Can't Access Exchange OWA from outside the firewall

[dput]

We just installed Exchange 2000 this weekend with the OWA (Outlook Web Access) option. OWA works fine from inside our network. On the outside of our Raptor Firewall we can contact the OWA Server, but it brings up the skeleton OWA interface, I then just indicates ...loading where e-mail, calendars etc should be. I have HTTP set up to this server, is there anything else we need to do.

Thanks for any help.

Dan Dan

 

[ACraib]

try changing the security settings (lower them) in your browser ... I've seen something similar to this on my OWA.

 

[paradox1]

OWA 2000 uses the WEBDAV extensions to the HTTP protocol. Raptor's HTTP proxy (httpd) doesn't recognize all WEBDAV commands and consequently denies access when it encounters unimplemented commands for security reasons. The first thing I would try is to update Exchange to service pack 2.

If that does not work try this..

The best method for circumventing this issue is to pass OWA traffic over a secure session (SSL) using HTTPs instead of clear-text HTTP. This has two benefits:

1. The Raptor Firewall HTTP proxy cannot examine the encrypted session data and therefore lets any HTTP commands pass. It still provides security inasmuch as the assumption is if the two servers trust each other enough to setup an SSL session, then they must also trust each other to behave properly within that session.

2. Encrypting your corporate e-mail, calendar, and contacts across the open Internet is a recommended security practice; passing potentially sensitive information in clear-text is just a plain bad idea.

Configuring ISS for HTTPs is fairly trivial: It requires the acquisition and installation of a server certificate. We recommend using a certificate from a valid root CA, such as VeriSign or Entrust, not a test certificate which hasn't been signed by a valid CA. If you run your own CA, you should already know how to generate a signed certificate and distribute the CA certificate to your end-users.

Hope this helps,

Nick

 

[dput]

Never having setup SSL before, can you give me some detailed directions on how and what to do. MANY THANKS! Dan

 

[Guest_imported]

I assume that you have Raptor 6.5.0 for Win NT. It would be best to contact Symantec. I am far from an expert in Raptor set up and configuration. I use a Cisco PIX box. Sorry if my post miss-led you. I tracked down the cause of your problems on another forum. However the set up I can not lend assistance in. Try this Mail list that supports Raptor questions.

http://www.firetower.com/mailinglists.html

 

[JabbaTheNut]

Another option would be to map inbound port 80 to private port 80. If you are using Win2K RRAS, you can do this in the "Special Ports" property of the WAN interface in NAT. Game Over, Man!