Help With Remote Access

[dgsmith]

Hi All,

Firstly, as I am new to this forum, I would just like to take this opportunity to say Hi to all the people who frequent these forums, I am sure you will be seeing a bit more of me around here, although I like to give support when I can, from my last 3 years of experience with O/S such as 98, NT, 2000 and XP, I am not all knowing, and sometimes need help myself.

As you might of already read from the other post I replied to I have recently setup a SBS2003 Server in a small company network. And the client has requested the ability to work remotly.

Now SBS installs Exchange 2003 on the client which is great as they want to use shared calanders etc, but they want the ability to read there emails, calanders etc remotly.

Now at the moment there topology is VERY simple:

BT ISP - Netgear Gateway/Firewall - Switch - Server and Clients

Now I have set the gateway port forwarding so that SMTP requests goto the Server, which processes there mail, but at the moment, the client outlook tries to connect to \\SERVERNAME which doesn't exist in the public domain.

They have there own domain company.com, but how do I or what do I need to do for them to be able to work remotly?

At the moment I can access there server remotly but thats all. The laptop has a Terminal Services Program on it, but that is not working yet, as I put in the wrong IP Address for the server during the wizard setup, and am not sure how to change it on the client, I am working on that.

Sorry for such the long post, but I thought its easier to tell everything, and let people reply to what they can.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help, or suggest something.

Kind Regards

David

[valter]

If you're aiming at Outlook trying to connect to \\servername that doesn't exist, then open Outlook, Click Tools menu, then E-mail Accounts and then change the address of the server Outlook should connect to ...

[dgsmith]

Hi klasika,

Thanks for your speedy response, but I think I may have confused people. I have 2 problems:

1.

The outlook problem is that the outlook is pointing to the server name. The servers IP address is 192.168.0.10, which is a LAN Address only, it does not exist outside of the office.

I could try pointing the client to the routers public IP Address, but I am not sure that would work? Would I not need some sort of port forwarding to tell the router to sent requests of that port ID to the server?

2.

The laptops have Connection Manager installed on them from the server (which is kind of like Terminal Services) but when I set the server up, I entered the IP Address of the server incorrectly, so now when the user tries to connect it fails as the IP address is invalid, but I cannot find anywhere on the client to change the IP Address. I have changed it on the server, but the only way I can think of updating it on the client is to re-run the connectcomputer wizard and go through the setup process again?

Thanks again for your reply, I hope this new information can help you to help me.

Regards

David

[SpeedStreet]

I'll try to answer this, though I am only able to supply something resembling piecemeal without more information.

1. I assume Connection Manager is a different type of Remote Access software...not Microsoft's Terminal Services/ Remote Desktop Connection? If you were using RDP, the requests would bounce off your public router unless you configured port 3306 to forward to a computer on the internal network expecting such a connection.

2. When you speak of remote access, there are several things you may want to consider depending on your circumstances:

a. If you have their computers set up to connect to Exchange, then the most useful course of action would be to configure VPN. That way, their computer will connect to the work network and act as if it were a PC on that network even from home. However, this may be a function limited by your firewall capabilities and/or SBS as I am not familiar with what restrictions MS put on it.

b. Another option would be to use OWA, or Outlook Web Access. This way, users can login to a remote account through a web browser and work as if they were in Outlook on their own systems. Many IT peeps fight over whether or not this is a good idea or a bad (similar to the war over security in Terminal Services). Depending on whether or not you choose to use SSL or not, you will have to open port 80 (web) or port 443 (HTTPS).

c. Setting up an A record in your domain DNS to point your MX domain to the same computer will (someone please correct me if I am wrong) enable you to access your mail through remote pop (port 110 must be open as well). However setting it up like this and not configuring it properly will enable users to pull messages directly off the mail server and they will not have them in their normal folders come the next work day.

Being that I am not terribly familiar with your systems or hardware, I cannot lend to you a best course of action. You can always slap your Exchange server into the DMZ, but then you are really playing with fire.

The solution I have implemented for my company is an interesting one I would recommend looking into: We purchased a remote dedicated server from a company that has Red Hat on it and CPanel. This way we have a solid mail server that is battle hardened against the Internet, and it is outsourced away from our company's private materials. We required no ports open on the firewall to do this, and everyone is fairly happy.

The joint calendar and address book is a custom internet application that I wrote for our Intranet.

Just a few thoughts from a guy taking a breather...let me know if this helps or if there is anything else I can do.

And thanks for posting something that made a lurker actually register on this site

- John

[valter]

Hi klasika,

Thanks for your speedy response, but I think I may have confused people. I have 2 problems:

1.

The outlook problem is that the outlook is pointing to the server name. The servers IP address is 192.168.0.10, which is a LAN Address only, it does not exist outside of the office.

I could try pointing the client to the routers public IP Address, but I am not sure that would work? Would I not need some sort of port forwarding to tell the router to sent requests of that port ID to the server?

2.

The laptops have Connection Manager installed on them from the server (which is kind of like Terminal Services) but when I set the server up, I entered the IP Address of the server incorrectly, so now when the user tries to connect it fails as the IP address is invalid, but I cannot find anywhere on the client to change the IP Address. I have changed it on the server, but the only way I can think of updating it on the client is to re-run the connectcomputer wizard and go through the setup process again?

Thanks again for your reply, I hope this new information can help you to help me.

Regards

David

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If your mail server works, and if you can send and receive e-mails then port forwarding is done ... you would have to point your Outlook to mail.domain.com if that DNS record exists at all ...

[dgsmith]

If your mail server works, and if you can send and receive e-mails then port forwarding is done ... you would have to point your Outlook to mail.domain.com if that DNS record exists at all ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Is this something my webhost can do? I don't manage my own DNS, so would I just ask them to setup a sub-domain with the A Record pointing to the public IP Address of my Router, which using port forwarding sends the requests to my server?

[dgsmith]

I'll try to answer this, though I am only able to supply something resembling piecemeal without more information.

1. I assume Connection Manager is a different type of Remote Access software...not Microsoft's Terminal Services/ Remote Desktop Connection?  If you were using RDP, the requests would bounce off your public router unless you configured port 3306 to forward to a computer on the internal network expecting such a connection.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No I meant the Terminal Services link that is installed on the client, as part of the setup, but it only works if your server has been setup for VPN Settings, which I had done, but with the wrong IP - DOH.

BTW - Thanks for the rest of your post some of it will be useful in making suggestions to my client.

[SpeedStreet]

If your mail server works, and if you can send and receive e-mails then port forwarding is done ... you would have to point your Outlook to mail.domain.com if that DNS record exists at all ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Is this something my webhost can do? I don't manage my own DNS, so would I just ask them to setup a sub-domain with the A Record pointing to the public IP Address of my Router, which using port forwarding sends the requests to my server?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If you have someone managing your DNS for you, then yes.

[Marsden]

I use OWA remotely almost every day.

I just type in https://63.204.xxx.xx/exchange

I then get this login screen:

All you need on your router is port 443 forwarded to your server's private IP address.

[dgsmith]

OMG - Marsden - I LUV U !!!

I didn't realise that even existed, that is brillient, I have just connected to my account from my personal home computer which isn't even part of the network domain, which means people can check in from ANYWHERE.

The only thing now obviously is security, what are the implications of this?

I realise that it is username and password protected, but whats to stop people trying to hack me? I guess thats a silly question, a firewall?

Is there a way for the users to access files on the server remotly as well? Such as the files in there User Folders? Or the Shared Common Folders?

Thanks

Dave

[Marsden]

"https" uses an SSL certificate. Your OWA session is encrypted besides user name and password. Just use "strong" passwords.

Access information from anywhere, anytime and any device.

Remote Web Workplace, allows authorized users to access remote access features by using the Internet.

This needs TCP ports 80, 443, 444, 4125 and 3389 opened in your fire wall.

The Admin's page...

I've closed more SBS 2003 deals because of this and OWA features...

[dgsmith]

Great, how do I get RWW? Is it a URL like the OWA or an App I need on the client machine?

Thanks again

[valter]

If your mail server works, and if you can send and receive e-mails then port forwarding is done ... you would have to point your Outlook to mail.domain.com if that DNS record exists at all ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Is this something my webhost can do? I don't manage my own DNS, so would I just ask them to setup a sub-domain with the A Record pointing to the public IP Address of my Router, which using port forwarding sends the requests to my server?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Your ISP or who ever is hosting your Internet domain must create an MX record for your domain ... and you need to setup a port forwarding like 110 and 25 for mail server beside OWA ...

[Marsden]

Great, how do I get RWW? Is it a URL like the OWA or an App I need on the client machine?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

https://63.204.xxx.xx/remote

You have to have SBS 2003 with Exchange 2003, IIS 6.0, SQL 2000, and SharePoint Services.

RWW only uses a web browser on the client end. I use any remote machine or my Poclet PC Phone Edition to asscess my SBS network.

[dgsmith]

Your ISP or who ever is hosting your Internet domain must create an MX record for your domain ... and you need to setup a port forwarding like 110 and 25 for mail server beside OWA ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

My Host have advised that is not something they can do. I currently have my Domain name registered with 1 company but the NS Records are pointing to my host for the website.

I will ask my domain handler to see if they can setup the MX records for the mail.domain.com and go from there. Thanks for you advise.

Dave