Using Test-ServiceHealth for Exchange Server Health Checks

As the name suggests, Test-ServiceHealth checks the state of the services that should be running on the Exchange server. One of the best things about this cmdlet is that it checks the services depending on the Exchange server roles that are installed.

So for example, for a Hub Transport server only those services relating to the Hub Transport role will be checked. While for a "typical" Exchange 2010 server the services for the Hub Transport, Client Access, and Mailbox server roles will be checked.

Here is an example of the Test-ServiceHealth results.

[PS] C:\>Test-ServiceHealth br-ex2010-mb  Role                    : Mailbox Server Role RequiredServicesRunning : True ServicesRunning         : {IISAdmin, MSExchangeADTopology, MSExchangeIS, MSExchangeMailboxAssistants, MSExchangeMailSub                           mission, MSExchangeRepl, MSExchangeRPC, MSExchangeSA, MSExchangeSearch, MSExchangeServiceHost                           , MSExchangeThrottling, MSExchangeTransportLogSearch, W3Svc, WinRM} ServicesNotRunning      : {}  Role                    : Client Access Server Role RequiredServicesRunning : True ServicesRunning         : {IISAdmin, MSExchangeAB, MSExchangeADTopology, MSExchangeFBA, MSExchangeFDS, MSExchangeMailbo                           xReplication, MSExchangeProtectedServiceHost, MSExchangeRPC, MSExchangeServiceHost, W3Svc, Wi                           nRM} ServicesNotRunning      : {}  Role                    : Hub Transport Server Role RequiredServicesRunning : True ServicesRunning         : {IISAdmin, MSExchangeADTopology, MSExchangeEdgeSync, MSExchangeServiceHost, MSExchangeTranspo                           rt, MSExchangeTransportLogSearch, W3Svc, WinRM} ServicesNotRunning      : {}

As you can see that is a lot of useful information. But whenever possible I like to see just the minimum relevant information for my servers. In the case of Test-ServiceHealth the RequiredServicesRunning result is the thing I am most interested in.

So in this case I could run the following command to see just that information:

[PS] C:\>Test-ServiceHealth br-ex2010-mb | ft Role,RequiredServicesRunning -auto  Role                      RequiredServicesRunning ----                      ----------------------- Mailbox Server Role                          True Client Access Server Role                    True Hub Transport Server Role                    True

Much better.

Now suppose I wanted to run that for all of my Exchange servers. I could do that with the following command:

[PS] C:\>Get-ExchangeServer | Test-ServiceHealth | ft Role,RequiredServicesRunning -auto  Role                      RequiredServicesRunning ----                      ----------------------- Client Access Server Role                    True Hub Transport Server Role                    True Client Access Server Role                    True Hub Transport Server Role                    True Mailbox Server Role                         False Mailbox Server Role                          True Client Access Server Role                    True Hub Transport Server Role                    True Mailbox Server Role                          True Client Access Server Role                    True Hub Transport Server Role                    True

Interesting, especially the one that failed the test for the Mailbox server role. But in that output I can't tell which server failed.

Let's try this instead:

[PS] C:\>$servers = Get-ExchangeServer [PS] C:\>foreach ($server in $servers) { >> Write-Host "Checking" $server.name >> Test-ServiceHealth $server | ft Role,RequiredServicesRunning -auto >> } >>

Now we get output that is a little more useful, and tells me which server failed the test.

Checking HO-EX2010-CAHT1  Role                      RequiredServicesRunning ----                      ----------------------- Client Access Server Role                    True Hub Transport Server Role                    True  Checking HO-EX2010-CAHT2  Role                      RequiredServicesRunning ----                      ----------------------- Client Access Server Role                    True Hub Transport Server Role                    True  Checking HO-EX2010-MB1  Role                RequiredServicesRunning ----                ----------------------- Mailbox Server Role                   False  Checking HO-EX2010-MB2  Role                RequiredServicesRunning ----                ----------------------- Mailbox Server Role                    True  Checking BR-EX2010-CAHT  Role                      RequiredServicesRunning ----                      ----------------------- Client Access Server Role                    True Hub Transport Server Role                    True  Checking BR-EX2010-MB  Role                      RequiredServicesRunning ----                      ----------------------- Mailbox Server Role                          True Client Access Server Role                    True Hub Transport Server Role                    True

But it still isn't quite enough, so let's wrap this up into a handy script that will do the following:

• Run Test-SystemHealth for all of the Exchange servers in the organization
• Tell me which servers passed the test
• Tell me which servers failed the test, and why

Here is the script code that will perform those steps.

#Get the list of Exchange servers in the organization $servers = Get-ExchangeServer  #Loop through each server ForEach ($server in $servers) { 	Write-Host -ForegroundColor White "---------- Testing" $server  	#Initialize an array object for the Test-ServiceHealth results 	[array]$servicehealth = @()  	#Run Test-ServiceHealth 	$servicehealth = Test-ServiceHealth $server  	#Output the results 	ForEach($serverrole in $servicehealth) 	{ 		If ($serverrole.RequiredServicesRunning -eq $true) 		{ 			Write-Host $serverrole.Role -NoNewline; Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "Pass" 		} 		Else 		{ 			Write-Host $serverrole.Role -nonewline; Write-Host -ForegroundColor Red "Fail" 			[array]$notrunning = @() 			$notrunning = $serverrole.ServicesNotRunning 			ForEach ($svc in $notrunning) 			{ 				$alertservices += $svc 			} 			Write-Host $serverrole.Role "Services not running:" 			ForEach ($al in $alertservices) 				{ 					Write-Host -ForegroundColor Red `t$al 				} 		} 	} }

The output from running the script will look something like this.

You can now see at a glance which servers have passed the test, which ones failed, and which services aren't running for the servers that failed.