Requesting SSL Certificate for OWA

[WinNT511]

I am working on a Project to Incorporate an SSL Certificate with my company's OWA Access.

We are Running Windows 2000 Server SP3 With IIS 5.0 and Exchange 2000 SP3 as the platforms for the Project.

I have 46 Users on the exchange user Currently and plan on adding 56-75 more accounts once the SSL Certificate is optained and installed. The Server running exchange is a single CPU Box(can hold 2CPU only one is installed) and has 1.3 GIG of Memory and the information store is 2 GiG Currently.

My Questions are as follows:

1. How do I go about optaining a SSL Certificate Request? I am looking into Versign as to the SSL certificate.

2. With the added resouces of the SSL Certificate and Addtional users on the Exchange Server. Will I need additional memory or CPU to handle the load increase? (Suggestions Please)

3. The Server is also functioning as a Domain Controller that host Exchange.

4. How hard is it to install a SSL Certificate and Install it? (Any users I should be aware of before Implmentation)

I have done some research concerning the above questions and decided to ask some IT Professional there thoughts on the above Project.

Expected growth on the exchage Server is expected to be 50-100 new users a year.

I would like to Purchase a addtional Box for a second Exchange Server for fail over but that is not a option at this point.

Please Advise.

Thanks,

Mike

 

[rorki]

when I set up SSL OWA I used the Certification Service to create my own certificate. If it's just for company use then you should be able to trust your own certificate when IE asks you! Use the IE to access the service (localhost/certsrv) after you've requested a certificate via IIS Manager. From there you can process the certificate request by pasting in the text from the request file you created. (There are other ways, I merely found this the simplest).

Good luck,

Jon.

If you can't beat them, hire someone who can, who wears gloves...

 

[archwisp]

rorki, did you have any problems with SSL and OWA? When i have integrated authentication on with SSL it wont display the page. It works fine in anonymous access mode... any ideas?

Thanks

 

[rorki]

archwisp, first switch off anonymous access, even if you're not 'live' to the web yet (you don't want to forget later...)
You don't need integrated authentication IMHO, the SSL connection provided through the certificate encrypts both the plain text username/passwords and all data sent during the connection.
Also, if you're behind a firewall, get the proxy server info from your ISP and put it in IE connections under LAN settings, (like: cache.microshaft.net Port: 8080) this gets around any problems with NAT since your firewall believes you are accessing the website from the web (remote) rather than internally over the intranet (local). This threw me for hours until I spoke to the ISP concerned who recognised the issue.

Let me know.

If you can't beat them, hire someone who can, who wears gloves...