OWA cant connect to mulitple Exchange 2003 servers

[jL7070]

I have a small issue that’s been becoming a big one over time.

I have 14 branches with exchange 2003 at each branch there is one DC and one exchange 2003 server. At the head office I have one DC one GC and one Exchange server enterprise. At the branches there is one Exchange server and one DC.

The router at the Head Office allows port 80 and port 443 to be forwarded to the exchange server. The exchange server at head office has 2 network cards in it. One with a external IP (this is the one that the router forwards to) and a internal IP on the second network card. The second network card is connected to a HP Procurve switch were a Cisco router is connected that links all my other branches to the head office.

Now my problem is that OWA only works for users on the Head office Exchange. My users at the branches can’t log onto via OWA to check email remotely. My AD is one domain and users are all user@domain.com .

How can I fix this issue?

 

[adcfaq]

a couple of things.

1. each brance DC should be GC, 'coz exchange look up info via GC.

2. How do u set up ur FE/BE?

3. what's error messange for branch users when they log on OWA? which URL they are pointing to? the URL forward to which server? that server is FE?

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Directory Services/Exchange Consultant

 

[jL7070]

Hi benlu,

There is 3 servers in head office two DC's one is a GC as well I made the one DC a FE a well. probably not a good thing but with the budget beeing tight we had no option till the bean counters give us more money.

This is one global domain every one is on domain.com and i tested every one can see the gc in the head office.

The error i get is it tries to load and eventualy times out. its as if it cant get the info to populate the users owa.

 

[adcfaq]

again, each DC is GC on branch office?

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Directory Services/Exchange Consultant

 

[jL7070]

No As the DC's are old Compaq Proliant with PII 450 and 256mb memory.
I can make them GC if I have to but i am worried about the load on these servers.

The DC's in the branch are only DC's But i need to know that this will solve this issue if i do upgrade them to GC's

 

[jL7070]

All the users in the branches can send to all the other branches including head office and to the out side world with out any issues.
Thus i asume the one GC i have at the Head office is working and every one can see that GC from the branches.

 

[adcfaq]

in ur case, i strongly believe GC each DC will resolve ur issue. 'coz if u don't have a GC on each exchange subnet, lots of issues will happen, like query OWA, mailbox, the reason is Exchange server DSACCESS and DSPROXY componants are looking for GC only.

actually, if u don't make them GC, you are not following Exchange deployment procedure, how do u tshooting since it's misconfigured?

just my 2 cents

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Directory Services/Exchange Consultant

 

[jL7070]

but here is the weird part.

internaly you can go to

https://gandalf.domain.local/exchange

and log on as any own any were in amny branch but if you sit at home and try via the external

http://webmail.domain.com/exchange

then it does not work accept for users with email box's on the head office exchange server.

Could this be due to the GC's aswell?.

 

[adcfaq]

in ur case, singple domain, enable GC doesn't overhead ur server and repl too much. why not have a try?

u might have 2 issues here, one is GC as i mentioned, one is IIS published of OWA, DNS configured properly?

anyway, GC first, take a look at DNS later. u need GC those boxes anyway.

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Directory Services/Exchange Consultant

 

[jL7070]

Hey benlu,

Thanks I'll start GC'ing the box's

The DNS is setup as follows.
Each branch's DC has DNS installed that DNS forwards to the DNS in Head office and head office DNS will do all the name resolutions for external eg. if some one in a branch surfs the net.

You sure GC wont cause any extra load?. Average Branch size is 45 Users with HO being about 250 users.

 

[adcfaq]

i am pretty sure GC won't overhead a lot, 'coz you are only single domain. if u know GC repl what, u don't panic. for mutile domain, i will be very careful, anyway, less than 1000 users is considering small business. don't worry even mutil domains.

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Directory Services/Exchange Consultant