Get Mailbox Rules Using PowerShell

Get Mailbox Rules Using PowerShell

Ever found yourself tangled in the web of Exchange Online mailbox rules? Yeah, me too. It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack, especially if you’re managing multiple mailboxes. Thankfully, I stumbled upon a nifty PowerShell script that makes this task a breeze. Let’s Get Mailbox Rules Using PowerShell.

Let’s Talk About Our Script

Before we jump into the script, let’s understand what it does. The PowerShell script Get-RASMailboxRules helps you retrieve mailbox rules for specific email addresses in Exchange Online. Whether you’re an IT admin juggling a dozen tasks or just someone who likes things neat and tidy, this script can save you a ton of time.

Breaking Down the Script

Here’s the full script for reference:

function Get-RASMailboxRules {
    [cmdletbinding()]
    param (
        [Parameter(
            ValueFromPipeline = $True,
            ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName = $True,
            HelpMessage = "Email Addresses",
            Mandatory = $true)][Alias('Mailbox','EmailAddress')][String[]]$Mailboxes
    )
    begin {
        # Checks if Exchange Online is connected
        if ($null -eq (Get-ConnectionInformation)) {Connect-ExchangeOnline}

        # Pulls all mailboxes from the $Mailboxes parameter and checks if they exist
        $Boxes = @()
        foreach ($box in $mailboxes) {
            Try {
                $Boxes += Get-Mailbox $box
            } catch {
                Write-Error "Error getting mailbox"
            }
        }
    }
    process {
        foreach ($mailbox in $Boxes) {
            $Rules = Get-InboxRule -Mailbox $mailbox.Name

            foreach ($Rule in $Rules) {
                $ruleDescription = $Rule.Description -join "`n"
                $Description = (($ruleDescription -split 'If the message:')[1] -split 'Take the following actions:')
                $ifMessage = ($Description[0].Trim() -replace "`t", "") -replace "\s*`n", ""
                $actions = ($Description[1].Trim() -replace "`t", "") -replace "\s*`n", ""

                [PSCustomObject]@{
                    MailboxName = $Mailbox.Name
                    Mailbox = $Mailbox.UserPrincipalName
                    RuleName = $Rule.Name
                    Enabled = $Rule.Enabled
                    ID = $Rule.RuleIdentity
                    IfMessage = $ifMessage
                    Actions = $actions
                }
            }
        }
    }
    end {
        Disconnect-ExchangeOnline -Confirm:$false
    }
}

What’s Happening Here?

Let’s break it down:

  1. Parameters and Initialization:
    • The script takes email addresses as input through the $Mailboxes parameter.
    • It checks if Exchange Online is connected. If not, it connects using Connect-ExchangeOnline.
  2. Fetching Mailboxes:
    • It loops through the provided mailboxes and tries to fetch their details using Get-Mailbox.
    • Any errors encountered during this process are caught and reported.
  3. Processing Mailbox Rules:
    • For each mailbox, it retrieves the inbox rules using Get-InboxRule.
    • It parses the rules to extract the conditions (IfMessage) and actions (Actions).
  4. Output:
    • It creates a custom PowerShell object for each rule, which includes details like mailbox name, rule name, enabled status, and more.
    • Finally, it disconnects from Exchange Online to clean up.

Key Points to Remember

  • Mandatory Parameter: The script requires at least one email address to be provided.
  • Error Handling: It gracefully handles errors when fetching mailbox details.
  • Custom Output: The output is a clean, readable list of mailbox rules with all the necessary details.

Wrapping up “Get Mailbox Rules using PowerShell”

And there you have it! A super handy PowerShell script to get mailbox rules using PowerShell in order. It’s efficient, straightforward, and takes the hassle out of managing mailbox rules. So next time you’re knee-deep in inbox rules, you know which script to pull out.

Happy scripting, folks! If you run into any issues or have questions, drop them in the comments below. Let’s keep the conversation going!

Additional Reading

    O365 Mobile Devices

    O365 Mobile Devices

    I needed to grab all the mobile devices that had emails attached to them not too long ago. I could have gone through the GUI, and spent a few days trying my best to document everything, or I could use Powershell to pull the O365 Mobile Devices. Can you guess which one I did? Yep, PowerShell is a way of thinking nowadays in the system admin world.

    The Script

    Connect-ExchangeOnline
    $Mailboxes = get-mailbox -all
    $Devices = foreach ($Mail in $Mailboxes) {
        $MobileDevices = Get-MobileDevice -Mailbox $mail.userprincipalname
        foreach ($Device in $MobileDevices) {
            $Stats = Get-MobileDeviceStatistics -Identity $Device.Identity
            [pscustomobject]@{
                User = $mail.userprincipalname
                FriendlyName                  = $Device.FriendlyName
                name                          = $Device.name
                Identity                      = $Device.Identity
                DeviceID                      = $Device.DeviceId
                DeviceOS                      = $Device.DeviceOS
                DeviceType                    = $Device.DeviceType
                DeviceModel                   = $Device.DeviceModel 
                ClientType                    = $Stats.ClientType
                FirstSyncTime                 = $Device.FirstSyncTime
                WhenChanged                   = $Device.WhenChanged
                LastPolicyUpdateTime          = $Stats.LastPolicyUpdateTime
                LastSyncAttemptTime           = $Stats.LastSyncAttemptTime
                LastSuccessSync               = $stats.LastSuccessSync
                DeviceAccessState             = $Device.DeviceAccessState
                DeviceAccessStateReason       = $Device.DeviceAccessStateReason
                IsValid                       = $Device.IsValid
                Status                        = $Stats.Status
                DevicePolicyApplied           = $stats.DevicePolicyApplied
                DevicePolicyApplicationStatus = $stats.DevicePolicyApplicationStatus
            }
        }
    }
    $Devices
    
    

    The Break Down

    This script is pretty straightforward. We first connect to exchange online. Currently, this script is designed to work with MFA. Then we grab all the mailboxes from O365.

    Connect-ExchangeOnline
    $Mailboxes = get-mailbox -all
    

    Next, we loop through these mailboxes. We drop all the information get gather from this loop into a variable. I called my devices. Once again, nothing great or grand.

    $Devices = foreach ($Mail in $Mailboxes) {}
    

    For each mailbox we have, we pull all of the devices from that mailbox. Since a single mailbox can have more than one device, we loop through these devices. For each loop, we want to grab that device’s stats to gain more insights.

    $MobileDevices = Get-MobileDevice -Mailbox $mail.userprincipalname
        foreach ($Device in $MobileDevices) {
            $Stats = Get-MobileDeviceStatistics -Identity $Device.Identity
    

    Finally, from there we gather the information into a single object. These commands produce a lot of information. It’s best to parse it down some. That’s what I did with the next part. That’s how I am able to get all the O365 Mobile Devices using PowerShell.

    Additional Reading

    Exchange Mailbox Rules

    Exchange Mailbox Rules

    At one of my previous Jobs, I had to write a script to help me understand rules. Well, I pulled that script out of the vault to do the same thing recently. The following script will allow you to select one user or multiple users to grab their rules. Or you can just forget the flag and get all of the users at once. The idea of the script is to get basic information from the rule, not all the information as it’s not all useful. So let’s look at the script then we will do a breakdown. Here comes Exchange Mailbox Rules through PowerShell.

    The script

    function Get-MailboxInboxRules {
        [cmdletbinding()]
        param (
            [string[]]$UserPrincipalName,
            [switch]$StayConnected
        )
        begin {
            #Begining tests if the module is installed, loaded, and connected. Correcting each one at each level. 
    
            #Installs required modules
            Write-Verbose "Installing required modules"
            if (!(Get-InstallEdModule ExchangeOnlineManagement)) { 
                try {
                    Install-Module ExchangeOnlineManagement
                }catch {
                    Write-Error $_
                    exit
                } 
            }
     
            Write-Verbose "Checking and importing required modules"
            # Starts importanting required modules
            if (!(Get-Command Connect-ExchangeOnline)) { 
                try {
                    Import-Module ExchangeOnlineManagement
                } catch {
                    Write-Error $_
                    exit
                }
            }
    
            #Tests if Exchange Online is connected, If not, we trigger a connection
            if (!(Get-PSSession | Where-Object { $_.Name -match 'ExchangeOnline' -and $_.Availability -eq 'Available' })) { 
                try {
                    Connect-ExchangeOnline}
                catch {
                    Write-Error $_
                    exit
                } 
            }
            if (!(Get-PSSession | Where-Object { $_.Name -match 'ExchangeOnline' -and $_.Availability -eq 'Available' })) {
                Write-Error "Connection failed"
                exit
            }
        }
        Process {
            $mailboxes = @()
            if (!($PSBoundParameters.ContainsKey("UserPrincipalName"))) {
                $Mailboxes = Get-mailbox
            }
            else {
                foreach ($Username in $UserPrincipalName) {
                    try {
                        $Mailboxes += get-mailbox $username -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
                    }
                    catch {
                        Write-Warning "$username has no mailbox"
                    }
                }
            }
    
            #It has been proven to speed up the script if we drop the output into a return value
            $RulesReturn = Foreach ($Mail in $Mailboxes) {
                
                Write-Verbose "Scanning: $($Mail.UserPrincipalName)"
                #We are now trying to catch the rule in question. 
                #if the mailbox has no rules, which will be presented as an error, then we null out the rules. 
                try {
                    $Rules = Get-InboxRule -Mailbox $Mail.Userprincipalname
                }
                catch {
                    $Rules = $null  
                }
    
                #Now that the rules either have value or null, we can test. 
                if ($null -ne $Rules) {
                    #Write-Host "$($mail.userprincipalname)"
    
                    #Now we know we have rules, it's time to start working with those rules
                    foreach ($Rule in $Rules) {
    
                        #From my testing I discover that some rules will be null but the rule itself isn't null. 
                        #Thus we need to test if this is the case. 
                        if ($null -ne $rule) {
    
                            #Now we have confirmed the rule is not empty, we need to test the form
                            #This is because some rules are based on subjects and such and not from people. 
                            if ($null -ne $rule.from) {
                                
                                #since form is not empty we split the string and we get the from information. 
                                $froms = $Rule.from.split('[')[0]
                            }
                            else {
    
                                #if it is, we just blank string the value. 
                                $froms = ""
                            }
    
                            #Next we want the description to be on a single line. this way we can export to a csv. 
                            if ($null -ne $rule.description) {
    
                                #This is programmed for the standard 5.1 powershell. Join-String was introduced in 6.2
                                #to combat this, we create a null return
                                #Then we  split the description rule. 
                                #Then we for each that list and push it back into the return.
                                
                                $dereturn = $Null
                                $rule.description.split("`n") | foreach-object { $dereturn = "$dereturn $($_.trim())" }
                                $description = $dereturn.trim()
                            }
                            else {
                                $description = ""
                            }
                            #Next we create our ps object with items we need for basic level audits. 
                            [pscustomobject]@{
                                Username    = $Mail.Userprincipalname
                                Identity    = $Rule.Identity
                                Enabled     = $Rule.Enabled
                                Name        = $Rule.Name
                                from        = $froms
                                Description = $description
                            } 
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        end {
    
            #At the end we return
            $RulesReturn
    
            #Then we disconnect if the user didn't say stay connected. 
            if (!($StayConnected)) { Disconnect-ExchangeOnline -Confirm:$false }
        }
    }
    

    The Breakdown

    Before we begin, I want to point out, at this point, there is no graph API calls for exchange. Not yet, its promised, but as of right now, it’s not reality yet. Security is a big thing to think about with scripts like these. MFA is a big piece of security. We always want some mfa going. This is why you will not see credentials in the parameters.

    Parameters

    Our parameters are simple. We have a list of strings of user principal names and we have a switch to determine if we need to stay connected. If we leave the user principal name blank, then we are targeting every mailbox. It may take some time. The stay connected is designed to keep exchange connected. This way once you have the exchange mailbox rules, you can run other commands. You can also leave this blank, if you do, it disconnects from exchange. Good security thinking here.

    param (
            [string[]]$UserPrincipalName,
            [switch]$StayConnected
    )
    

    Begin

    Next is our begin. We are doing some house keeping here. First, We need to know if the exchange online management is installed. if it’s not, we then install it. Next, test if the exchange online management is imported. if not, we import the module. Finally we test if we have an exchange online connection, if not, we use connect-exchange. We use the connect-exchangeonline because it will do the MFA for us. Which is nice.

    To test if the module is installed, we use the Get-InstalledModule. This command searches your modules and lets you know if it is installed. Older Powershells do not know this command. If the powershell is not elevated, then this code will error out and exits with the exit code.

    Write-Verbose "Installing required modules"
    if (!(Get-InstallEdModule ExchangeOnlineManagement)) { 
            try {
                Install-Module ExchangeOnlineManagement
            }catch {
                Write-Error $_
                exit
            } 
    }
    

    If we haven’t exited out yet, we then see if the module is loaded by using the get-command command. We are looking for the command Connect-ExchangeOnline. If the command exists, we will continue on, if not, we will use the import-module command and import the exchangeonlinemanagement module. Of course, if we run into an error, we exit with the error.

    Write-Verbose "Checking and importing required modules"
    # Starts importanting required modules
    if (!(Get-Command Connect-ExchangeOnline)) { 
        try {
            Import-Module ExchangeOnlineManagement
        } catch {
            Write-Error $_
            exit
        }
    }
    

    Finally, we are going to pull all the PowerShell Sessions currently on this computer. This is where we will gain the ability to pull Exchange Mailbox Rules. The first command is get-pssession. We search the output for a session with the name of ExchangeOnline that is available. If we don’t find one, we connect to exchange using the connect-exchangeonline. Next, if connection errors out, we present the error and disconnect. Now, if the connection is successful, we test once more for a connection. If it’s just not there, we give up and say bye.

    #Tests if Exchange Online is connected, If not, we trigger a connection
            if (!(Get-PSSession | Where-Object { $_.Name -match 'ExchangeOnline' -and $_.Availability -eq 'Available' })) { 
                try {
                    Connect-ExchangeOnline}
                catch {
                    Write-Error $_
                    exit
                } 
            }
            if (!(Get-PSSession | Where-Object { $_.Name -match 'ExchangeOnline' -and $_.Availability -eq 'Available' })) {
                Write-Error "Connection failed"
                exit
            }
    

    Process – Exchange Mailbox Rules

    Check Mailboxes

    Now we are connected to exchange online, it’s time to start grabbing the needed information. Before we start, we need to establish an array for possible mailboxes. We will call these mailboxes to make life easy.

    $mailboxes = @()
    

    Now, whether or not the user used the “UserPrincipalName” parameter or not, we are ready. The next step is to test if we used the parameter and grab those mailboxes. We do this by using the $PSBoundParameters variable. Searching the Contains key allows you to see what parameters are being passed to the script. in our case we will be searching for the user principal name. If there is no UPN, we just grab all the mailboxes and dump it into the $mailboxes variable we made.

    Now, if we did use the upn, we will loop through the UPN and grab each mailbox accordingly. if there is an issue, we let the user know that that username was an issue. This will give us the mailbox information we need. We do this separately because it causes fewer errors. Best way to describe it is using this method is the bouncer. It bounces issues out the door before we start looking at the inbox rules.

    $mailboxes = @()
            if (!($PSBoundParameters.ContainsKey("UserPrincipalName"))) {
                $Mailboxes = Get-mailbox
            }
            else {
                foreach ($Username in $UserPrincipalName) {
                    try {
                        $Mailboxes += get-mailbox $username -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
                    }
                    catch {
                        Write-Warning "$username has no mailbox"
                    }
                }
            }
    

    Exchange Mailbox Rules

    The next step is to grab the rules themselves. We start off by making a for each loop. The loop of course is going to drop into a variable. We do this because it has been found that dropping the output of a foreach loop into a variable is a faster method than rebuilding or appending an array.

    $RulesReturn = Foreach ($Mail in $Mailboxes) {}
    

    Now, it’s time to hang onto your hats. The rules are tricky as they error out. We see errors because the end user will create a rule, and abandon it. It has nothing to do with your code. It is purely what it is.

    The first thing we need to do inside our loop is grab the rules for the mailbox. The command is Get-InboxRule. We will be placing the rules into a variable called Rules. Now here is the catch. This command will produce something. So throw it in a try catch. So if it produces an error, which happens, you can set the Rules to null.

    Inbox Rules

    try {
        $Rules = Get-InboxRule -Mailbox $Mail.Userprincipalname
    } catch {
        $Rules = $null  
    }
    

    Next, we test if the Rules are null, if not, we start the loop. Here is another fun part… If the rule is misconfigured, it will present as null from time to time. So we need to test for the null again per rule.

    if ($null -ne $Rules) {
        Write-Verbose "$($mail.userprincipalname)"
        foreach ($Rule in $Rules) {
            if ($null -ne $rule) {}
        }
    }
    

    Parsing the data

    Some rules are based on subject, some rules are based on email. It’s best that we grab useful information. Things like the description, and from are presented in string format with unique structures. However, sometimes those can be null strings and that will explode the results as well. So we have to test them. First we will test the from. if the from is not null, we want to split the from, from the bracket and select the first item. However, if the from is null, we want to give the from a blank string as a psobject doesn’t like null.

    if ($null -ne $rule.from) {
        $froms = $Rule.from.split('[')[0]
    } else {
        $froms = ""
    }
    

    After the From, we need to grab the description. However, I need this description on a single line. As most people are using PowerShell 5, Join-String is not available. Which is sad. So, I built my own join-string. To do this, first create a null return. Then split the Rules description by the enter, `n. Next we do a foreach-object loop, taking that null return value and added itself to itself with a nice trim. Finally, I dropped that information into the description. If the description was null to begin with we drop a blank string into the description variable.

    if ($null -ne $rule.description) {
        $dereturn = $Null
        $rule.description.split("`n") | foreach-object { $dereturn = "$dereturn $($_.trim())" }
        $description = $dereturn.trim()
    } else {
        $description = ""
    }
    

    Bringing it together

    Finally, we have all the information we need. It’s time to create the PS Custom Object. Here we will be presenting the username, the ID of the rule, if the rule is enabled, the from, and the description. Since we joined the strings of the description before, this output can be exported to a csv file. Remember at the beginning of the main loop, we are placing all the output of that loop into a variable called Rules Return. Well, this is what will be going into that variable.

    [pscustomobject]@{
        Username    = $Mail.Userprincipalname
        Identity    = $Rule.Identity
        Enabled     = $Rule.Enabled
        Name        = $Rule.Name
        from        = $froms
        Description = $description
    } 
    

    End

    Finally, we reach the end of this script. We are doing two things at the end of this script. First, we are presenting the data. Then we are testing if we need to stay connected. We present the variable Rules Return. Then we check if Stay Connected is true. If it isn’t we disconnect from exchange with a confirmation of false. If you set the flag to stay connected when you executed the code, then this part only shows the rules. No need to disconnect. I always love having this option as exchange online is a pain with multiple MFA layers.

    $RulesReturn
    if (!($StayConnected)) { Disconnect-ExchangeOnline -Confirm:$false }
    

    Continue Reading:

    As always, I like to present some items at the end to encourage you to continue reading.

    Find Forwarding Rules

    Find Forwarding Rules

    Not too long ago, I needed to do some rule auditing for forwarders in a client’s exchange online. They believed someone had a rule in their exchange account that was forwarded to a spammer. They believed this because new employees were receiving emails within a few days of creation. So, it’s time for some PowerShell magic to save the day. It’s time to Find Forwarding Rules in your mailboxes with PowerShell.

    The Script

    Connect-ExchangeOnline
    $Mailboxes = Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited
    $ForwarderRules = foreach ($Mailbox in $Mailboxes) {
        $rules = Get-InboxRule -mailbox $Mailbox.Alias
        foreach ($rule in $rules) {
            if (($null -ne $rule.ForwardTo) -or ($null -ne $rule.ForwardAsAttachmentTo)) {
                [pscustomobject][ordered]@{
                    Username = $Mailbox.Alias
                    Rule = $Rule.name
                    ID = $Rule.RuleIdentity
                    Enabled = $rule.enabled
                    ForwardTo = $rule.ForwardTo | where-object {$_ -like "*@*"}
                    ForwardAsAttachmentTo = $rule.ForwardAsAttachmentTo | where-object {$_ -like "*@*"}
                }
            }
        }
    }
    $ats = $ForwarderRules | where-object {($null -ne $_.ForwardTo) -or ($null -ne $_.ForwardAsAttachmentTo)}
    $ats
    

    The Breakdown

    The script today requires the Exchange Online Module to be installed. If you don’t have it, go install it. Once you have it, you will need to connect using the Connect-ExchangeOnline commandlet.

    Connect-ExchangeOnline
    

    By doing it this way, MFA will be triggered and we want MFA to be at this level. Security first yall. This brings me to my next point, soon exo 3 will come out and security will be improved greatly.

    Once you are connected, we need now to pull all the mailboxes from the system. This command can take some time if you have a large company. In fact, this script with only 300 users took around an hour. The Larger your company is, the longer it will take. Plan ahead accordingly.

    $Mailboxes = Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited
    

    Now we have all the mailboxes, we need to go through each mailbox and get the inbox rules for that mailbox. We start a for each loop of the mailboxes.

    $ForwarderRules = foreach ($Mailbox in $Mailboxes) { 
    
    }
    

    Next, we will need to grab the inbox rules for that mailbox. We do this with the Get-InboxRule commandlet and we feed it the mailbox alias.

    $ForwarderRules = foreach ($Mailbox in $Mailboxes) { 
        $rules = Get-InboxRule -mailbox $Mailbox.Alias
    }
    

    Normally a mailbox has more than one rule. Thus, we need to make another for each loop for the rules inside our main foreach loop.

    $ForwarderRules = foreach ($Mailbox in $Mailboxes) { 
        $rules = Get-InboxRule -mailbox $Mailbox.Alias
        foreach ($rule in $rules) {
        
        }
    }
    

    Afterward, we need to pull the data out of the rules and make it useful. The amount of output is large, breaking it down and making it useful is important. That’s the whole goal of this. We want to find out who has forwarders and we want to know if those forwarders are forwarding out to someone else. I want to break it up as well so I can look at all the forwarders and just the ones with email addresses.

    Gathering Information

    Firstly, we need to ask the question, Are we forwarding to someone as an email or an attachment? The properties we want to look at are, forwardto and forwardasattachmentto. If either of these are not null, then we want to look at that information. This allows us to Find Forwarding Rules.

    $ForwarderRules = foreach ($Mailbox in $Mailboxes) { 
        $rules = Get-InboxRule -mailbox $Mailbox.Alias
        foreach ($rule in $rules) {
            if (($null -ne $rule.ForwardTo) -or ($null -ne $rule.ForwardAsAttachmentTo)) {
            
            }
        }
    }
    

    Now we are looking at a rule object that has a forwarder of some sort. It’s time to let the end user know. Next, we will create a PowerShell Custom Object. Almost every get command I have come across has produced one of these objects.

    $ForwarderRules = foreach ($Mailbox in $Mailboxes) { 
        $rules = Get-InboxRule -mailbox $Mailbox.Alias
        foreach ($rule in $rules) {
            if (($null -ne $rule.ForwardTo) -or ($null -ne $rule.ForwardAsAttachmentTo)) {
                [pscustomobject][ordered]@{
    
                }
            }
        }
    }
    

    The object is ready for us. It’s time to fill it in with useful information. We need the mailbox name, the rule name, the rule’s id, if it’s enabled, and finally the forwarder information. The forwarder information is broken up into two. The “ForwardTo” and the “ForwardAsAttachmentTo”. The first forwards the email to a person. The second wraps up the email into an attachment and sends it to the person. We need to see both.

    These items are arrays of email addresses and references. If the forwarder points to an external email address it will contain the @ symbol like most email addresses do. If the forwarder points to an internal address like bob in accounting, then it will not have an @ symbol unless told otherwise. This is useful. We can use a where object to pull out the lines with an @ symbol.

    $ForwarderRules = foreach ($Mailbox in $Mailboxes) {
        $rules = Get-InboxRule -mailbox $Mailbox.Alias
        foreach ($rule in $rules) {
            if (($null -ne $rule.ForwardTo) -or ($null -ne $rule.ForwardAsAttachmentTo)) {
                [pscustomobject][ordered]@{
                    Username = $Mailbox.Alias
                    Rule = $Rule.name
                    ID = $Rule.RuleIdentity
                    Enabled = $rule.enabled
                    ForwardTo = $rule.ForwardTo | where-object {$_ -like "*@*"}
                    ForwardAsAttachmentTo = $rule.ForwardAsAttachmentTo | where-object {$_ -like "*@*"}
                }
            }
        }
    }
    

    Sorting the Sorted Information

    Now it’s time to sort the sorted information. First why? Why not add it to the loop above? Two reasons. First is the time it takes to process. Second, I want to run $ForwarderRules to get information and I want to run the next line of code to see the more focused information. I like having options. Now we will take the forwarder rules we created and filter out the nulls of the forwarders. Finally, we want to display the information.

    $ats = $ForwarderRules | where-object {($null -ne $_.ForwardTo) -or ($null -ne $_.ForwardAsAttachmentTo)}
    $ats
    

    Finally, you have all the email addresses and rules that have a forwarder that forwards to a real email address. You can run through each one and audit them for security.

    Future Reading

    Images created with Mid Journey AI

    Test Microsoft Service Connections

    Test Microsoft Service Connections

    This past week I have had multiple terminals up with different clients on different terminals connected to different Microsoft services. I quickly realized that I needed to know if I was already connected or not to each Microsoft service. I knew that Get-PPSession was a key to this, but what surprised me was azure and msols didn’t have a PPSession to review. I use 4 different connections on a daily basis. The Msol, Exchange Online, Compliance, and Azure AD. Here is how you can quickly test each service to see if it’s connected.

    Msol Service

    With Msol we want to test a command to see if it works. We output that command to null. The command I found to be the quickest for this is Get-MsolDomain. Once we run the command we check to see how successful that command was with $?. I like to put things into arrays for future use. So, I dropped it into a $Results and then present those display those results.

    Get-MsolDomain -Erroraction SilentlyContinue | out-null
    $Results = $?
    $Results
    

    Exchange Online

    With Exchange online, we can use the Get-PSSession. We search the connection uri for outlook.office365. We also look at the state to be opened. We then ask if how many sessions there are. if it’s greater than 0, then we are good to go. Believe it or not, this is a one-liner.

    (Get-PSSession | Where-object { ($_.ConnectionURI -like "*outlook.office365.com*") -and ($_.State -like "Opened")}).count -gt 0
    

    Compliance

    With Compliance, it’s similar to the exchange online. We are using the Get-PSSession again. This time we are looking for the word compliance and the state open as well. Once again, this can be a one-liner.

    (Get-PSSession | where-object { ($_.ConnectionUri -like "*compliance*") -and ($_.State -like "Opened") } ).count -gt 0 
    

    Azure AD

    Finally, we come to the Azure AD, Just like the Msol, we have to check it using a command. I have seen people use the Get-AzureADTenantDetail commandlet. So we will use that commandlet and pipe it into out-null. Then we confirm if it worked with the $? command.

    Get-AzureADTenantDetail -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | out-null
    $Results = $?
    $Results
    

    The Function

    Let’s combine it together into a function.

    function Test-SHDo365ServiceConnection {
        <#
        .SYNOPSIS
            Tests to see if you are connected to verious of services. 
        .DESCRIPTION
            Tests to see if you are connected to Microsoft Online Services, Exhcange Online, Complience Center, and Azure AD.
        .PARAMETER MsolService
            [switch] - Connects to Microsoft Online Services
        .PARAMETER ExchangeOnline
            [switch] - Connects to Exchange Online
        .PARAMETER Complience
            [switch] - Connects to complience services
        .PARAMETER AzureAD
            [switch] - Connects to azure AD
        .EXAMPLE
            PS> Test-SHDo365ServiceConnection -MsolService 
            Gives a trur or False statement on weither connected or not. 
        .OUTPUTS
            [pscustomobject]
        .NOTES
            Author: David Bolding
    
        .LINK
            https://github.com/rndadhdman/PS_Super_Helpdesk
        #>
        [cmdletbinding()]
        param (
            [switch]$MsolService,
            [switch]$ExchangeOnline,
            [Switch]$Complience,
            [switch]$AzureAD
        )
        if ($MsolService) {
            Get-MsolDomain -Erroraction SilentlyContinue | out-null; $Results = $?
            [pscustomobject]@{
                Service   = "MsolService"
                Connected = $Results
            }
        }
        if ($ExchangeOnline) {
            $Results = (Get-PSSession | Where-object { ($_.ConnectionUri -like "*outlook.office365.com*") -and ($_.State -like "Opened")}).count -gt 0
            [pscustomobject]@{
                Service   = "ExchangeOnline"
                Connected = $Results
            }
        }
        if ($Complience) {
            $Results = (Get-PSSession | where-object { ($_.ConnectionUri -like "*compliance*") -and ($_.State -like "Opened") } ).count -gt 0 
            [pscustomobject]@{
                Service   = "Complience"
                Connected = $Results
            }
        }
        if ($AzureAD) {
            Get-AzureADTenantDetail -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | out-null; $Results = $?
            [pscustomobject]@{
                Service   = "AzureAD"
                Connected = $Results
            }
        }
    } #Review