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Redirect Outlook Web App Connectors for an Exchange 2003 Hybrid Deployment

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Applies to: Exchange Server 2010 SP1

Estimated time to complete: 5 minutes

After you've configured the Exchange 2010 hybrid server to Outlook Web App requests to either your Exchange 2003 server or the cloud-based organization, you need to direct Outlook Web App connections to the hybrid server.

This step of the checklist assumes you've configured your Exchange 2003 and hybrid servers as follows:

  • You can open TCP port 443 from the Internet to both the Exchange 2003 server and the hybrid server. This setting is required so that users can connect to the Outlook Web App Web site and for the cloud-based organization to connect to the Availability service to check free/busy availability.

  • The Exchange 2003 server has an external fully qualified domain name (FQDN). For our purposes of providing an example, the external FQDN of the Exchange 2003 server is mail1.contoso.com.

  • The hybrid server has an FQDN. For our example purposes, the external FQDN of the hybrid server is mail2.contoso.com.

  • Users accessing their mailbox use a dedicated Outlook Web App URL. For our example purposes, the URL is owa.contoso.com. The Outlook Web App URL points to the external FQDN of the Exchange 2003 server, which is mail1.contoso.com.

Learn more at: Understanding Access to Outook Web App with a Single URL

Warning

This topic is meant to be read as part of the Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and Office 365 Hybrid Deployment checklist. Information or procedures in this topic may depend on prerequisites configured in topics earlier in the checklist. To view the checklist, see Checklist - Exchange 2003 and Office 365 Hybrid Deployment.

How do I do this?

Redirecting inbound Outlook Web App connections to your hybrid server requires you take the following actions.

  1. Configure your firewall to accept inbound connections on TCP port 443 for both your Exchange 2003 server and the hybrid server. Each server requires its own external IP address that directs inbound connections to the respective server's internal IP address. For more information about how to configure this, see your firewall's documentation.

  2. Update the DNS records for your organization to point the external FQDNs of your Exchange 2003 and hybrid servers to the correct external IP addresses for each server. See the table below for examples.

  3. Update DNS records for your organization to direct requests sent to owa.contoso.com to the FQDN of your hybrid server, mail2.contoso.com. The following table shows examples of the DNS record changes needed to redirect Outlook Web App connections to your hybrid server.

    FQDN DNS record type Target

    Mail1.contoso.com

    A

    Exchange 2003 server external IP

    Mail2.contoso.com

    A

    Hybrid server external IP

    Owa.contoso.com

    CNAME

    Mail2.contoso.com

Refer to your DNS host's Help for more information about how to update DNS records in your DNS zone.

How do I know this worked?

If you've completed these steps successfully, users who access their mailboxes via Outlook Web App will be directed to the Outlook Web App login screen on the hybrid server. Verify the following behavior occurs:

  • Exchange 2003 mailbox   A user whose mailbox resides on the Exchange 2003 server should be redirected by the hybrid server to the Exchange 2003 Outlook Web App URL, https://mail1.contoso.com/exchange.

  • Cloud-based mailbox   A user whose mailbox resides in the cloud-based organization should be presented with the Outlook Web App URL of the cloud-based organization, https://www.outlook.com/owa/contoso.com. The user can then click the link to access their mailbox or add the link to their browser's favorites.

Having problems? Ask for help in the Office 365 forums. To access the forums, you'll need to sign in using an account that's granted administrator access to your cloud-based service. Visit the forums at: Office 365 Forums

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