Priyavrat Patel's Blog

How to configure certificate redirection in Exchange 2007

priyavrat — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:16:59 +0000

There are circumstances in which you would not have the ability, or it doesn’t make business sense for you to acquire an additional Certificate for use by your Exchange 2007 “Client Access Server”. In this circumstance you can use Autodiscover redirection to redirect your non domain joined and no direct Active Directory access clients to another DNS address to get their information.

Apply the webmail.company.com certificate to the Default Website of your CAS server.
Change the External and Internal URLs for your Autodiscover services to point to webmail.company.com.
a. For OAB use Set OAB Virtual Directory -Identity “/
b. For EWS (Exchange Web Services) use: Set Web Services Virtual Directory -Identity “/
c. For UM (if you have it) use Set-UMVirtualDirectory –externalurl https://webmail.company.com/UnifiedMessaging/Service.asmx –internalurl https://webmail.company.com/UnifiedMessaging/Service.asmx

Configure the Service connection point to use the webmail.company.com address. Use the command:
Set-ClientAccessServer -id -AutoDiscoverServiceInternalUri https://webmail.company.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml

Set the Default Website to only listen on one IP address
a. On the Website tab assign the current IP to the website.
b. Click Advanced
c. Under SSL Identities edit the IP address to be only the current address

Bind an additional IP address to the CAS servers Network Card.

Create a new website in IIS admin
a. Right-Click Web Sites, choose New, then “Web Site”
b. When you are asked for the path, create a new folder in the file system (recommended under C:\Inetpub called autodiscover_redirect)
c. You must allow read and anonymous access to the site.

In Windows Explorer under the autodiscover_redirect folder create a new folder called “Autodiscover”

In the Autodiscover folder create a new blank text document with the name “Autodiscover.xml”

Setup the Website to redirect to the webmail.company.com site
a. In IIS manager right click the Autodiscover.xml file and choose properties.
b. On the properties choose “A redirection to a URL”
c. For redirection fill in the same address as we used for your Service Connection Point (e.g. https://webmail.company.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml)
d. Click OK

Ensure that webmail.company.com can be resolved internally.

Ensure that webmail.company.com and Autodiscover.company.com can be resolved externally.

At this point your non domain joined and “no direct AD connectivity” Outlook 2007 clients will be working by getting redirected from Autodiscover.company.com to webmail.company.com. The only downside to this process is that the Outlook 2007 end user will be prompted with a box asking them to allow this redirection. There is the option to have Outlook not prompt you again about this redirection.

This is also the proper solution when you are hosting multiple SMTP domains and you do not want to get a certificate for each of the domains. Once you have configured the autodiscover redirect site, you would simply create a DNS Entry in each of your zones that you host for “autodiscover” to point to this non-SSL redirect site. This redirect site would in turn redirect all of your clients to a central url (e.g. https://webmail.hosting.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml ).

~~ Priyavrat

How to migrate DHCP from Windows 2003 to Windows 2008

priyavrat — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:13:19 +0000

Export the DHCP database from Windows 2003:

1. On the Windows 2003 DHCP server, navigate to a command prompt
2. Type the following Command: netsh
3. Type the following Command: DHCP
4. Type the following Command: server <\\Name or IP Address>
5. Type the following Command: export c:\w2k3DHCPdb all

Note You must have local administrator permissions to export the data.

Import the DHCP database on the Windows 2008 server

1. Copy the exported DHCP database file to the local hard disk of the Windows Server 2008 server.
2. Install the DHCP Role on the server.
3. Stop the DHCP server service on the server. To do this, follow these steps:
    a. Log on to the source DHCP server by using an account that is a member of the local Administrators group.
    b. Click Start, click Run, type cmd in the Open box, and then click OK.
    c. At the command prompt, type net stop DHCPserver , and then press ENTER. You receive a “The Microsoft DHCP Server service is stopping. The Microsoft DHCP Server service was stopped successfully” message.
    d. Type exit, and then press ENTER.
4. Delete the DHCP.mdb file under c:\windows\system32\DHCP folder.
5. Start the DHCP server service.
6. Right-click on the Command Prompt (cmd) and select run as administrator, to open the cmd prompt using elevated privileges.

Note You must have local administrator permissions to import the data.

7. Type the following Command: netsh
8. Type the following Command: DHCP
9. Type the following Command: server <\\Name or IP Address>
10. Type the following Command: import c:\w2k3DHCPdb
11. Restart DHCP and verify the database has moved over properly.

I love Cricket – A gentleman’s game!!!

priyavrat — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:52:05 +0000

Born and raised in Bombay, India and then having moved to the USA in late 80′s, it has been a transformation in life that has taken a long time to develop. It is joked around in India that the biggest religion in India is not Hindu but “Cricket”, the fan following is just unbelievable. The moods and behaviour of peoples’ day to day lives depend upon the performance of the Indian cricket team. When India wins there is celebration with music and fireworks and sweets being distributed, the players from the Indian team are revered as GOD, but it is a sport and when you win one you also lose one. When India looses a game or series then the same people would burn effigies of the players, attack their houses with stones, paint them with graffiti. Indian people wear their emotion very loose, they come and go as their team goes.
Unlike the myth here in the USA that it is a boring game that stretches for days on end, true it is played over a period of 5 days but then there are other format of the games also. The One day game and the new increasingly popular Twenty-20. Cricket required tremendous amount of concentration and endurance to play the 5 day game specially, you need concentration and endurance for all sports in general but more so for the traditional form of cricket which lasts for 5 days. Here where in Connecticut there are 26 registered cricket clubs that play in the regionally divided Northern league and Southern league. Besides these offically registered clubs there are other know 10-12 clubs that play recreationally on the weekends. Cricket is very popular and fascinating sport that is attracting some good following in the larger schools districts also with Hartford and New Haven both having their school leagues.
I enjoy playing cricket and promoting the same, there are rumours that USA could be hosting the Twenty-20 leagues here once they are apporved by the International Cricket Council. One of the busiest and most viewed sports site in the world is a cricket site Cricinfo.