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Exchange MSN service for remote users?

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10 replies

by faisalmasood 1 view

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I've implemented & tested MSN for Exchange 2000 using Exchange IM service. Every thing works perfectly inside LAN voice, file transfer, messages etc.

How can we enable it for remote users?
Is there a way to publish Exchange IM service in MS ISA firewall?

Problem Elucidation:
Say we have two offices Office A & Office B. Say I've installed Exchange IM service & configured it for clients on Office A. Now user within office A LAN can acccess the IM service easily. I've MS ISA firewall on both ends. Office B have access to VPN on office A. This VPN is used on-demand. Both offices are running seperate domains. But office B users have accounts configured on Office A as well for their exchange needs.

How office B users can access IM service on Office A with or without VPN?

I've tested that if I try to connect from some remote location, dial to VPN server on office A, then I can connect to IM service on Office A, provided that there the remote location doesn't use MS ISA firewall.

But when I connect to VPN from Office B (having ISA firewall) & then try to connect to IM service on Office A, then it doesn't work. This is my main problem.

Any idea or solution on how to enable both offices to use Exchange IM service for their messaging needs, provided both are having MS ISA?

10 replies

by curlergirl

The ISA firewall in Office B is obviously blocking some ports that must be open for the IM service to work over the VPN. I am not familiar enough with IM to know what ports these might be, but this is probably documented in Microsoft's Knowledgebase or in the documentation you have for the IM service itself. You would have to specifically open the ports on your ISA servers on both ends - my guess is that they are open on your Office A end but not on the Office B end. Hope this helps!

by faisalmasood

I know, some ports might need to be open in ISA. I've tested by opening all ports in ISA of OfficeB. But the result is the same.

Any other smart idea?

by faisalmasood

Points doubled... Any one with some smart idea...

I've read documents on IM Polling & fixed port delivery. Any one tested this thing across tw domain with ISA at both ends?

by david ruschinek

unfortunately the Exchange IM doesn't function correctly through proxies and firewalls.
You should read this Article/book from MS
Exchange Instant Messaging over the Internet
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/exchange2000/plan/EXIMINT.asp

Exchange IM uses Digest or Integrated Windows (NTLM) Authentication, if you remove the Digest what happens.

Also the users have to be able to resolve the "IM home Server Name" in DNS, where is theinternal DNS Records. you might want to consider entering the info in the hosts file.

David Ruschinek

by faisalmasood

This document helped little in understanding more issue. But nothing successful so far.

sO we woul like to wait till MS RTC 2003 release.

by faisalmasood

This document helped little in understanding more issue. But nothing successful so far.

sO we woul like to wait till MS RTC 2003 release.

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