How to Connect Remotely to Exchange Server 2010?

With Exchange 2010, you can use the remote shell to connect remotely into your Exchange 2010 server. This is only if you do not have the Exchange Administration tools installed on your machine. It is easier to manage your Exchange environment with the Exchange Admin tools in comparing to using PowerShell.

The remote shell requires and uses Windows PowerShell 2.0 and Windows Remote Management 2.0 to connect to your Exchange 2010 servers.

For more information on about the remote shell, visit the microsoft site (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd335083.aspx)

1. Launch Windows PowerShell 2.0

2. Type in ‘$user1=Get-Credential
This will store your login information in the ‘user’ variable.

3. Type in the ‘$session = New-PSSession -Configurationname Microsoft.Exchange –ConnectionUri http://cloudmedyServer/powershell -Credential $user
This will store the command in the ‘session’ variable
* Remember to replace the “cloudmedyServer” with the name of your server

3a. If your environment is using self-signed certificate, then you will need to add the following option into the command.
e.g. Type in the following commands:

$sessionOption = New-PSSessionOption -SkipCACheck -SkipCNCheck -SkipRevocationCheck
$session = New-PSSession -Configurationname Microsoft.Exchange –ConnectionUri http://cloudmedyServer/powershell -Credential $user -Authentication Basic -SessionOption $sessionOption

4. When we have all the variables stored, we can run the “Import-PSSession” command to import all the PowerShell commands over to your session
Type in:
Import-PSSession $session

*Note: The import can take some time depending on your connection

5. Once the import is complete, you can now use all the Exchange cmdlets on your local computer with the PowerShell session.

6. When you are done you can close the PowerShell session or type in the following command to exit
e.g. Remove-PSSession $session