Exch-EPI-Impersonation

In Figure 03 we will use the cmdlet syntax above with an extra parameter, that is 'Whatif, which will simulate the action that would be performed by the cmdlet. If everything goes well, we can remove the 'WhatIf and run the cmdlet again. In our example, we added it to a single CAS Server.

Figure 03

Generating the .CSV file to be used by Microsoft Transporter

We will now move data from a generic POP3 Server to Exchange Server 2007, in order to accomplish this task we have to create a .CSV file with the following columns:

• SourceIdentity: The e-mail account that the user has in the POP3 Server
• SourceServer: The name or IP of the POP3 Server
• SourceLoginID: the account user name used to connect on the POP3 server
• SourcePassword: the user's password
• TargetIdentity: the Exchange Server 2007 identity will receive the data from the previous POP3 Server settings

We can create a .csv file directly in notepad or we can use Microsoft Excel to do this. Our list with some users can be seen in Figure 04.

Figure 04

The TargetIdentity must exist before using the Microsoft Transporter tool, the value of TargetIdentity can be any e-mail address (Primary or secondary). We can use the same CSV file to create the users or mailboxes in case of a new environment. To create objects using a CSV file please see this article on how to manage mailboxes in Exchange Server 2007.

Migrating from POP3 Server to Exchange Server 2007

Next, we are going to copy content from a generic POP3 Server to Exchange Server 2007. The user list was created in the previous section and now we are going to import them into the tool and use the migration wizard later on in order to copy the content. Before starting the copy we will see the current information that a user has in the generic server which supports POP3 (Figure 05).

Figure 05

Okay, now we know the content that we are going to move, let us use the Microsoft Transport to copy the content:

1. Open Microsoft Transporter Suite for Internet Mailboxes.
2. In the main screen click on Add Mailboxes... button. (Figure 06)

Figure 06

3. Add Mailboxes. Select the CSV file created in the Excel and click on Import. (Figure 07)

Figure 07

4. Security Warning. A message informing us that the password information contained in the CSV will be stored in a file called InternetMailbox.tbin. Just click OK.
5. On the main screen we have three different views to work with: All Mailboxes, Mailboxes Ready for Migration and Mailboxes Already Migrated. Let us click on All Mailboxes to see all the mailboxes imported from the CSV file and let us start the migration of a single user, click on a single user and click on Migrated Selected Mailboxes. (Figure 08)

Figure 08

6. Select Mailbox Type. Select POP and we are not going to use a secure connection to the POP3 Server (995 SSL), we also going to specify which CAS (Client Access Server) and in our case that CAS was the only one that we gave Exchange Impersonate permissions. Click on Next. (Figure 09)

Figure 09

7. Select Data Range. We can specify a time range to migrate from the POP3 server to Exchange Server 2007. We will get all the content, click on All e-mail and click on Next. (Figure 10)

Figure 10

8. Review Selected Mailboxes. A summary is shown. Just click on Migrate.
9. Migration Complete. The final page displaying the migrated data, just click on Finish.

Now, it is time to test if our migration went well. Log in using the user Anderson Patricio (the same user whose mailbox was on the generic POP3 server) and we can validate that the current content in OWA is the same as the POP3 server (Figure 11). Microsoft Transporter preserves the following characteristics: attachments, rich content, status information (read or unread).

Figure 11

Conclusion

In this article we have seen how to copy content from a generic POP3 Server to Exchange Server 2007. The ability to copy content from POP3/IMAP4 servers was introduced with Microsoft Transporter version 8.02.0012; before that all that was possible was copying data on the client side or using Exchange Server 2003 Migration Wizard.

In the next article we are going to move content from an IMAP4 server and we are also going to see how to copy contents using the Exchange Management Shell.

Author: Anderson Patricio

Anderson Patricio is a consultant for Microsoft technologies. He works with Exchange Server, ISA Sever and Active Directory deployments at a Microsoft Gold Partner in the south of Brazil. In the Technet Brasil community, he contributes news, articles and web casts.