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Exchange 2010: Exchange Server Autodiscovery

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As you are aware of the autodiscovery feature from Exchange server 2007? With Outlook 2007, this feature has gone a far ahead to reduce the RPC over HTTPS configuration headaches or the outlook configuration for client which is part of the network and is sitting outside the firewall…good na. Here i’m talking about the server in a domain…autodiscovery works a bit different on Non-domain platform..configuration is slightly different.

When you upgrade Exchange server 2007 to SP2, this is going to be a bit demanding task. clients connecting from outside and inside starts demanding for authentication…in which you need a SSL certificate with Subject Alternative Names (SAN) specified..

Once the upgrade is done, Autodiscover information is stored in a so called SCP or Service Connection Point. You can view this SCP using Active Directory Sites and Services after you have enabled the “View Services Node” option. (When installing the Client Access Server (Autodiscover is part of this Server Role) the SCP is automatically created in Active Directory and configured with the default values. If you have multiple CAS Servers there will be multiple SCP’s as well)…now will see how to configure Microsoft Exchange services, such as the Availability service, for the Autodiscover service on a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 computer that has the Client Access server role installed. When you enable Outlook Anywhere, you must also configure external access to Microsoft Exchange services for the Autodiscover service. This includes the URLs for the Availability service, Exchange Web Services, Unified Messaging (UM), and the offline address book. If you do not configure the external URL values, the Autodiscover service information provided to the Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 client may be incorrect for clients that are connecting from outside your network. They may be able to connect to their Microsoft Exchange mailbox. However, they will be unable to use Exchange features such as Out of Office functionality, the Availability service, Unified Messaging, or offline address book downloads. Generally, the internal URL is configured by Microsoft Exchange Setup. However, the external URLs must be configured by using the virtual directory cmdlet for each component

In general – Autodiscover service provides the following information to the client computer that is running Outlook 2007:

  • The user’s display name.
  • Separate connection settings for internal and external connectivity.
  • The location of the user’s Exchange 2007 server that has the Mailbox server role installed.
  • The URLs for Exchange features such as free/busy information, UM, and the OAB.
  • Outlook Anywhere server settings. Outlook Anywhere was formerly known as RPC over HTTP.

So when a user starts Outlook 2007 for the first time, they no longer have to specify any information if their computer is joined to the domain. Outlook 2007 will start, gather the information automatically, log the user on to their mailbox, and begin retrieving information from your Exchange deployment.

* Exchange Management Shell to configure the external host name for Outlook Anywhere for the Autodiscover service

Enable-OutlookAnywhere -Server HnC01 -ExternalHostname “mail.company.com” -DefaultAuthenticationMethod “Basic” -SSLOffloading:$False

* Exchange Management Shell to configure the external URL for the offline address book for the Autodiscover service

Set-OABVirtualDirectory -identity “HnC01\OAB (Default Web Site)” -externalurl https://mail.company.com/OAB -RequireSSL:$true

* Exchange Management Shell to configure the external URL for Unified Messaging for the Autodiscover service

Set-UMVirtualDirectory -identity “HnC01\UnifiedMessaging (Default Web Site)” -externalurl https://mail.company.com/UnifiedMessaging/Service.asmx -BasicAuthentication:$True

* Exchange Management Shell to configure the external URL for Exchange Web Services for the Autodiscover service

Set-WebServicesVirtualDirectory -identity “HnC01\EWS (Default Web Site)” -externalurl https://mail.company.com/EWS/Exchange.asmx -BasicAuthentication:$True

To troubleshooting your Autodiscover configuration, ther is a site which is developed by a few guys from the Microsoft Exchange Product Team to test Remote Analyzer that is available on the Internet