The Message Hunter tool is designed to allow administrators to delete all the instance of a voice message over the digital network. It will allow you to directly login onto all Connection Servers connected into a digital network. You can search a subscriber all over the digital network, based on alias, display/first/last name string sub match, extension range. After subscriber selection, you can fetch voice message based on inbox items, sent items or both for this subscriber. Once you select a voice message, you can find all the instances of the selected voice message over the digital network and delete them based on read, unread and both.

Updated versions of the tool also allow for simply deleting one or more messages in the selected user’s inbox and not searching out all instances of that message on all servers.

Message Hunter tool also allow you to delete dispatch messages for a Unity Connection server. This tool also provides an option to download voice messages as an EML file before deletion. This will help administrator to make sure they have the right message or not before proceeding with it’s removal.

Requirements/Special Notes

This version of Message Hunter runs on Windows Server 2008 or 2012 or Windows 10.

You must install the 32 bit Informix Client SDK version 4.0 or later including the .NET drivers even if you are running on a 64 bit version of your operating system. See the Informix Driver Download Page for details.

This version of Message Hunter is specially design for digital network but it also works for standalone Unity Connection servers.

You must enable the ODBC proxy service on the all Unity Connection servers connected in digital network and attach to the database using an account enabled for the remote database access role. See the next section for details on this.

This tool uses Microsoft’s full .NET 4.5 library (the limited “client” version of .NET 4.5 is not sufficient).

Connecting to Unity Connection 7.x or Later

For installations of 7.x and later you need to use the database proxy service for access to the database from off box for any DB tool including Message Hunter.

NOTE: Repeat following three steps onto all Unity Connection servers connected into digital network by using same remote administrator name and password.

Task 1: Configure a User without a mailbox with the Remote Administrator and System Administrator roles

1. Go to the Cisco Unity Connection Administration web interface for your installation.

2. You can leverage a user with or without a mailbox for off box data access purposes, but it’s strongly suggested that you create a new user without a mailbox that is used solely for the purpose of remote administration tasks for security reasons. This is also required if you want to export messages from a Connection 7.0(2) or later server – a user with a mailbox may not be allowed to extract messages from other mailboxes, whereas a user without a mailbox should have no problem.

3. Be sure the web administration password for this user is not configured to require a change at first login on the “Password Policy” page for that user.

4. If necessary, change the web administration password on the “Change Password” page. Note that only the web application password comes into play for remote data access.

5. Finally, on the “Role” page for the user, add the “Remote Administrator” and the “System Administrator” roles to the “Assigned Roles” list and save. You can assign any or all other roles as well but for the purposes of remote access to the database and making updates to users those two are necessary.

Task 2: Set the Database Proxy Service Shutdown Time (for Connection versions earlier than 10.x)

Out of the box the database proxy service is not running and if you try to start the service it will shut down right away. First you need to set the “Database Proxy: Service Shutdown Timer” value found in the System Settings -> Advanced -> Connection Administration section of the Cisco Unity Connection Administration page. By default this is 0. You can set it to as high as 999 days if you like. After the number of days configured here the remote database proxy service will shut down. This is useful if you want to do some migration work, for instance, and don’t want to forget to have the service disabled for security reasons.

NOTE: If you restart the server, the remote database proxy service will remain shut off. After a system restart you have to go in and manually turn on the service again (see step 3)

Task 3: Activate the Remote Database Proxy Service

1. Out of the box the service that listens to remote database requests is not active, you must turn it on. To do this, go to the “Cisco Unity Connection Serviceability” web admin page.

2. On the Tools menu, select the “Service Management” page.

3. The “Connection Database Proxy” item under the “Optional Services” section will be marked as “Deactivated” and stopped. Press the “Activate” button and it will be activated and started automatically.

Once you’ve started the proxy service you can connect with any tool that needs off box database access using the user name, web administration password and port “20532”.

NOTE: The service will automatically shut down after the number of days configured in step 2 above or if you restart the server.

Task 4:For Connection 12.x and Later Enable Secure IMAP

Connection 12.0 and later ships with secure IMAP connections turned off by default. For message extraction in 12.0 and later you must:

1. Attach the server to a licensing service. You cannot turn on secure protocols for a server that is not licensed – as such you cannot extract messages via IMAP until you’ve licensed the server.

2. From the Unity Connection CLI logged in as an administrator you need to run the command “utils cuc encryption enable”. Once this is done successfully the secure IMAP connection used by COBRAS and other tools will be enabled.

Task 5: Login to the Remote Server

When you first start Message Hunter, you will see a login dialog box that will be empty except for port 20532 filled in as the default for the port. You must provide the server name or IP address for the “Server” field and provide the login and password for the database connection account. Use the alias and web administration password of the database user created above for the login and password fields.

Message Hunter will remember your entries including the password (which is stored in a secure hash). Each time you run Message Hunter it will load the settings of the last connection you made. Every server you’ve successfully connected to in the past will be listed in the drop down list in the order in which you connected to it last – most recent to least recent.

NOTE: The login and password information is stored along with the local Windows login name. Only those servers that have been attached to successfully using the current Windows login will be listed. If you are logging into the same Windows server with different users you will only see servers connected to with that particular Windows login.

NOTE: Providing the wrong password or login will fail quickly and give you a chance to try a different pair. Providing an incorrect server or port, however, results in a 60 second timeout while MESSAGE HUNTER waits for the Informix driver to return. Unfortunately this cannot be shortened. Type carefully.

Troubleshooting Remote Login Issues

The error message issued by the application should have some details for you on the failure reason based on the error codes issued by the Informix driver to help narrow down your investigation. Here’s some general things to check that have been run across in the field for sites having trouble connecting to their remote Connection servers.

Double Check Connection Server Settings

Make sure the remote database proxy service is running. This service does shut itself off after a period of time and does not start itself automatically on a server reboot.

Make sure the user you are logged in as has the remote administrator role assigned to their account, that their password is not set to reset at the next login and that their account is not currently locked.

Make sure the server name or IP address you are using to connect with is reachable from your Windows client. DNS issues often come up in connection failures.

Disable CSA and all Virus Scanning Applications

It’s a good idea to disable CSA and all virus scanning applications if you are having problems connecting to be sure the ODBC port (20532) is not being blocked. Also check your firewall settings (assuming you are running one).

Make sure the Informix .NET Driver is Installed and the PATH Points to it.

For 32 bit OS installs, the IBM Informix driver is installed in C:\Program Files\IBM\Informix\Client-SDK. Make sure this path exists on your server and has not been removed or renamed.

The system PATH variable will also include a reference to the “\IBM\Informix\Client-SDK\bin” location where the driver is installed. Make sure this path is referenced in the PATH. Also, if the PATH is very long sometimes the Informix driver will not find it, try moving it to the beginning of the PATH statement.

If you had an older version of the IBM Informix Client SDK installed it's a good idea to uninstall all other versions and make sure you have a single instance of the SDK 4.x or later. Mixing versions of Informix drivers is not a good idea as only one can be active at a time.

Using Message Hunter

Welcome to Message Hunter

The Message Hunter is a simple wizard interface. The first panel is what you’d expect – you have to login onto the all Connection servers in the digital network. Grid will be auto loaded with the list of Connection servers (including few Unity Connection servers’ details) connected in digital network with the logged in Unity Connection server.

Once you click on ‘Login’ button, tool will start the process of login onto all Connection servers connected in digital network by using same ‘remote administrator name’ and ‘password’ that you logged in to the Unity Connection server on ‘Cisco Unity Connection Remote Login’ page.

Color indicates: This tool used certain color to represent the current login status with the Unity Connection servers over the digital network.

· Medium Sea Green: Successfully connected with Unity Connection server [Connected].

· Deep Sky Blue: Login process still running [Login Pending].

· Tomato: Unable to connect with Unity Connection server [Login Failed].

· White: Not connected with Unity Connection server [Off Line].

When login process invoked, grid row color will changes automatically based on login status with Unity Connection server. Once the login process completed, gird will have either medium sea green or tomato or white colors based on login status with Unity Connection server. If any row in the grids has deep sky blue color, this will indicate that login process is still running for that Unity Connection server, so you have to wait.

When login process completed, you have to select any one of the Unity Connection server from the grid. ‘Next’ button will become enable only for the Unity Connection server with medium sea green color in grid i.e. only for the connected Unity Connection server. Tool will not allow you to proceed further with a Unity Connection server that is not in connected state.

NOTE: Voice message are only searched and deleted against the Unity Connection servers that are logged in. If you are removing messages only from a single select users inbox, you only need to attach to that Connection server.

Select Subscriber

The 2nd page of the wizard is to select a subscriber with a mailbox on the Unity Connection server that you selected on pervious page. Here you have to select a subscriber for which you have to search voice messages.

Pressing ‘Search’ button just brings up the standard user search dialog that lets you find a subscriber by alias, first name, last name, display name or extension. You must select a user with a mailbox before being allowed to continue.

Once you select a subscriber, ‘Next’ button become enable and you can processed to next step.

Select a Message for Deletion

On page 3 of the wizard you can load voice messages for the selected subscriber based on:

· All Messages: This will load all voice messages for the selected subscriber including inbox messages as well as sent messages.

· Only Inbox Messages: This will load all voice messages for the selected subscriber available in inbox.

· Only Sent Messages: This will load all voice messages that were sent by the selected subscriber.

You can load voice messages for the selected subscriber by clicking on ‘Load Messages’ button. This will load the grid with the voice messages based on selected criteria. Now you have to select one or more of the voice message for which you have to find out all the instances over the digital network (only for connected Unity Connection servers). Alternatively you can select messages that you wish to delete only from the target user’s inbox.

Once you select a voice message, ‘Next’ and ‘Generate EML’ button will become enable. By clicking on ‘Next’ button you can processed to next step.

‘Generate EML’ option will allow you to download the selected voice message as an EML file, just to confirm that you are selected the correct voice message for deleting over the digital network.

The ‘Export to CSV’ will dump the contents of the entire inbox grid being shown to a CSV file for review – all columns, including a few hidden ones for folder and message ObjectId values are included for diagnostic purposes.

NOTE: All downloaded EML files are stored in the “EML” folder where you installed it.

NOTE: As dispatch message cannot be retrieved through IMAP, hence Message Hunter will not allow you to generate an EML file for dispatch messages.

Delete Message over Digital Network

Once you’ve selected a voice message for deletion over the digital network, you can advance to the last page of the wizard. You can search all instance of selected voice message over the digital network based on:

· All copies of the message: This will look for all instances of selected voice message included read and unread voice message over the digital network.

· Only copies of the message that have been seen: This will look for only those instances of selected voice message that have been read over the digital network.

· Only copies of the message that have not been seen: This will look for only those instances of selected voice message that are still unread over the digital network.

· Only selected message(s) from the target inbox: This will look only in the inbox you attached to and delete those instances of the selected message(s), not remove all instances of the message found for all users on the network.

Here initially you need to click on ‘Search’ button. This will invoke the searching process for all the instances of selected voice message over the digital network. Once the searching process completed, grid will be populated with all instances of voice messages found over digital network (including few message details like count, Unity Connection server name, message arrival time, sender, subject and user alias). Now ‘Delete All’ button will become enable and you can invoke the deletion process by clicking on ‘Delete All’ button. Once you hit the ‘Delete All’ button, you will be asked to confirm that you want to permanently delete all the instance of selected voice message over the digital network.

Delete Dispatch Messages: If the selected message is marked as a dispatch message then Message Hunter will display a warning note that selected voice message is marked as a dispatch message. Now you can delete all dispatch messages by hitting on “Delete All” button.

If you checked it, tool will delete all dispatch messages otherwise it will skip all dispatch messages.

As the Message Hunter progresses, the progress bar proceeds to the right and logging information scrolls by. The information shown in the text box is also found in the log file created by the tool in the “Logs” folder where you installed it.

All errors start with the text “(error)” and show up in red in the output to draw attention to them. Please review these carefully and include the full log file generated by the tool when reporting a problem to TAC.

All warnings start with the text “(warning)” and show up as purple in the output text. These are usually not critical problems but a situation where a voice message could not be deleted. This is provided for informational purposes only and does not require action or an escalation to TAC for explanation.

You can press the “Cancel” button during the deletion process to abort if you like – you will be asked to confirm the abort command before it exits the process.

NOTE: When the deletion process is complete you can press the ‘Previous’ button and go back and adjust your choices.

Generate Report

The options menu allows you to generate a voice message report as a CSV format. The generate report option will generate a complete list of all instances of selected voice message based on search criteria. Before generating a report, you need to search all instances of selected voice messages over the digital network. Here you just need tell the folder location where you want to store CSV file generated by tool.

The CSV report output has the information displayed in a flat comma separated format. The CSV report file has 3 columns in it:

ServerName, UserAlias, Read/Unread

Obtaining Updates

To check for updates to this tool, visit http://www.CiscoUnityTools.com

Revision History

Version 1.0.11 – 3/18/2019

· Added ability to delete only local inbox messages for selected user

· Added ability to pick multiple messages for search/delete

· Updated all NuGet packages

· Updated all libraries to use .NET 4.5 instead of 4.0

Version 1.0.10 – 8/8/2016

· Updated setup to support Win 8.1 and 10 installations

Version 1.0.9 – 6/2/2016

· Updated ChilKat libraries used for IMAP access

· Added option to export message lists to CSV file to the UI

· Updated exit logic to clean up all form instances to avoid unnecessary error dialogs

Version 1.0.7 – 3/14/2015

· Updating NuGet packages

· Revamping SQLite access settings sub project

Version 1.0.5 – 1/25/2013

· Added support for deleting dispatch messages.

· Added debug output option

Version 1.0.1 – 1/11/2013

· First drop of beta tool.