Block student to student email in Exchange 2k3

[dgsmith]

We have had our email system (exchange 2003) since December 2006 and always had the problem of students emailing eachother and using it like a "messenger" type system. Whilst we have over time tolerated that or at least been able to control it somewhat, it seems now they are emailing coursework to eachother which of course is a big no.

Whilst I appreciate they could just as easily email it through their own personal email accounts or share them on pen drives, if we can remove this method it's better than doing nothing (also been meaning to stop it for some time anyway for other reasons).

I'm not even sure if it can be done with Exchange 2003 or if we'd need to have 2007 for this. We'd want to continue allow teacher-teacher and teacher-student emailing of course.

Any ideas? Yes/maybe/forget it?

[maniac]

Can be done - little bit of scripting magic needed to add it to all students.

First, create a new group - call it 'Can E-mail Students' or simelar, also make sure you create an e-mail address for the group or the next step won't work.

Next, look at the AD properties for a user, must be on a machine with Exchange management tools installed. Look at the Exchange general tab, and click the button 'delivery restrictions' and down the bottom you can set the restriction of 'Only From' and then add the group you previously created. When set, the student will only be able to receive mail from members of this group - so if you add all your staff to it, then all staff can e-mail students but students can't e-mail each other.

But wait, I hear you cry, I've got to make this change to each user individually?

Actually no, I've written a VBscript which will do that for you.

Const strGroup1 = "CN=Student Mail,OU=Network Operational Groups,OU=Groups,OU=Spires Academy,DC=SPIRES,DC=LOCAL"

strOU = "LDAP://OU=YEAR07,OU=Students,OU=Users,OU=Spires Academy,DC=SPIRES,DC=LOCAL" 
Set objOU = GetObject(strOU) 
objOU.Filter = Array("user")
For Each objUser In objOU
objUser.dlmemSubmitPerms = strGroup1
objUser.SetInfo
Next


wscript.echo "All Done"

You need to specify the group you've created at the top as an LDAP string, same for the OU you want to target. You can get the LDAP strings by using LDAP browser and copying and pasting them from there.

Simply repeat the block of code between "strOU = ... " and "Next" for every OU you want to set delivery restrictions on.

Works like a charm here.

Mike.

[sonofsanta]

(MAGIC GOES HERE)

It's posts like this that make me love EduGeek. A completely random and seemingly undoable request, yet the first post has a full and comprehensive answer. Bloody marvellous.

[maniac]

It's posts like this that make me love EduGeek. A completely random and seemingly undoable request, yet the first post has a full and comprehensive answer. Bloody marvellous.

That's what it's about at the end of the day.

I spent many hours work perfecting that way of doing it, so may as well share that knowledge.

Mike.

[dgsmith]

Thanks maniac - very detailed and much appreciated! Will have a go working through that and let you know how we get on. We're on an RM CC4 network so I hope that shouldn't make much difference - soon find out I guess.

[maniac]

Thanks maniac - very detailed and much appreciated! Will have a go working through that and let you know how we get on. We're on an RM CC4 network so I hope that shouldn't make much difference - soon find out I guess.

Not sure about CC4, but I used the same script on CC3 with no adverse affects.

Mike.

[dgsmith]

Maybe I am being daft, but does this only stop them receiving from students? They are put in a group where they can only receive from "can email students" (staff) but there is no change to their sending restrictions?

I appreciate even though they can't receive means the messenger issue is no more, but exchanging work would still be an issue. Obviously don't want to set their message size or recipient limit to 0 as we still want them to be able to email staff.

[maniac]

Maybe I am being daft, but does this only stop them receiving from students? They are put in a group where they can only receive from "can email students" (staff) but there is no change to their sending restrictions?

I appreciate even though they can't receive means the messenger issue is no more, but exchanging work would still be an issue. Pbviously don't want to set their message size or recipient limit to 0 as we still want them to be able to email staff.

If they try sending any mail to another student it bounces back with a non-delivery report, but they can still send to anywhere else.

This is the easiest and best method I've found of putting this sort of restriction in place, but if anyone else can think of a better way then please feel free to post it.

Mike.

[PiqueABoo]

if anyone else can think of a better way then please feel free to post it.

Nope.

I'll just add CC3 vs. CC4 vs. Vanilla won't make a difference... Exchange is Exchange on all of them (except on CC3 you might have bought the RMMC integration to create mailbox when you add users there, but that's not really relevant).

[glennda]

i have implemented number of recipients students can send to - reduced it 2 5 per email as this reduces the spam going around the system - although you get some that are really bord and still send it to 300 people 5 at a time!

[steele_uk]

This looks great!


Would students still be able to receive email from outside of the school? I think we have a couple of times (work experience etc) when we may need external school sites to be able to reply to students?

Is there a work-around maybe?

Thanks

[maniac]

This looks great!


Would students still be able to receive email from outside of the school? I think we have a couple of times (work experience etc) when we may need external school sites to be able to reply to students?

Is there a work-around maybe?

Thanks

Afraid this method will restrict the students to receive only from the users you specify in the group. You can do it the other way round, and block them receiveing only from a certain group instead of the 'only from' option, but my script would need some modifying to achieve that as you'd need to change the option button to 'From everyone except' which can be done, but I don't know the database value to do it as for my purpose what I've written does what is needed at my school.

If I've got time I'll see if I can modify it and produce two versions.

Mike.

[alunmjones]

i just implemented this, with one slight change, change objUser.dlmemSubmitPerms to objUser.dLMemRejectPerms and it will then set the group you chose from beeing able to email each other, but will allow external email and email from other groups.

hope that helps

[TechMonkey]

i just implemented this, with one slight change, change objUser.dlmemSubmitPerms to objUser.dLMemRejectPerms and it will then set the group you chose from beeing able to email each other, but will allow external email and email from other groups.

hope that helps

So using that object you still set the group that they can email to internally but external is allowed as well?

[alunmjones]

it sets it so that they cant send or recive from the group you specify (students in our case), but any other internal groups (teachers, domain admins) or external emails can be e-mailed and e-mails can be recived from any other group or external e-mail address.

hope that makes sense