Exchange 5.5 OWA Authentication Problem 1

[yokosuka]

I am unable to get any user to access OWA.

Running Exchange 5.5 with SP4 on NT4.0 Enterprise Server with SP6a. OWA is on a Windows 2000 Member Server running IIS 5.0. Basic/Text Security is used. SSL is not used.

Alias and login are the same using Lastname.Firstname. We get the OWA Login page and enter the Lastname.Firstname and then encounter the login dialog box. The user enters their login credentials but access is not granted.

If an invaled user login is entered then the "OWA was unable to get to your inbox" error page is display as it should.

For some reason we cannot get any valid user to access thier account. Can someone possibly tell us where we are doing wrong here. Any help will be greatly appreciated...

 

[Trackhappy]

You may have to use "domain\logon" in the logon box.

 

[yokosuka]

Thanks for the tip. Tried that and it didn't work. It's gotta be something really stupid and simple I'm doing wrong and just can't see it. Thanks again.

 

[Trackhappy]

One thing springs to mind, have you 1 Exchnage server, or two? The OWA needs to be on the server which has the users mailbox on it. Just a thought. Other than that, can you detail exactly what you are doing and maybe we can see something wrong.

 

[yokosuka]

Thanks for the response.

Here's what I have for Exchange 5.5 (all on NT4.0 Servers):

1 - Bridge Head Server
1 - Public Folder Server
3 - Private Information Store Servers. (PS1, PS2, & PS3)
also:
1 - Windows 2000 Web Server with IIS 5.0 and OWA

Found out today that users who have mailboxes on PS2, which were the majority (850+), were unable to log into OWA. But users who have mailboxes on PS3 could log into OWA successfully. I don't have any mailboxes on PS1. We've moved all those users to PS3 in order to rebuild PS1 with larger drives. It looks like there a big permissions problem on PS2. We attempted to modify permissions with an account which had Exchange Architech rights but access was denied. That was a big indicator.

So... Seeing how we were planning to increase the hard drives on PS1 we decided to excellerate the process and get everyone off of PS2 and move them to PS1 after successful testing with a few users.

This evening we shut down PS1 to get new drives installed and rebuild the box. Now all of a sudden no one on PIS3 can log into OWA. Users can log into their outlook with no problem but OWA just sits there and hangs after inputting the user's NT user account and password in the Enter Network Password dialog box.

I can't see this being the problem but I'm hoping that shutting down PS1 didn't cause my latest problem. I'm thinking that maybe its trying to look at PS1 for authentication and can't find it and then OWA just hangs and eventually times out. I shall see tomorrow morning when we have the PS1 box back on-line.

It's always the little things that get ya.

Any words of wisdom are more than welcome.

 

[davewright100]

Check the directory name on the exchange box and try using that if it's different...

 

[dmandell]

Was PS1 the first Exchange server in the site?
If so could MS 152959 be of help?

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;152959&Product=ech

-Dana

 

[yokosuka]

DOH.... Great information. Your link provided a wealth of info. Passed this around to everyone at work.

In answer to your question, yes, PS1 is the first Exchange server in the site. Had it backup and running after we put new drives in it. Move a few mailboxes over to it and everthing is working as advertised. PS2 still have a persmission problem so we are going to move all the mailboxes over from PS2 to PS1 and then rebuild PS2. That, hopefully, will fix the permissions problem. Need to put larger drives into the box anyway.

In the mean time we moved all the "important" folks over to PS3 where we now OWA is working for certain. Had one VIP that didn't work and that turned out to be an triple alias duplication problem. Go Figure... Guy had the same alias in San Diego, Tokyo Japan and Okinawa Japan..

Like I said, it's always the simple things that get ya.

Again thanks for the link...