Connecting remotely to an Exchange server

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Amida

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HI Guys

Was wondering if anyone can help.

I have a user that runs OSX 10.4 with Entourage 2004 that wants to connect remotely to our Exchange server.

I've setup the 3G cards and the VPN both is working but when I open Entourage it doesn't connect.

Tried Googling around but was unable to find anything relating to this.
 
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Smooth Criminal

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It's a little tricky even getting Outlook configured to remotely access an Exchange server.

Does it have to be via an email client or would Outlook web access be acceptable?
 
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Amida

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Moklet Kcuf said:
I'm not familiar with Entourage, but I did a quick google with quite a few results < "entourage 2004" OSX "exchange server" not connecting > try here.

Otherwise, maybe you'll have more brains to pick over at Network & Security Forum
Click to expand...

Thanks the user is currently connected to exchange the problem only comes in when trying to connect remotely from home. I suspect it could be that the server name doesn't resolve when the user is connected remotely. So I tried to find out where OSX stores the LMHosts file but couldn't find that any info on the net.

It seems MAC is good for general use but as soon as you try more low-level stuff there is not a lot of info on the web.
 
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Amida

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Smooth Criminal said:
It's a little tricky even getting Outlook configured to remotely access an Exchange server.

Does it have to be via an email client or would Outlook web access be acceptable?
Click to expand...

Outlook is easy never had problems.

I also tried OWA but after logging in you cannot view any of the emails. This happens on Safari and Firefox. On a Windows Computer OWA works with any browser.
 
midkemia

midkemia

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Install internet explorer for mac to use OWA, but firefox should open the "lite" version.

For the VPN - what you need to do, is set the DNS settings manually, we had a mac laptop in the office for a while, and this was the only way we could get it connected to VPN and use entourage.
 
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Amida

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midkemia said:
Install internet explorer for mac to use OWA, but firefox should open the "lite" version.

For the VPN - what you need to do, is set the DNS settings manually, we had a mac laptop in the office for a while, and this was the only way we could get it connected to VPN and use entourage.
Click to expand...

I suspected this but where can I edit the hosts file so I can add the exchange server address?
 
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koffiejunkie

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/etc/hosts - just like on any other Unix. There is no lmhosts file on my MBP (Leopard) although there is a man page, so I guess you could make one in /etc/ - samba's stuff seems to be in /etc/, not in /etc/samba/ like on Linux.
 
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koffiejunkie

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Either ways, open a console and see if you can resolve the exchange server's name at all, and if so, what it resolves to. If the short name doesn't work, check that your dns search is correct.
 
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Amida

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Thanks for the replies let me give this a try and see if it helps.
 
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ScrnScrm

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Which version of Exchange are you running? If its E2007, its as easy as pie to setup... E2003, little more complicated, but easy enough.

The first thing you need to do is make sure that your Exchange Server is properly configured, with a proper SSL certificate and properly registered DNS entries pointing to the net facing interface or firewall (i.e. mail.mycompany.com). Make sure that you can properly use the RPC over HTTP service from Outlook 200x without being prompted for certificates or username/password. Once you have this working, point the WebDAV setting in Entourage to your RPC over HTTP service, make sure that SSL is enabled, and it should work.
 
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Amida

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ScrnScrm said:
Which version of Exchange are you running? If its E2007, its as easy as pie to setup... E2003, little more complicated, but easy enough.

The first thing you need to do is make sure that your Exchange Server is properly configured, with a proper SSL certificate and properly registered DNS entries pointing to the net facing interface or firewall (i.e. mail.mycompany.com). Make sure that you can properly use the RPC over HTTP service from Outlook 200x without being prompted for certificates or username/password. Once you have this working, point the WebDAV setting in Entourage to your RPC over HTTP service, make sure that SSL is enabled, and it should work.
Click to expand...

This is the info I was looking for. Will test my RPC over HTTP to make sure it's working.
 
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Amida

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Solved the problem

Hi Guys

I finally managed to solve the problem it was a DNS issue. How I got around it was to add static DNS entry for the server on the MAC.

Here is how I did it:

Open terminal

sudo nano /etc/hosts

add your static mapping:

192.168.1.1 myserver

save and close

flush your current dns cache.


Entourage should now be able to connect remotely via VPN.

I'm starting to like mac more and more.
 
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