Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Front End : Administration & Troubleshooting

Administration

This section reviews common administration tasks for Lync Server. The focus is primarily on the use of the PowerShell-based Management Shell. The most common administrative function is enabling a user for Lync Server. For example, to enable the user Rand Morimoto with the SIP address of rand@companyabc.com, you use the following command:

Enable-csUser –Identity "Rand Morimoto" –RegistrarPool
"cspool.companyabc.com" –SIPAddress "sip:rand@companyabc.com"

This example explicitly specifies the SIP address to be used. Lync Server can also automatically generate the address using the SIPAddressType parameter based on a number of options including first.last name (firstLastName), email address (emailaddress), UPN (userPrincipalName), and SAM account name (SAMAccountName). This is helpful when enabling a large number of users and when specifying the actual SIP address isn’t practical. To enable a user with a SIP address that is his email address, use the following cmdlet syntax:

Enable-csuser –Identity <user Identity> -RegistrarPool <front end
pool FQDN> -SIPAddressType EmailAddress

Obviously, enabling a user can also be done in the Lync Server Control Panel. However, it’s often faster to simply use the management shell.

Let’s look at a more traditional PowerShell concept applied to Lync Server: the Get-CsUser and Get-CsAdUser cmdlets. On the surface, you might think these cmdlets are almost identical; however, that is not the case. They are actually different. The biggest difference is that Get-CsUser returns results only for Lync Server–enabled users. So, if users are currently enabled or the Identity parameter is specified to be a nonenabled user, the cmdlet won’t return any data. Get-CsAdUser returns data for both enabled and nonenabled users.

That leads to the question, “Why not use Get-CsAdUser all the time?” The answer is the cmdlets return different information when used appropriately. Table 1 displays the attributes returned by each. As you can see, Get-CsAdUser returns general Active Directory information, whereas Get-CsUser returns Lync Server-specific information. There is a small bit of overlap, but only where Lync Server references a generic Active Directory field.

Troubleshooting

As with previous versions of Communications Server, there are two major gremlins with the Front End role: certificates and DNS. The new Deployment Wizard takes most of the guesswork out of certificate generation by automatically filling the SAN fields with the appropriate FQDNs for a given deployment. However, in more complex environments manual configuration might be necessary.

The added convenience of the Deployment Wizard doesn’t lessen the importance of certificates. They are still core to all server and server-client communications. DNS, on the other hand, is not automated. For each pool created, the administrator needs to create an A record for each pool pointing to the load-balanced VIP for multiple-server pools or to the front end IP address for single-server pools.

The Lync Server event log is also a good place to check for errors. From the Start menu, select Administrative Tools, and then select Event Viewer. Expand the Applications and Services Logs item and select Lync Server. All events related to Lync Server functions reside here. Often, the error description is enough to identify the problem and make clear the resolution.