Redirect OWA 2003 to OWA 2010 goes to internal server URL

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I have two Exchange servers running in the same domain. One Exchange 2003 and one Exchange 2010. I've managed to setup bidirectional routing. I have moved some mailboxes via a "Local move request" on Exchange 2010, this was completed succesfully.

My problem: When I go to the "old" OWA 2003 site (https://legacy.company.com/exchange) and login with the user/pass of amailbox that has been moved, I am redirected to hxxps://newserver.domain.local/exchange. I'd like to be redirected to hxxps://newserver.company.com/exchange or hxxps://newserver.company.com/owa.

I've already setup the OWA url's of the new Exchange server to use newserver.comapny.com instead of newserver.domain.local, using the Set-OwaVirtualDirectory cmdlet.

PS. I've found out that the old OWA 2003 uses a HTTP 302 (permanent move) http response which redirects to the internal FQDN of the Exchange 2010 server.

Where can I setup the FQDN/URL that OWA 2003 redirects to when a mailbox is found on the new Exchange 2010 server?

If anybody has an idea I'd be much oblidged.

Best Answer

You're doing it backwards - is there a reason for this?

This is the way it's supposed to work.

Before you install Exchange 2010, you have Exchange 2003 on https://mail.acme-widgets.com
You create legacy.acme-widgets.com and make sure your firewall forwards traffic destined for this to Exchange 2003
You change DNS records/firewall rules so traffic destined for https://mail.amce-widgets.com is now forwarded to Exchange 2010.

When you do this, any users whose mailboxes are on Exchange 2010 will use the Exchange 2010 OWA that they have logged in to (using the external or internal URL), and any mailboxes on Exchange 2003 are forwarded to an Exchange 2003 server that you specify.

To set the URL your Exchange 2003 users are sent to, run this cmdlet Set-OwaVirtualDirectory <Your OWA Virtual Directory> -Exchange2003Url https://legacy.acme-widgets.com/exchange.

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Need to Remove Exchange 2003 Server That Crashed During Transition to 2010

Remove the exchange server from the First Administrative Group first.

First if you haven't already promote the new exchange server as the master: go to Exchange System Manager > Administrative Groups > First Administrative Group > Routing Groups > First Routing Group > Members Right click your new server and click "set as master"

To remove the old exchange server go to Exchange System Manager > Administrative Groups > First Administrative Group > Servers. Right click the old server go to All Tasks > Remove server

if you get an error like this

    The Server "SERVERNAME" cannot be removed because:
-One or more users currently use a mailbox on this server. 
These users must be moved to a mailbox store on a different server 
or be mail disabled before uninstalling this server.
Facility: Exchange System Manager
ID no: c103f492
Exchange System Manager

Then Open AD and do a search for all users who have Exchange Home Server attribute set to the dead Exchange Server. Remove Exchange mailbox association if you find any users using the old server.

If you cannot see administrative or routing groups then: Right click your domain (exchange) container (THE HIGHEST LEVEL) go to properties check off the administrative views. "Display routing groups" and "Display administrative groups"

Finally: Delete all the old DNS records for the old server as well as any DHCP records then simply delete the old server from AD this is assuming you were able to transfer all the Schema roles.

Hope this helps.

Exchange 2003 to 2010 Transition – How to tell if Public Folders are in use and can be deleted

Even if nobody touches those files for 6 months, I still wouldn't let them disappear for a while. You'll save yourself a lot of potential headaches by replicating these PFs to the 2010 box and simply not making them accessible to the users, if you truly want to phase them out (I bet you can create the PF DB, replicate, then take it offline and get it off the exchange storage, if necessary). Document it thoroughly and keep the PF DB around for the longest retention period on your backups (I'd go with 5 years, myself).

It's CYA at it's finest. If nobody ever needs it, you 'wasted' maybe an hour fiddling with it. If they DO need it, you saved yourself a world of aggrivation. I can't tell you how many times I've been called on to resurrect a 2- or 3-year-old file.

Another alternative would be to pull all the data out & stuff it onto some kind of cheap NAS or offline backup. The idea of having to resurrect that Exchange 2003 server so you can restore the PFs from backup in order to retrieve one file... just sounds ugly.

Best Answer

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