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ndidomenico

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OWA and Sharepoint Services - problem with OWA

After installing Sharepoint Services 2 on a server that was running Exchange 2003 and OWA, we now have problems accessing OWA. If I try to login from the internal network, we now have to go through 2 authentication windows: a windows one and then the OWA forms-based authentication. When connecting from the outside (internet) to OWA, I get a "Page not found" after authenticating to the Windows window (not getting to the forms-based OWA). Any ideas ?

I uninstalled Sharepoint but that did not help. So in the meantime, I disabled SSL and forms-based authentication and am getting in ok from inside and outside, but I would prefer to use SSL. All I want for now is to get back OWA working as before. I'll look into installing Sharepoint on another server maybe later, but that's another story.

To give you some info of what I have done so far:
1) BEFORE installing Sharepoint services, searched KB articles relating to installing SPS on a Exchange server and found mainly 2 articles describing what had to be done to have a correct installation in this context: KB823265 (exclude Exchange directories) and KB832769 (Kerberos authentication)
2) Installed Sharepoint
3) Applied the 2 corrections. (exclude exchange folders and kerberos authenticating)
4) Tried to access OWA with problems (2 authentication windows).
5) Uninstalled Sharepoint
6) Tried to re-apply SSL on Exchange web sites and reconfigure Forms-based authentication
7) Removed SSL and Forms-based Authentication

Thanks.
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Sembee
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OK, since you've done all this, you may want to reinstall Exchange, so it re-applies the hooks into IIS. Doesn't sound like Kerberos auth is available on the \exchange directory anymore. Also, after you disable the FBA, you have to restart Exchange services; at the very least the IIS. Have you done this yet?

D
Yea, what Sembee says :)

D
Avatar of Bembi
If you install Sharepoint on a server, which hosts exchange, the traffic is filtered by the SharePoint ISAPI filter, and this may produce the "page not found" message. You have to exclude the exchange directories from SharePoint (or install Sharepoint on a seperate Web-Site)

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;823265
Avatar of ndidomenico
ndidomenico

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Thanks Sembee, you were right on! Exchweb and Exadmin did not have basic and integrated activated. After changing that, it sill did not work. But I noticed that "Default Web Site" (right above the Exchange virtual folders) did not have basic and anonymous access activated. So I activated these 2 features on Default Web Site and then it worked perfectly. Am I compromising anything by activating anonymous and basic on Default Web Site? If I remove anonymous on Default Web Site, I have to go through the 2 authentication windows (Windows + OWA Fba).

Thanks
You need to have some anonymous access to the web site for the FBA page to load. "exchweb" contains all the shared elements of OWA which is why it has anonymous access. It doesn't contain any proprietary data, so anyone looking at it will not get very far.

Simon.
Thanks for your help Sembee, and all of the others as well. My OWA is now back to normal, oouf!
Just one last comment before closing this. I had to allow anonymous access to another virtual directory. I had implemented the http to https automatic redirection following KB555126, which also stopped working properly after installing Sharepoint. By activating anonymous access to the OWA_Redirect folder, it now works fine. I don't remember having done that when I initially configured the https redirection, and the KB555126 did not mention anything about this either. Is it Sharepoint that has changed the environment that now needs this to be done ? Anyway, OWA is back to normal, and I can get to other things (like setting up Sharepoint on another server, and I have a feeling I will be revisiting this forum for some more questions...

Thanks to all