- You can't do it with Exchange 2003 you need Exchange 2007
- You need to use iMap
- You need ISA server in the middle
This is all rubbish. I have a fairly standard Single SBS 2003 box with exchange all on the one server, very typical for a small company.
Straight out of the box, I ran the exchange wizard on the iPhone, and guess what, it worked perfectly, great I thought, isn't it wonderful when technologies just work.
Then I took it home, and to my surprise it didn't work externally. Strange I thought, I had lots of theories, mainly being that
- Firewall has some necessary ports blocked
- DNS has cached the internal name of the exchange server
- Something isn't configured correctly
So here is what I did, firstly opened all ports on the firewall, still didn't work, ok that eliminates the firewall as the issue.
Tried removing the settings and setting up again externally, still didn't work, I thought that should eliminate the DNS issues.
So I started searching, found lots of posts saying it doesn't work. I posted questions, people told me it doesn't work. I thought, hang on, but it works internally so it must work.
I eventually found a post that said it works using OMA (Outlook Mobile Access) which is accessible via
https://exchange.company.com/oma
Could I get to that, I tried and I couldn't. IP restricted, I changed the settings on the virtual directory to allow it external access and still no luck I checked a few of the other exchange virtual directories and a couple had this internal only also, so I enabled them. I then restarted IIS and all was good.
In the mean time I had lost hope, this all occurred over 3 days, I tried IMAP and VPN and all sorts of things, and IMAP is rubbish compared to Exchange sync, you don't get calendar or contacts and it wasn't syncing my deletes or moves.
So now I am happy and can configure this for the rest of the company. I hope this helps someone, I can confirm it 100% works and works well with SBS 2003 Exchange.
17 comments:
I am not a SBS techie, so can you tell me step by step what you did to make this thing work? I have spent 16 hours trying to make it work and am about to give up.
I did so much, it took me 3 days to sort this out.
I think the key things are
1. Do you have a valid certificate
2. Can you access exchange webmail externally
3. Can you access OMA externally
I purchased a certificate from GoDaddy and installed it on my SBS box. I have my website hosted by an outside host. When I try to access my exchange server externally (https://exchange.mydomain.com/OMA), I get an error that the Certificate can't be verified. Maybe it's because I have the cert installed on my computer and not my web hosts. What do you think?
There is a way to get self signed ssl cirts to the iPhone by emailing the certificate to yourself and when you open the file the iPhone will ask you if you want to install it.
You don't need a valid certificate and you don't need to install the cert on the apple iphone.
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I just finished this issue for one of my clients. First, forget about OMA. Check to see if the Microsoft-Exchange-ActiveSync folder is IP restricted. THAT is the virtual folder that ActiveSync uses. OMA is a very compact web site for viewing Exchange mailboxes on a small browser and has nothing to do with ActiveSync.
Opening up the active sync ip security on iis worked for me
Thanks
If you get your public IP address and put that in instead of your mail.xxx.com/exchange it works fine. The only issue is that if you have multiple boxes within your mailboxes these do not sync.
HEEELLLPPP !!
Dear Mr. Fraser.
Since 3 days Im trying get an access with my Iphone to my mail account on Small Business Server 2003 with SP2 ( Exchange has as well SP2). What musst I do, set, install to receive/send e-mails over my Exchange. If I use my standart laptop (VPN over public IP like 85.125....) everything works fine. I can access my account, mails and see the calender. But access with my Iphone doesent work. I tried everything with VPN ( VPN connection works ) and without VPN. To set on Iphone ( Exchange settings ) IP of my SBS ( public or private ) no succes. i dont have any ideas more. can you tell me step by step what i need to set on my iphone and SBS that my connection between iphone-Exchange Client and SBS over mobile network works correctly ?? TIA. Andrew from Vienna, Mail: ansikora@web.de
I was able to get it working on a SBS 2003 box remotely.
I enabled all IP access on both Active sync and OMA virtual directories then did a IIS reset.
connection details was in the way of
username (not including domain)
domain
password
External IP Address
This worked.
Yes - thanks for posting this. I hadn't realized that the ActiveSync and OMA directories were locked down to just the ip of the server. Removing those restrictions has resolved my problem!
BTW - we are also using a self-signed cert. To get rid of the prompt to accept the certificate, you either need to install the root certificate from your internal certificate server, or buy a commercial certificate from a vendor who's root certificate is already in the iPhone/iPod trusted root certificate store.
Thank you so much for this article.
Releasing the IP restriction on the activesync virtual site in IIS solved my problem after 2 weeks of troubleshooting.
Wish i'd found your post earlier.
Cheers.
Thank you sooo much. I've been scouring the Internet to solve this issue.
Thanks for your help Dale Fraser you are a legend SBS 2003 removed ip restriction on microsoft server active sync in IIS and it is working great
YES!!!!!!!!!! This totally was the problem, thank you man.
Mine also works with a VPN connection. I think you you just have to update your firmware.
For iphone on SBS2003 install Exchange 2003 SP2.
Reboot and it works without punching holes everywhere, and without certificate dramas (iphone).
Download it from Microsoft©® etc...
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=9664
Run it from the exe as described in the docs.
Enjoy :)
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