Tip: Understand and Use the Exchange Control Panel

Follow Our Daily Tips

• facebook.com/TechNetTips
• twitter.com/TechNetTips
• blogs.technet.com/tnmag
• TechNet Tips library

The Exchange Control Panel is a Web application that runs on a Client Access Server providing services for the Exchange organization. This Exchange Control Panel is installed automatically when you install a Client Access server. To manage Exchange from just about anywhere, you simply need to enter the URL path for the application in your browser’s Address field. You can then access the Exchange Control Panel. By default, the Exchange Control Panel URL is https://yourserver.yourdomain.com/ecp.

The Client Access server to which you connect processes your remote actions via the ECP application running on the default Web site. The physical directory for this application is %ExchangeInstallPath%\ClientAccess\Ecp. And it runs in the context of an application pool named MSExchangeECPAppPool. In the %ExchangeInstallPath%\ClientAccess\Ecp directory on your server, you’ll find a web.config file that defines the settings for the ECP application.

When you install an Exchange server, the setup process creates a self-signed Security certificate. Because this default certificate is not issued by a trusted authority, you will see a related error message when you use HTTPS to access services hosted by your Client Access servers. For more information on this, see Understand and Fix the Outlook Web App Security Warning

Tip adapted from Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Administrator’s Pocket Consultant, by William R. Stanek.