GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 582302
exchange connector fails to connect to public folder server
Last modified: 2010-12-08 04:03:09 UTC
Please describe the problem: Using firefox my working URL for OWA is http://exc-mchvs02.tst.domain.com/Exchange/P.Pallino I login as DOMAIN_COM\P.Pallino When I try to use evolution for this exchange account it fails with error messages: "Error while scanning folders in "Exchange server exc-mch01.tst.domain.com" or "Error while Reconnecting to Exchange server exc-mch01.tst.domain.com". exc-mch01.tst.domain.com is the location of our public folders. When I select in firefox in the OWA "Public folders" I get a second login prompt for exc-mch01.tst.domain.com, I enter the same login values as for my mailbox and it works. It is impossible to use the account, this error message blocks every attempt. Steps to reproduce: 1. Create a MS Windows domain with three servers, one for the domain controller, one exchange server with user mailboxes and one exchange server for public folders 2. Setup evolution for a exchange mailbox 3. Actual results: Expected results: Login information works both with user mailbox server and public folder server Does this happen every time? Yes Other information: debug information to be uploaded
Created attachment 134484 [details] Debug info of the exchange connector
Created attachment 134485 [details] Debug info of evolution
Who did set this a blocker? I do not think setting a blocker on evo 2.24.1.1 is a good thing, especially when the actual stable version is 2.28.1 (and next week 2.28.2). Not that I think it had been fixed meanwhile, but some effort had been done here for sure. You have two years old version. Anyway: a) the eex log seems fine, as far as I can tell, you are connecting to exc-mch01, then you are redirected to EXC-MCHVS02 where you have been logged correctly, HTTP/1.1 200 OK. b) the evo log, you are connecting to exc-mchvs02..../Exchange, then you are redirected to exc-mchvs02..../Exchange/ (note the slash at the end), and then you are logged in "HTTP/1.1 200 OK". Later something similar happened with a redirection from exc-mch01.tst.domain.com/Exchange/p.pallino/ to EXC-MCHVS02.tst.domain.com/Exchange/p.pallino/ , but again successfully "HTTP/1.1 200 OK". I guess there is other issue, because all logins were finished successfully, based on the above logs. Please try with the latest stable, if possible.
Anyone can set their pet bug as blocker. That's why those fields are unreliable.
(In reply to comment #3) > Who did set this a blocker? Fine, I was wondering about the deep silence, now I know why. > been done here for sure. You have two years old version. I have just installed OpenSuse 11.2 with Evolution 2.28 and the bug is still there. > > Anyway: > a) the eex log seems fine, as far as I can tell, you are connecting to > exc-mch01, then you are redirected to EXC-MCHVS02 where you have been logged > correctly, HTTP/1.1 200 OK. Yes, but there is also this entry: > GET /Exchange/P.Pallino/ HTTP/1.1 > Soup-Debug-Timestamp: 1242119430 > Soup-Debug: SoupSessionSync 1 (0x80b2320), SoupMessage 1 (0x80f9e28), SoupSocket 1 (0x8104890) > Host: exc-mch01.tst.domain.com > Accept-Language: en-US, en > User-Agent: Evolution/2.24.1.1 < HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized < Soup-Debug-Timestamp: 1242119430 < Soup-Debug: SoupMessage 1 (0x80f9e28) < Content-Length: 83 < Content-Type: text/html < Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0 < WWW-Authenticate: Negotiate < WWW-Authenticate: NTLM < WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="exc-mch01.tst.domain.com" < MicrosoftOfficeWebServer: 5.0_Pub < X-Powered-By: ASP.NET < Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 09:07:14 GMT < < <html><head><title>Error</title></head><body>Error: Access is Denied.</body></html> And this is exactly the message I see. Two questions: a) is it possible that an evil adminstrator rejects User-Agents he doesn't like? (I don't ask, I use it at my own risk). But when I use firefox with linux for OWA it works. b) I cannot see that user-id & pw are exchanged with the server (like some lines later: > Authorization: Basic [DOMAIN_COM\P.Pallino:********] ) In the setup I enter http://EXC-MCHVS02.tst.domain.com/Exchange/P.Pallino/ as my OWA URL, because there is my mailbox, but somehow it touches always exc-mch01.tst.domain.com where the public folder are hosted. I still keep the impression that evolution cannot hanlde such internal redirections.
yes, the first attempt is without password, and then it is "restarted" with a password and the login was successful. > GET /Exchange/P.Pallino/ HTTP/1.1 > Soup-Debug-Timestamp: 1242119422 > Soup-Debug: SoupSessionSync 1 (0x80b2260), SoupMessage 1 (0x80f9d20), SoupSocket 1 (0x8104708), restarted > Host: EXC-MCHVS02.tst.domain.com > Accept-Language: en-US, en > User-Agent: Evolution/2.24.1.1 > Authorization: Basic [DOMAIN_COM\P.Pallino:********] < HTTP/1.1 200 OK Try to not use yout owa address with a user name, it is supposed to be detected while logging in. Usual OWA address is ending with /exchange for Exchange server 2003.
Reopening as the requested information from comment #3 has been provided.
I made the input field username empty as told in comment #6; pressing the "Legitimation" button I was asked for the password of user P.Pallino and it seemed to work (this pw input always worked); it inserted P.Pallino in the username input field (before there was DOMAN_COM\P.Pallino). But the exchange-conto keeps to be offline and cannot be displayed. I noticed two things starting evolution and opening the config editor. a) when starting it asked me for the password on server EXC-MCHVS01 (where the public folder are hosted) b) when opening the config dialog I got the error message, that "The mail box for P.Pallino is not located on this server", I understand that evolution cannot find my conto on server EXC-MCHVS01 (which is right, because my conto is on the other server EXC-MCHVS02, which is also in the OWA adress). It seems to me that evolution gets irritated by the two server configuration of our landscape. I don't know how evolution gets notice of the existence of the public folder server EXC-MCHVS01 because I never inserted it in any config dialog but nevertheless this undesired server gets individuated and overwrites the configuration of my OWA server.
Ouch, I forgot of this bug completely, I'm sorry. The problem is that this is an issue with your server only (as far as I know), but evolution-exchange is able to use redirect requests from a server, thus it should work, as long as the server returns proper URL (which it does, I guess). I would suggest you to give a try to evolution-mapi with an upcoming Evolution 2.30.0+, to see whether MAPI will work better here. I'm sorry to say this, but if I cannot reproduce it myself, or at least try to upload here a debug patch, which you would be able to compile yourself, then I'm not able to help here more. The good thing with 2.30.0 is also that you do not need to compile all evolution-data-server, evolution and evolution-exchange yourself for such tests, but only evolution-exchange is enough, when you install devel packages for the other two of them. Could you try evolution-mapi and/or are you able to compile evolution-exchange 2.30.0+ yourself with possible future debug patches, please? I'm afraid that with a lack of a fix for almost a year now you probably gave up on evolution with exchange already, and you use another solution.
Thank you for answering. Yes, obviously I am using different tools now (OWA and sometimes vmware-client -> outlook itself. To compile by myself I will need a little bit of time, that is alway lacking. But only one comment in the meantime: you say redirection; I don't know the code, but may be that a redirection is what causes my bug. Because it seems that evolution-exchange tries to search my mailbox on the public folder server (EXC-MCHVS01), which is wrong. I never inserted this public folder server in any config dialog. In our 2 server environment evolution-exchange should only gather some information from EXC-MCHVS01 (not instructed by me, I never told evolution-exchange to look at this server, I would like to ignore it, but it seems that exchange forces evolution-exchange to look at the public folder server). But anyway, evolution-exchange should keep *always* the EXC-MCHVS02 as the server where my mailbox is located as I configured it. In other words: The error message tells the right thing: "The mail box for P.Pallino is not located on this server" The bug is, why is evolution-exchange trying to search the mail box on the wrong server? There should not be a redirection but only a gathering of additional(!) (public) folders.
(In reply to comment #10) > The bug is, why is evolution-exchange trying to search the mail box on the > wrong server? There should not be a redirection but only a gathering of > additional(!) (public) folders. I reread your exchange log from the connector, and I think I got it. I see the new "Location" move to EXC-MCHVS02 and the correct NTLM authentication is done for it. That it's for EXC-MCHVS02 is crucial, because you cannot use the same authentication for another server, even in the same domain. That server returns public folders as located in: > <TR><TD class="nbButton"><A href="http://exc-mch01.tst.domain.com/public > /?Cmd=contents" target="viewer"><IMG... where evolution got the address to the first server most likely. But asking there for a content makes it receive Access Denied, and instead of trying with the old password it tries to login with the OWA way, which redirects it back to EXC-MCHVS02 and so on. Your case seems to me pretty unusual, somehow. Anyway, the new development of Exchange connectivity focuses on Evolution MAPI. It still doesn't support all the features as the OWA connector, but it's under development. So maybe there it'll work better, if your server doesn't block a MAPI access.
(In reply to comment #11) > > I reread your exchange log from the connector, and I think I got it. Thank you very much, I have some hope now! > > Your case seems to me pretty unusual, somehow. May be, but the funny thing is that ones it worked. I had a look at my old bug report 321039 and can tell that until version 2.4.0 the behaviour of the connector was ok (with some glitches indeed).
So we close this until retested with 2.30?
I suppose with evolution-mapi, if Riccardo is fine with this too.
A month ago I did an upgrade to OpenSuse 11.3 with gnome 2.30 and evolution 2.30 and tested it without any success. The bug was still there. Today I noticed with surprise that our admins have switched to Exchange 8, so I suppose that this is no more supported by evolution 2.30, so I suppose that it is hopeless. But just for info, may be it's useful for someone else, here the About of the new Exchange which shows a very complicated setup: Mailbox owner: Pallino, Pinco [p.pallino@domain.com] Logon User: DOMAIN_COM\P.Pallino [p.pallino@domain.com] User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; de; rv:1.9.2.10) Gecko/20100914 SUSE/3.6.10-0.3.1 Firefox/3.6.10 Outlook Web Access experience: Basic User language: English (United States) User time zone: (GMT+01:00) Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna Exchange mailbox address: /o=SUBSIDIARY/ou=DE-MCH/cn=RECIPIENTS/cn=P.PALLINO Outlook Web Access host address: https://exc-mchhc02.mch.domain.com/owa Outlook Web Access version: 8.2.254.0 Outlook Web Access host name: exc-mchhc02.mch.domain.com Client Access server name: EXC-MCHHC02.mch.domain.com Exchange Client Access server .NET Framework version: 2.0.50727.4206 Client Access server operating system version: Microsoft Windows NT 6.0.6002 Service Pack 2 Client Access server operating system language: en-US Microsoft Exchange Client Access server version: 8.2.176.0 Client Access server language: en-US Client Access server time zone: W. Europe Standard Time Microsoft Exchange Client Access server platform: 64bit Mailbox server name: EXC-MCHVS11.mch.domain.com Mailbox server Microsoft Exchange version: 8.2.176.0 Other Microsoft Exchange server roles currently installed on the Client Access server: Hub Transport Authentication type associated with this Outlook Web Access session: Basic Public logon: Yes
Did you try evolution-mapi under your 2.30.x environment? You can also give a try to davmail, from http://davmail.sf.net , as there are people telling it works for them.
Closing this bug report as no further information has been provided. Please feel free to reopen this bug if you can provide the information asked for. Thanks!