Exchange servers & VPNs

friznit · Post by **friznit** » May 28th, 2008, 9:23

We've got an Exchange server at work. The server's local and it's all hunky dory when I'm in the office. We have a VPN for dialing in remotely.

Problem is, when I dial up to the VPN from my home computer, Outlook downloads all the emails and deletes them from the Exchange Server. I therefore can no longer see them in my inbox on my computer in the office.

It's not meant to do this, the whole point of an Exchange server is that it stays on the damn server and lets you check it from anywhere.

So, how do I set up Outlook to synchronise emails with the Exchange server over the VPN and not delete them? I can't find any relevent settings anywhere.

Post by **Dog Pants** » May 28th, 2008, 11:18

Is it something to do with cached mode? I know that slow links often use cached mode to download the mail from the server rather than having a constant connection, although I can't remember if it removes it from the server. It's worth a try though, should be in your email options - if it's ticked try unticking it.

What version of outlook are you using?

amblin · Post by **amblin** » May 28th, 2008, 11:24

Post by **Dog Pants** » May 28th, 2008, 11:32

Do what he said

Mine was just a guess.

friznit · Post by **friznit** » May 28th, 2008, 12:16

Actually I just fired up Outlook, added a new email account, plugged in the exchange server and pressed go. Does this automagically assume I'm POP3'ing then? Cos that would explain why it's doing what it's doing. And yes, we have the webmail thing going so will try what you suggest.

amblin · Post by **amblin** » May 28th, 2008, 12:22

amblin · Post by **amblin** » May 28th, 2008, 12:26

Post by **FatherJack** » May 28th, 2008, 22:16

You're POP-ing. You can set it to leave the messages on the server, but that's not the idea - you still end up with two potentially disparate copies of your mailbox, and no record at one location of what you read, sent, deleted or replied to from the other.

Webmail would work, and works quite well with IE, but you really want to set up Outlook to use RPC over HTTP, which will function as a normal Outlook directly-connected client as if it were in the office.

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/outlookrpchttp.html gives an example of how to configure it, particularly step 10, but you might need server details from your admins, particularly for step 11. I would probably skip step 8 if your internets are generally reliable and you have no requirement to browse messages while offline.

The VPN is perhaps unnecessary as your mail servers will be behind a firewall, likely ISA. While it will probably have ports open for webmail and POP/IMAP, if RPC/HTTP is configured correctly that should allowed through too.

If RPC/HTTP isn't set up right, then use the VPN to get "inside" the firewall and configure an Outlook client as if it were in the office (basically omit steps 8, 10 and 11 above). The downside of this method is that while the VPN is active, you cannot connect to other sites on the internet.

Terminal Services is a clumsy, expensive bodge only really worth doing if you have a lot of applications which must be centrally-managed and cannot be deployed outside. On the cheap - if it's allowed - you can remote desktop to your machine on your desk, which is effectively the same thing, but just for you.

cheeseandham · Post by **cheeseandham** » May 28th, 2008, 22:34

fatherjack, if you ever need a job, please come talk to me

(I probably couldn't afford you though

)

Killavodka · Post by **Killavodka** » June 9th, 2008, 17:58

On the topic of VPN's I have just started using SwissVPN as a trial. Seems to work quite well at getting around the horrible traffic shaping which caused much frustration in AoC. Cost only $5 for a month which I thought wasn't bad. Just wondering if there are any others out there more local who do a similar operation?