Is there a definitive guide to programmatically creating Exchange Mailboxes remotely?

Question

I have found guides that explain how to run PowerShell scripts on an Exchange Server, but all guides require that the machine is domain-joined, and most seem to use workarounds, rather than best practices.

Is there a way to remotely connect to an Exchange Server using either C#.NET or VB.NET?

Essentially, I want to connect to my Exchange Server using administrator credentials (I would supply them, encrypted, in the program), and create a mailbox using a PowerShell scriptlet. That is all.

I would like to start the application as a console application, and once I confirm functionality I can implement it into a web forms application or MVC.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

I had to deal with a similar issue recently, the below code helped me to perform the functionality with a secure connection to the remote Exchange server.

Runspace remoteRunspace = null;
PSCredential psc = null;
// If user name is not passed used the credentials of the current farm account
if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(username))
{
    if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(domain))
        username = domain + "\\" + username;
    SecureString secpassword = new SecureString();
    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(password))
    {
        foreach (char c in password)
        {
            secpassword.AppendChar(c);
        }
    }
    psc = new PSCredential(username, secpassword);
}

WSManConnectionInfo rri = new WSManConnectionInfo(new Uri(RemotePowerShellUrl), PowerShellSchema, psc);
if (psc != null)
    rri.AuthenticationMechanism = AuthenticationMechanism.Credssp;
remoteRunspace = RunspaceFactory.CreateRunspace(rri);
remoteRunspace.Open();

Pipeline pipeline = remoteRunspace.CreatePipeline();
Command cmdSharePointPowershell = new Command(Commands.AddPSSnapin.CommandName);
cmdSharePointPowershell.Parameters.Add(Commands.AddPSSnapin.Name, MicrosoftSharePointPowerShellSnapIn);
pipeline.Commands.Add(cmdSharePointPowershell);
pipeline.Invoke();

Of course you will some usual configuration of the user group membership, server allowance of remote secure/insecure remote connection and so on. this article may help.