Remote Access of Exchange server

[Hanson]

Is there a way (either program or settings) that will allow someone remotely to directly access the Exchange server? eg, you connect to the internet and then have direct access to your inbox and etc. I would like the same kind of functionality that RAS gives you but over the internet.

 

[age]

Outlook Web Access allows you to view your exchange mailbox in an Internet Browser.... Certain things are unavailable, but you get your mail, calendar, contacts and public folders.... Is this what you had in mind?

 

[Hanson]

No, not OWA. I am looking for a way to have a direct connection to the Exchange server as if you were in the office and connected to the LAN -- only remotely via a modem.

Any ideas?

 

[age]

you need a VPN solution then yeah?? Users can dial up to their internet accounts and then connect to the network via a vpn server?

 

[Guest_imported]

A couple of questions:

Do you use a firewall?
Is the server visible on the Internet, or are you using NAT to hide it behind a firewall?

 

[Hanson]

I use Sonicwall, and it has a VPN client. I think it's the only way to go.

Now if I could just get it to work...

 

[rockgod]

I also use a SonicWall, the Pro model. I had the worst time getting the VPN client to work, and finally gave up.

What I ended up doing is using NAT to map an external, routable IP address to my mail servers' internal, non-routable IP. I created an MX record on my DNS server for the mail server. I configured my remote users Outlook using the mail servers' hostname. The mail server then requires the user to authenticate with an ID and password when they connect to it. The only downside is that I had to configure the Exchange server to use static RPC ports. Too complicated to get into, but if this solution is interesting to you, let me know and I'll give you all the details.

 

[Hanson]

I just found out that Sonicwall VPN won't work through routers that don't support the IPSec protocol. We are going to get a new router that supports IPSec and get the VPN up and going.

 

[babalou]

We use SonicWALLs all the time and use VPN tunnels in a hub and spoke configuration between our houses, the corp office and clients. I can access client networks using 3DES IPSEC tunnels with internal addressing from my house. I also can use my Terminal Server client from my win2k server at home to Terminal to client Win2k boxes without any problem. We have a manager who uses a D-Link 704 NAT router at his home network. He wanted to access his Exchange mail from home easily. I did not want to create IS and DS ports in the Registry of the Exchange server or open ports 135, etc. All I did was create a new profile for his Outlook with the Exchange server. The problem is that once you make a connection the hostname changes to NETBIOS name. I edited the LMHOSTS file on his machine and addedd the company Nt network server with the #PRE and #DOM options and the ip address and netbios name of the exchange server. Wham. When he opened that profile up, it asked hime to log in and it worked.

 

[JVKAdmin]

hi,

We use a hardware based Firewall/VPN solution. We decided to go With the Watchguard Firebox. Its fairly straight forward to configure (as long as you know your networking) and has some added proxying features which have saved us several time now from virus's getting through and ending up somewhere on the network. The client side for windows 9x machines is fairly poor since a lot of configuring for different set ups is necessary due to problems with IRdrivers in laptops. All in all we are quite happy with it. We use Outlook with the remote mail connector and PST folders for them. This seems to work fairly well. I noticed however using any type of synchronization is deadly on Dialup connections with full blown 3DES IPSEC enabled.

 

[babalou]

there is an alert for the firebox:

http://www.secadministrator.com/articles/index.cfm?articleid=24816

I have not played with Watchguards- cool red color though. New SonicWalls (3rd gen) have an onboard encryption processor so the minimum 3DES speed on the lower models is 20MB. My Tele2 has a 3DES of 2MB. My DSL is 1.5 so it does not matter. Most of my endusers that use the VPN have cable or DSL. The ones with dialup have laptops so I do the offline file dealio and create the Outlook.ost file and sync while on the network here. That way only new messages are downloaded. The SonicWalls also do McAfee antiVirus deployment and content filtering (we use that in schools).