Exchange 2003 OWA External URL not working
Exchage 2003 on single server. OWA access from the outside prompts for username and password and then returns server internal name with the domain name. The page is not displayed. not sure why mail.domainname.com/exchange is being replaced with servername.domainname.com/exchange using https with a valid certificate 3rd party. Other web apps work fine. Only OWA is not any thoughts?
July 2nd, 2011 12:26am

Are you entering http://... as opposed to https://... and being redirected to your internal URL because perhaps you have HTTP redirect configured?Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."
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July 3rd, 2011 10:22am

Hi, From the problem description, I understand that you experienced the issue with OWA URL in Exchange server 2003. After entering the credentials, the returned page is not displayed. Based on the current situation, we need to do the following test to verify the issue. · Entering the URL https://localhost/exchange in the IE browser on your Exchange server 2003 to verify what the page you received. · Entering the URL https://mail.domainname.com/exchange in the IE browser on your Exchange server 2003 to verify what the page you received. At the same time, you could follow Ed Crowley’s suggestion to verify whether you had set the HTTP redirect or not. There is a link for your reference: Title: How to Simplify the Outlook Web Access URL URL: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa995720(EXCHG.65).aspx Thx, James Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
July 4th, 2011 4:23pm

Did not have any redirect. I can get the IIS default page fine. When I try going to /exchange it tries to connect via the servername.domain.com instead of mail.domain.com. Never had this issue before. I tried the Microsoft Article with redirect. It will ask for username and password, but then it switches and tries to user the local server name. I also tried recreating the OWA following Microsoft Article. Not sure why?
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July 7th, 2011 5:02am

Article I also followed and did not solve the issue: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883380
July 7th, 2011 5:03am

I can do localhost/exchange just fine on the server. It opens and the url changes to localservername.domainname.com Their internal domain name is the same as the public side - both .com
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July 7th, 2011 5:21am

meant changes to localservername.domainname.com/exchange
July 7th, 2011 5:22am

You have just one Exchange server in your organization, correct? In the server properties, you don't have the "This is a front end server" checkbox checked, do you? Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."
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July 7th, 2011 10:07am

Single Server and "This is a front end server" is not checked
July 7th, 2011 6:38pm

Hi, Based on the current situation, I suggest that you could recreate the virtual directories in the IIS Manager to narrow down the issue. The detailed procedures have been listed below: 1. Back up your IIS Metabase. To do this, follow these steps: a. Start IIS Manager. b. Right-click Default Web Site, point to All Tasks, and then click Save Configuration to a File. 1. Delete the virtual directories for Outlook Web Access. To do this, right-click Exadmin in the left pane of IIS Manager, and then click Delete. Click Yes when you are prompted with the question of whether you want to delete this item. Repeat this step for the following virtual directories: o Exchange o ExchWeb o Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync o OMA o Public 1. Quit IIS Manager. 2. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then press ENTER. 3. Change to the following folder. In this example, Drive is the hard disk drive where Windows is installed: Drive:\inetpub\adminscripts 4. Type adsutil, and then press ENTER. Important By default, CScript is not the default scripting host for Windows Server 2003. To run the adsutil command, CScript must be configured as the default scripting host. To do this, click Yes if you are prompted to register CScript as you default host for VBscript, and then click OK. Note If you receive a list of adsutil command options, CScript is already configured as the default scripting host for VBscript. 5. Type adsutil delete ds2mb, and then press ENTER. Note To set the default scripting host to WScript, type WScript //H:WScript at the command prompt, press ENTER, and then click OK. 6. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services. 7. To restart the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service, follow these steps: a. Click Start, click Run, type services.msc, and then click OK. b. Right-click Microsoft Exchange System Attendant, and then click Restart. c. When you are prompted to restart the dependant Exchange Server services, click Yes. Note When you restart the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service, the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service is also restarted. In this scenario, your Exchange Server users lose connectivity to their Exchange Server mailboxes. The virtual directories are re-created. To verify that the virtual directories are re-created, start IIS Manager, and then view the Default Web site folder. Important If the virtual directories are not re-created after 15 minutes, restart the computer. 1. Reset the access permissions to Anonymous. To do this, follow these steps: a. Start IIS Manager, right-click ExchWeb, click Properties, and then click the Directory Security tab. b. Under Authentication and access control click Edit, and then verify that the Enable anonymous access check box is turned on. c. Click to select the Integrated Windows authentication check box, click OK, and then click Apply. d. If an Inheritance Overrides dialog box appears, click Select All, and then click OK. e. Under Authentication and access control, click Edit, and then click to clear the Integrated Windows authentication check box. f. Click OK two times, and then quit IIS Manager. Use a Web browser to verify that you can connect to your Outlook Web Access server. If you are also running other mobility services, verify that you can connect to these services by using an appropriate client. Note: Each step should be done strictly. Thx, JamesPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
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July 22nd, 2011 9:42am

Did not work. This seems to be the same as http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883380 Not sure where or how the system is replacing mail. with the servername.
July 25th, 2011 11:56am

Hi, From your reply, I understand that rebuild the virtual directory in the IIS manager didn’t work. At the same time, I suggest that you could run the ExBPA to verify the detailed the information on your Exchange server 2003. Since the Exchange server 2003 didn’t have the ExBPA feature. So we could download the ExBPA file according to the link below: Title: Microsoft Exchange Best Practices Analyzer v2.8 URL: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=22485 Then verify the whether there are some OWA related errors included in the ExBPA. Meanwhile, we could look into the Application logging file whether there are some errors or warnings listed. Please make sure the mail.domainname.com has been published to the external site. Thx, JamesPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
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July 27th, 2011 9:27am

Hi, Any update? Thx, James Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
August 8th, 2011 1:33am

ExBPA did not show any OWA errors. Still not working. I think part of the problem is with the server domain is the same as the public domain.
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August 15th, 2011 11:18am

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