GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 435969
Unable to create mail account using exchange connecter
Last modified: 2008-08-06 08:10:27 UTC
Please describe the problem: Please note that I am in a corp environment where my exchange mailbox is not on the same box as the owa server. When I run the Add account wizard, after entering my username in the form: DOMAIN\username, the owa url as http://owa.mycompany.com, clicking Authenticate, and entering password, I receive either the error: Could not connect to Exchange server. Exchange Connector requires access to certain functionality on the Exchange Server that appears to be disabled or blocked. Or: Something to the effect: An unknown error has occurred. I am not able to complete the wizard without authentication. In this wizard there is nothing that requests the server name where my mail box resides. As per below, I believe that this is a bug, as I can create the account with a very weird procedure. See below. Steps to reproduce: 1. Run the Add account Wizard 2. Enter DOMAINNAME\username, and OWA url. 3. Click Authenticate and enter password Actual results: Recieve error messages that there has been unkown errror or that the functionality is blocked on Exchange Server. (This is not the case) Expected results: Does this happen every time? Yes Other information: My workaround is very weird and works every time. When creating the account, I initially select Imap instead of exchange server. When prompted for the server name I enter the server name of the server where my Exchange mailbox is located, which is *not* the same as the owa box. I enter localhost as my smtp server, and finish the wizard. Then I close and open Evolution. I edit the new account created, and on Receiving Mail tab, change the Server Type to Exchange. Now I enter the username and owa url, and am able to authenticate. My account works. This is repeatable.
> Please note that I am in a corp environment where my exchange mailbox is not on > the same box as the owa server. In my experience, in this case, you *have* to add a GC server (a DC will probably do) (in Receiving options->Global Catalogue server name) for the connector to be able to look up your exchange server. Looking up the _ldap._tcp.<domain> SRV record is usually sufficient to pick a DC (though there is probably a better SRV record for the GC service).
(In reply to comment #1) > > Please note that I am in a corp environment where my exchange mailbox is not on > > the same box as the owa server. > In my experience, in this case, you *have* to add a GC server (a DC will > probably do) (in Receiving options->Global Catalogue server name) for the > connector to be able to look up your exchange server. > Looking up the _ldap._tcp.<domain> SRV record is usually sufficient to pick a > DC (though there is probably a better SRV record for the GC service). Appreciate the comment. What is strange about the setup wizard is that initially it only asks for the owa url in order to authenticate. After setting up an account as per above, I always add the GC server afterwards. I believe that the GC will only enable address lookups. In addition, in our large environment the Global Catalog server, the OWA web access server, and my mailbox location are **all located on separate boxes**. To summarize for any dev here, the only way I can set up an account is to start by setting up an imap account (which is not even supported in our env), and specifiy the server where my mailbox is located as the imap server. Then afterwords *switch* this imap account to an exchange connecter account. Presto it works every time. Hope this gets fixed! Thanks for the reply.
Aspects relating to the non-presence of some fields may be more related to bug #415059. To narrow that one down a bit, it may be most useful to check: 1)If you have the "Exchange Operations" plugin enabled (Edit->Plugins) 2)If you did not have it enabled, does just enabling the plugin gives you an "OWA URL" textbox and an Authenticate button on the "Receiving Mail" tab. Please explain what you mean by "Add account wizard". I assume it is not the exchange-connector-setup-2.10 program (but from the Edit->Preferences dialog). BTW, I (a mere user of a large environment, > 10 000 users, > 100 servers in the exchange deployment) normally enter the OWA URL as http://server.mydomain.com/exchange, username as just user (not DOMAIN\user), after the wizard is complete, the full OWA URL is then usually http://server.mydomain.com/exchange/user . For server.mydomain.com, I use the hostname of the server in the msExchHomeServerName attribute on my account in AD. But, this won't work (I get "Could not open folder: Permission denied" or something along the lines of "Server does not hold mailbox user") unless I have a GC in the "Global Catalogue Server Name" field.
(In reply to comment #3) > Aspects relating to the non-presence of some fields may be more related to bug > #415059. Yes this is definitely related to bug 415059, since the wizard requests only two items: Username and OWA url and then *requires* authentication before letting the user click forward. I am stopped in my tracks at this point. > > To narrow that one down a bit, it may be most useful to check: > 1)If you have the "Exchange Operations" plugin enabled (Edit->Plugins) Yes the plugin is enabled, otherwise I would not be able to select Exchange Server from the 'Server Type' list box. > 2)If you did not have it enabled, does just enabling the plugin gives you an > "OWA URL" textbox and an Authenticate button on the "Receiving Mail" tab. This is the nasty OWA URL textbox and authenticate button. In my opionion this dialog needs one or both of GC and Exhange server text fields. In our > 7000 users environment we have: 1) naowa.domain.com: (OWA URL for NA) 2) exch17.intl.domain.com: (Server where my mailbox is located; This is the servername I would use when setting up MS Outlook). IMO this seems to be the missing piece. 3) dc-location-06.domain.com: This is the DC. > > Please explain what you mean by "Add account wizard". I assume it is not the > exchange-connector-setup-2.10 program (but from the Edit->Preferences dialog). Yes. Edit->Preferences->Accounts->Add > > BTW, I (a mere user of a large environment, > 10 000 users, > 100 servers in > the exchange deployment) normally enter the OWA URL as > http://server.mydomain.com/exchange, username as just user (not DOMAIN\user), Strange, when I finally *do* get the account set up, with the imap switch method, I then enter my username as DOMAIN\username, and this enables me to authenticate properly. > after the wizard is complete, the full OWA URL is then usually > http://server.mydomain.com/exchange/user . For server.mydomain.com, I use the > hostname of the server in the msExchHomeServerName attribute on my account in > AD. But, this won't work (I get "Could not open folder: Permission denied" or > something along the lines of "Server does not hold mailbox user") unless I have > a GC in the "Global Catalogue Server Name" field. There is nowhere to enter the GC until the account is set up. You can't set up the account as authentication is not possible with only username and OWA URL. > Hope some of these details helps. Boyd
Created attachment 115032 [details] [review] proposed evo patch for evolution; I guess the main problem was that there is no Authentication type section in the account druid, thus one cannot choose whether the authentication is plain text or secure. This patch adds this feature there. After you successfully authenticate, you can change the GAL server on the next page, the entry is there. (I didn't get how that entry works, but it probably doesn't matter.) In case you've different mailbox name and username, there is a committed fix for this from bug #273627.
some testing love :)
I tried the patch with general exchange account settings and operations, and i didn't see any side effect.
Cool. Commit it and announce.
Committed to trunk. Committed revision 35911. Announced to gnome-doc-list, just a UI change, no string change.