OWA wont let users in both internaly and from outside. Access Denied

[bence8810]

Hi

I run an exchange 2003 server on a Windows 2003 server. I just got this job, and I am here for 4 weeks now. My users reported to me, that evern 2 weeks before I came aboard, OWA was working. Now when they access it from their homes, or even when I access it from inside, I get Error: Access is Denied. I looked at all Troubleshooting things I found on Microsoft and Technet sites, but nothing which applied. I had recently (today) another issue fixed by NetIntruder (user here, very helpful and skilled), who solved it by looking at the Group Policies, that were messed up a bit.

I may say that I suspect this also to be a policy issue after the discoveries made by NetIntruder and I.

If you have any suggestion where to look for errors, please let me know.

Thanks

Benedek

 

[ShackDaddy]

If you changed the web site permissions in the InternetInformation Server config interface and cascaded some permissions from the Default Site, that will screw up OWA, even if it seems like you made the permissions more permissive.

It could have been policy too. What did you and NetIntruder do with policies? Which did you change?

 

[bence8810]

Hi

I have set everything as it should be according to websites I found on the itnernet, and even a book about Exchange 2003. So I think I have now the Default settings. Of course, I wouldnt mind doublechecking it again, if you have any ideas where it may be faulty.

With NetIntruder, we had to adjust the Default Domain Controller Security settings, to allow this DC to replicate to another one, and do the DC promotion for the other server. The DCpromotion always failed with Access Denied, even though I was admin, with all rights necessary.

What we set was under Local Policies, User Rights Assignments, and there Enalble computers and user accounts to be trusted for delegation. I guess something or somebody set that value before I came here, and there were no groups added to that value. Now, that we added Domain Admins, and Enterprise Admins, and Administrators, the dcpromo went through nicely and smoothly.

This is what brought me to the belief, that OWA might suffer from some similar issue, and that makes it to spit out Access is Denied error.

However, it is not proven, it may be something else. I am ready to troubleshoot whatever it may be.

Thanks

Ben

 

[WhoKilledKenny]

I have run accross "access denied issues" when apply patches or hot fixes to the Exchange web servers. It seems to reset the IIS defaults. If this happens again try to logon with the UPN and/or DomainName\UserName syntax. If you are able to log in, then you need to reset the Default domain: in IIS.