Redirect Outlook Web App Connections for an Exchange 2010 Hybrid Deployment

 

Applies to: Exchange Server 2010 SP1

Estimated time to complete: 5 minutes

After you've configured the Exchange 2010 hybrid server to redirect Outlook Web App requests to either your on-premises Exchange 2010 Client Access servers or the cloud-based organization, you need to direct Outlook Web App connections to the hybrid server.

This step of the checklist assumes you've configured your Exchange 2010 hybrid server as follows:

  • You have opened TCP port 443 from the Internet to the Exchange 2010 hybrid server. This setting is required so that users can connect to the Outlook Web App Web site and for the cloud-based organization to connect to the Availability service to check free/busy availability.

  • The Exchange 2010 hybrid server has an external fully qualified domain name (FQDN). For our purposes of providing an example, the external FQDN of the Exchange 2010 hybrid server is mail.contoso.com.

  • Users accessing their mailbox use a dedicated Outlook Web App URL. For our example purposes, the URL is owa.contoso.com. The Outlook Web App URL points to the external FQDN of the Exchange 2010 hybrid server, which is mail.contoso.com.

Learn more at: Understanding Access to Outlook Web App with a Single URL for an Exchange 2010 Hybrid Deployment

Warning

This topic is meant to be read as part of the Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and Office 365 Hybrid Deployment checklist. Information or procedures in this topic may depend on prerequisites configured in topics earlier in the checklist. To view the checklist, see Checklist - Exchange 2010 and Office 365 Hybrid Deployment

How do I do this?

Redirecting inbound Outlook Web App connections to your hybrid server requires you take the following actions.

  1. Configure your firewall to accept inbound connections on TCP port 443 for your Exchange 2010 hybrid server. The hybrid server requires its own external IP address that directs inbound connections to the server's internal IP address. For more information about how to configure this, see your firewall's documentation.

  2. Update the DNS records for your organization to point the external FQDNs of your Exchange 2010 hybrid server to the correct external IP addresses for the server. See the table below for examples.

  3. Update DNS records for your organization to direct requests sent to owa.contoso.com to the FQDN of your hybrid server, mail.contoso.com. The following table shows examples of the DNS record changes needed to redirect Outlook Web App connections to your hybrid server.

    FQDN DNS record type Target

    Mail.contoso.com

    A

    Hybrid server external IP

    Owa.contoso.com

    CNAME

    Mail.contoso.com

Refer to your DNS host's Help for more information about how to update DNS records in your DNS zone.

How do I know this worked?

If you've completed these steps successfully, users who access their mailboxes via Outlook Web App will be directed to the Outlook Web App login screen on the hybrid server. Verify the following behavior occurs:

  • Exchange 2010 mailbox   A user whose mailbox resides on the Exchange 2010 server should be redirected by the hybrid server to the Exchange 2010 Outlook Web App URL, https://mail.contoso.com/exchange.

  • Cloud-based mailbox   A user whose mailbox resides in the cloud-based organization should be presented with the Outlook Web App URL of the cloud-based organization, https://www.outlook.com/owa/contoso.com. The user can then click the link to access their mailbox or add the link to their browser's favorites.

Having problems? Ask for help in the Office 365 forums. To access the forums, you'll need to sign in using an account that's granted administrator access to your cloud-based service. Visit the forums at: Office 365 Forums

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