OWA Setup/Access

[kdub2000]

I'm new to the Exchange world. I've got an E2K box on a W2K file server. It sits behind a firewall. Exchange works great inside the network and I've opened up all the ports they say E2K needs (and it's a bunch of them). OWA works inside the nextwork, but from outside on the net, I cannot hit the box.

It looks like it's a DNS issue, but I don't know where to resolve it (or let it pass through the firewall). The IP the browser hits is right. But a message comes up telling me the site is currently unavailable.

I've been reading most all the OWA posts and checked my IIS settings and they all look fine too. Any help on this subject would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Xybertron]

For OWA all you need is port 80 open to the internet. Dan
Microsoft Exchange Support @ Microsoft

 

[kevstar]

Can you telnet the exchange server?

 

[Chaupa]

Have you tried just the External IP Address for Exchange.
IP/Exchange

 

[kdub2000]

I've tried to Telnet in but cannot make the connection. I've also tried the External IP address of the firewall. I'm running NAT behind it...could that be the problem?

 

[Chaupa]

You need an external Ip address assigned to the exchange server and have NAT translate it to the internal. The firewall should allow only the ports necessary ports for Exchange. 80 in the case of OWA.

 

[kdub2000]

I'll try the external IP NAT Translation Item...I'm assuming it should work like this.

External IP: xxx.xxx.xxx.231, to be NAT'd to:
Internal IP: 192.168.0.2 (servers IP)

If so, I'll try this tonight after I can work on the box.

Thanks

 

[kdub2000]

I've made sure the IP NAT is fine. I've rebooted the Box. Now I can get to the Log-in screen box but after I type the User/Password/Domain info in, it then goes to the "Page Cannot be Displayed" Error.

Through the IIS Mgmt. Menu under "Services & Applications" I see the range of Custom Errors (400, 400.1, etc. through 501 and 502. Do I have something not configured right for OWA from outside my network?

 

[Chaupa]

When you typed your ip address in did you put the /exchange

http://xxx.xxx.xxx.231/exchange

 

[tom11011]

He must have in order to see the authentication box.

You are half way there, I recommend at this point checking the event viewer.

 

[Xybertron]

It works better if you have a DNS record or a host file so you can use a name rather than an IP address for the server. Just my experience. Dan
Microsoft Exchange Support @ Microsoft

 

[Chaupa]

I agree.
I think we can call that phase two.

 

[dput]

We had a similar problem. What we discovered is that W2K Exchange OWA uses some special WebDAV extensions that are not supported by our Firewall (and apparently other major firewalls have had a similar problem). In our case, the work around was to use a secured link HTTPS to get to the website. This allowed OWA to work through the firewall and also improved our security (which I liked). In our case, that seemed to be the only option available to us.

Dan Dan

 

[kdub2000]

I'll try the items below:
1. IP address (although I'd rather use the Domain Name)
2. https login item. The security function I like too.

kdub

 

[tom11011]

Just tell us what your event viewer says after a user is denied access. Let's go from there first.

 

[Guest_imported]

Go and take a look at the URL

http://www.isaserver.org/shinder/tutorials/publishing_excahnge2000_outlook_web_access.htm

It is explained for an ISA Server, but you can use this to configure a CheckPoint or other firewall.

Nicolas Diétrich
RightVision