Unable to use Active Sync / direct push on Exchange 2010
by Mats Hellman on 24.May, 2010 under Active Directory, Exchange Server
We had some trouble with users not being able to sync their mail, contacts and calendar to their mobile phone. The configuration works but when the synchronization starts we get a entry in the local log “Error in Exchange Server”.
Checking the logs on the Client Access server pointed me to look at permissions and it seems like some accounts have disabled the inherited security rights. This is the problem since Exchange can’t access the account information.
To check this you use Active Directory Users and Computers and open the user in question. Open the Security tab and press Advanced. On the open window you should se the “Include inheritable permissions from this object’s parent”. If it’s not selected your Active sync will fail.
Hope this shortens someone’s troubleshooting session.
Affordable SAN(UCC) certificates for Exchange Server
by Mats Hellman on 17.May, 2010 under Exchange Server, Windows
We are currently in the process of setting up our new Exchange 2010 environment and I was looking for a certificate supplier that doesn’t require you to pay an arm and an leg for a certificate.
When you set up your Exchange server to use auto discovery and other services you probably won’t run everything on autodiscovery.domain.com. So you need a certificate with Subject Alternative Names or SAN. Also called Unified Communications Certificates or UCC.
You could buy them from Verisign or Thawte or any of the ones Microsoft currently supports, which is three suppliers you can find them here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929395
Anyway, I wanted a simple certificate to encrypt the traffic between the server and the client and to be able to use auto discovery without any error messages for the users about untrusted certificates. Using AD-CS will remove the problem from the normal Active Directory computers but not mobile devices not belonging to the domain. So googling around I found this supplier and decided to post it here for future reference and so you can save a few bucks on the certificates. The supplier is http://certificatesforexchange.com/
Checking their prices today a multiple domain certificate costs 59,99$/year. And believe me that’s cheap.
