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Undocumented OWA EX2003 SP1 features - 5.Oct.2004 6:17:00 PM

mejutty

Posts: 1
Joined: 5.Oct.2004
From: Australia
Status: offline

I suppose because everyone has been running exchange 2003 for a while now they might not have noticed what I discovered if they have is there anywhere documented any other undocumented features of SP1 for ex2003??

OK here goes. I have been labbing our companies migration from 5.5 to 2003 for a while and all the time using plain old 2003 no SP1 then I bit the bullet and did a SP1 install.

Now even in articles written as late as this one http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Configuring-Exchange2003-HTTP-Remote-Access.html ie sep 2nd 2004 no one has picked up on it or they havn't found it out because they already had it setup from their original exchange 2003 install.

OK enough said this is what I found. In a plain EX2003 with no SP1 for someone to access OWA they had to meet either one of the following conditions as well as actually having their mailbox residing on the EX2003 server(remember I am still in co-exsit with 5.5). 1. One of their SMTP addresses must reaside in the default policy and they connect to http://servername/exchange and log in and work. 2. If not in the default policy then a virtual folder to handle that specific SMTP domain must be created lets say virtual directoy called domain2. The domain2 virual folder referenced an SMTP domain from another recipient policy that referenced the SMTP domain besides the default. They access OWA now by going to http://servername/domain2 log in every thing is ok. I will be hosting 15-20 SMTP domains so I was worried about having to create another virtual folder for every SMTP domain that wanted OWA and no having 15-20 SMTP domains listed in the default policy is not a good idea either.

With SP1 installed so long as their mail account resides on the EX2003 box their SMTP domain can be anything you want. It does not have to reside in the default policy it does not even have to be in any of the recipient policies so yes they can't recieve outside email but they access OWA by using plain old http://servername/exchange log in and thier away.

Now the point I am making here is this is undocumented I can't find anything to say weather this is supposed to happen was planned for is a bug or what. I have just installed the EX2003 server with SP1 and currenlty it has no mail accounts or public folder replicas on it as I am configuring the stores to use a SAN and I want to get the storage groups and policies set out before migrating users. Now what is annoying is that like i said undocumented not listed in release notes, the release note MS supply are appauling. There is no change list no list of fixed features or enhancements. No one else seems to have found it out, not in any guides just something I stumbled accross. Is it a bug a new feature a planned change ?? I don't want to go yea yippe i don't have to configure sqwat to get OWA to work and then find out it was a bug and here is a fix to something that appears to work great now.

Is there such a list of Undocumented enhancements that SP1 provided?? The reason I ask is I am about to also deploy exchange active sync and before I start blindly implimeting everyones solution for getting it to work then finding out I didn't need to in the first place. I ask because EAS uses a similar SMTP domain must reside in the default policy and must be the primary smtp domain if not change this registry key and it will search the rest of the default policy. I havn't labbed this one yet I am looking into the mobile client emulator to test.

Yoo long first post. OK 2 things would be nice out of this. Can someone else please confirm my findings so I can prove to myself I am not mad. And secondly is there a list of other such changes/features.

Post #: 1

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RE: Undocumented OWA EX2003 SP1 features - 7.Oct.2004 12:59:00 PM

paulbaldwin

Posts: 137
Joined: 20.Apr.2004
From: Lancashire, UK
Status: offline

I was not aware that SP1 had fixed the requirement (bug?) for all SMTP domains to exist in the default recipient policy and have continued to recommend this procedure. I'll check your findings: Thanks very much for pointing it out.

But: I don't see how a user with an email address in SMTP domains other than that configured for the OWA virtual directory can possibly access their mailbox. The way OWA works is that the URL supplies the LHS of the email address, and the RHS is fixed to that configured for the virtual directory (for anyone puzzled, the Exchange Web store is accessed by reference to the user's SMTP address). The user must have an address in the configured domain.

Are you sure you've got this right?

Additional virtual directories to support multiple SMTP domains is bad for other reasons: It was good enough for Ex2000, but will cause hellish problems with OMA and EAS in Ex2003. Additional virtual servers are okay if you can handle the admin, but I always recommend a common SMTP domain that everyone has an address in (with that EAS reg fix - EAS, and OMA, just wont work otherwise).

I've articles on this subject due in the next month or so. Look out for them!

Cheers

(in reply to mejutty)

Post #: 2

RE: Undocumented OWA EX2003 SP1 features - 16.Oct.2004 7:54:00 PM

paulbaldwin

Posts: 137
Joined: 20.Apr.2004
From: Lancashire, UK
Status: offline

Flippin' heck, everything Mejutty says is absolutly true! Microsoft slipped that one in quietly!

I finally got time to check this and at first everything appeared as before. To access items in an inbox the URL is:

HTTP://server/Exchange/user/inbox/...

Now if the 'exchange' folder is configured for say 'company1.tld' then as long as 'user' has an email address 'user@company1.tld', everything is fine.

Now what if user didn't have an address in the 'company1.tld' domain, but instead had a primary email address of 'user@company2.tld'. Prior to SP1 this would NOT work; user could not access OWA.

But now with SP1 OWA recognises that it can't match an address with its configured 'company1.tld' domain, but instead of failing it creates links using the primary email address along the lines of:

HTTP://server/Exchange/user@company2.tld/inbox/...

Somewhere in the bowels of Exchange, SP1 has made changes that cope with this format. What's more, 'company2.tld' doesn't have to be anywhere in the Recipient Policies either!

Result: Exchange OWA is considerably easier to configure after SP1 (so why do people still have so much trouble!).

Thanks very much Mejutty; that gets some stars from me!

I suppose it works the same for OMA and EAS too...

Cheers

Paul Baldwin

(in reply to mejutty)

Post #: 3

RE: Undocumented OWA EX2003 SP1 features - 16.Oct.2004 8:37:00 PM

paulbaldwin

Posts: 137
Joined: 20.Apr.2004
From: Lancashire, UK
Status: offline

...nope, does it heck work for OMA and EAS: These features still rely on the old way of doing things.

So everyone configuring Exchange remote access can keep their pounding headaches until SP2 comes along! [Mad]

So that answers both questions:

1: Confirmed; you're not going mad.

2: See the list of changes MS publish; anything else you may discover is 'work in progress'!

[ October 16, 2004, 09:11 PM: Message edited by: Paul Baldwin ]

(in reply to mejutty)

Post #: 4

RE: Undocumented OWA EX2003 SP1 features - 22.Oct.2004 11:26:00 PM

Sage_Wyoming

Posts: 1
Joined: 22.Oct.2004
From: Sage, Wyoming
Status: offline

Hey:

Researching the same issue led me to this here forum/post that I'm replying to, as well as the "Exchange Server 2003 and Exchange 2000 Server Front-End and Back-End Server" Chapter 4, wherein lies the note:

"In Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 1, you are no longer required to create additional virtual servers and virtual directories for different SMTP domains. However, there may be other logistical or aesthetic reasons for using multiple virtual directories and virtual servers. For more information about the Outlook Web Access logon and SMTP domain, see Chapter 1, Logging on to Outlook Web Access."

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/guides/E2k3FrontBack/48f92d35-75e1-4d8a-8914-fef1893f99d6.mspx

(in reply to mejutty)

Post #: 5