Enabling Tracing for Unified Messaging

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will reach end of support on April 11, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

 

Applies to: Exchange Server 2007, Exchange Server 2007 SP1

There are several tracing options that are available for troubleshooting issues that are related to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging (UM). Tracing lets you troubleshoot, debug, and isolate problems on an computer. Enabling tracing, configuring tracing settings, and gathering the appropriate information about a computer that is running Exchange 2007 that has the Unified Messaging server role installed can help you diagnose problems or evaluate system performance. Although there are many tracing tools that are offered by Microsoft and third-party vendors that may offer more complex tracing options, the Microsoft Exchange Analyzers and Microsoft Network Monitor are two tools that you can download to help you enable tracing on a Unified Messaging server. This topic discusses tracing tools and tracing options that are available for troubleshooting and diagnosing Unified Messaging (UM) issues.

Using Microsoft Exchange Analyzers

The Microsoft Exchange Analyzers help Microsoft Exchange server administrators troubleshoot a variety of issues. Administrators can install these tools on a client computer that is running the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1. With the correct network access, the tools can examine your Active Directory directory service and your computers that run Exchange 2007 to help you detect incorrect configurations and other performance related issues. For more information about the Microsoft Exchange Analyzers, see Overview: Microsoft Exchange Analyzers.

Unified Messaging Tracing Using Microsoft Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant

The Microsoft Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant can be used to automatically determine what set of data is required to troubleshoot symptoms that you identify. It can also be used to collect configuration data, performance counters, event logs, and live tracing information from an Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging server in addition to Exchange 2007 servers in your organization that are running other Exchange 2007 server roles. The Microsoft Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant analyzes each subsystem on a physical computer to determine individual bottlenecks and component failures. Then it aggregates the information to analyze the cause of the bottlenecks and failures. To download a copy of the Microsoft Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant, see the Microsoft Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant v1.1 Web site.

The Microsoft Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant includes several different tools that can be used to troubleshoot Unified Messaging issues and gather information about various UM services and components. The trace control tool that is included in the Microsoft Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant is a graphical user interface (GUI) that lets you enable and configure tracing on an Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging server. It can also be used to enable tracing on other Exchange 2007 servers in your organization. To enable tracing, select the trace type, component to trace, and any trace tags. When you are enabling tracing on a Unified Messaging server, you must enable the MSExchangeUM component that is listed under the Components to Trace section of the tool. Several features are available when you enable tracing by using the Microsoft Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant, including the following:

  • The ability to display only enabled components and tags

  • The ability to search components and tags

  • The display of the current status of tracing on startup, including output file size, type, and location

For more information about Microsoft Exchange Analyzers, see Microsoft Exchange Analyzers

Important

Tracing information and files can be very complex depending on the operation and depth of tracing that has been completed. We recommended that after you have enabled tracing and collected the correct information, you contact Microsoft Services Support.

Unified Messaging Tracing by Using Network Monitor

You can use Network Monitor 2.0 or Microsoft Network Monitor 3.0 to capture network traffic between a Unified Messaging server and an IP gateway or between Exchange 2007 servers that are running the Client Access, Mailbox, and Hub Transport server roles. A network monitor is a network protocol analyzer tool that is used to capture network data packets and lets you analyze specific protocol information.

Network traffic to and from a Unified Messaging server may consist of one or more of the following protocols:

  • Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)   Used between an IP gateway and a Unified Messaging server

  • Realtime Transport Protocol (RTP)   Used between an IP gateway and a Unified Messaging server

  • T.38   Used from an IP gateway to Unified Messaging server

  • Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)   Used between a Unified Messaging server and a Hub Transport server

  • Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)   Used between a Unified Messaging server and an Active Directory domain controller

  • MAPI RPC   Used between a Unified Messaging server and a Mailbox server

  • Transport Layer Security (TLS)   Used between an IP gateway and a Unified Messaging server and between a Unified Messaging server and Hub Transport, Mailbox, and Client Access servers.

    Note

    If TLS transport is used, the Network Monitor SIP parser will be unable to decode the SIP packets because they are encrypted.

For more information about protocols that are used with Unified Messaging, see the following topics:

For each type of IP-based protocol that is used by a Unified Messaging server, a parser must be included to enable a protocol analyzer like Network Monitor to capture and view the data packets that are associated with the protocol. Currently, Network Monitor 2.0 includes parsers that support many IP-based protocols. However, it does not include the parsers for SIP, RTP, or T.38. To obtain a copy of the SIP parser file, download and install the Live Communications Server 2005 with Service Pack 1 Resource Kit.

After you have downloaded the installation files, you must manually copy the SIP parser file (SipPar.dll) to the following locations to enable Network Monitor to capture SIP data packets:

  • For the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 family, copy the SipPar.dll file to the %windir%\system32\netmon\parsers folder.

  • For Windows XP Professional or Windows 2000 Professional, copy the SipPar.dll file to the %program files%\Microsoft Network Monitor\parsers folder.

Microsoft Network Monitor 3.0 is a redesigned network protocol analyzer that includes many new parsers, including parsers for SIP and RTP. Network Monitor 3.0 can be installed on the following:

  • Windows Server 2003

  • Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 edition

  • Windows Vista

  • Windows Vista Business 64-bit edition

  • Windows XP

  • Windows XP 64-bit

To obtain a copy of Network Monitor 3.0, see the download page for Microsoft Network Monitor 3.

For more information about how to capture and filter data by using Network Monitor, see How to Monitor Network Traffic Between Two Computers Using Network Monitor.

For more information about how to monitor network traffic, see Monitoring Traffic Between Two Computers.

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