OWA Working but not the way I want

[TheStressFactor]

Hello All,

I have OWA working but not the way I want.

I have 3 servers each with exchange on them.

Server 1 is a birdghead server that receives all internet mail and dump it to...

Server 2 which holds all the mailboxes

Server 3 has exchange but no mailboxes.

I want server 3 to be my owa server.

The way mail works is that I have all my mail servers on the inside network. No dmz..I have all smtp to my mx record redirect to server 1.

Now..I figured I could have all http trafic for owa request map to my Server 3. But this only works when I have http map to server 2 where all the mailboxes are. If I have it mapped to server 1 or 3 it does not work...it prompts me for username and password but after entering proper credentials it says error: access is denied. I want to get this to use server 3..when i see that it works with http then i will get an ssl and have all https map to server 3.

Does anyone have any idea how i could get this to work?

Patrick

 

[paulorosa]

Patrick,

I successfully installed a site with OWA in the following scenario: 1 front-end server & 4 metropolitan-wide servers (exchange 2k of course).

All I needed to do was to place server 1 as a front-end server and to check the IIS auth access on all servers so to see if all matched. Right now I don't completly recall which auth settings I left on, but it won't take lonk for you to check.

In your case I sugest you place your servers 1 and 3 as front-end servers, so they try to automatically route mail between them, and check IIS auth settings on 2 and 3.

Best regards,
Paulo Rosa.

 

[TheStressFactor]

Paulo thanks,

but is there a way of doing this without front end servers?


Patrick

 

[paulorosa]

Unfortunatly there is none that I know of... The thing is:

- Only front-end servers route messages from & to proper servers (i.e. the servers where the destined recipients' mailbox is).

- If you don't use front-end server you will have to access those servers directly.

Now there are issues you will have to look out, about front-end servers:

- they can't hold any mailbox, other than those created by default because they will interfere in routing.
- they can't generate GALs because that feature is automatically disabled by the time you convert it to front-end. These 2 features are exclusive. You turn GAL generation by turning its role as front-server off and you turn it off by making it a front-server again (this is true by SP2 and above).

Best regards,
Paulo Rosa