SRV record for Exchange AutoDiscover

We use an outside provider for our Exchange email. And using RDP over HTTP.
For Outlook 2007 clients, they using something called AutoDiscover. And
Autodiscover requires a SRV record for autodiscover.domainName.com
I created the autoDiscover SRV record yesterday to point to their Exchange
server. It looks like the record was created correctly with our Registrar,
the only part I wasn't sure of was Priority and Weight. I left those at
zero. Could that be a problem? I used 443 for the port number.
The only problem is, it seems though the record wasn't created, or at least
the site that I use to check it, doesn't see it:
http://www.hscripts.com/tools/HDNT/dns-record.php
The domain name is blackDiamondRanch.com

I know they say it can take 24 hours for it to replicate... it's been 22
hours.
The problem with Outlook 2007 clients is Out of Office Assistant doesn't
work. It says the server cannot be located. And all of the research points
to the need for a SRV record for autoDiscover. Are there any other ways
(websites,etc) to see if this SRV record has been created, and replicated?

I checked this site: https://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com/
I can't do the test on there for OOF, it states that my Inbox needs to be
empty in order to do that. I really don't want to delete all my email.
I did the test for RDP over HTTP: it has lots of problems related to
AutoDiscover, but did have this one success:
Successfully retrieved AutoDiscover SRV record from DNS

So it looks like from there, that the SRV record did get created.

Any suggestions on this? I need to get this OOF working.

Thanks

 

Priority should be 0, and weight should be 100.

I went to that site, typed in blackDiamondRanch.com and selected to see SRV
records, but none came up. How did you create the SRV record? I looked up
your domain name for SOA info, and it appears you are using network
Solutions, which does support SRV records.

Also, Exchange doesn't necessarily need an SRV for Outlook Anywhere to work.
In many cases if a registrar doesn't support SRV records, you can simply
create an A record called autodiscover pointing to your
mail.blackDiamondRanch.com, which should work.

As for OOF, is it not working on your mailbox, or others as well? Maybe
there is a corrupted rule causing it. Have you cleaned or disabled any rules
and tried again? If you create a new test account, send a few emails to is,
and use that for the test, does the OOF test succeed? Take a look at the
following on how to troubleshoot OOF.

Troubleshooting Out of OfficeMar 25, 2008 ... The typical solution here is
to recognize that Exchange has a ... Now you can test and re-test to make
sure that Out of Office is indeed not working correctly. ... However, before
you do that, remember to export your inbox rules via .... Of course, the
user will now need to reset their Out of Office ...
http://www.msexchange.org/articles_...2007/tools/troubleshooting-out-of-office.html

--
Ace

This posting is provided "AS-IS" with no warranties or guarantees and
confers no rights.

Please reply back to the newsgroup or forum for collaboration benefit among
responding engineers, and to help others benefit from your resolution.

Ace Fekay, MCT, MCITP EA, MCTS Windows 2008 & Exchange 2007, MCSE & MCSA
2003/2000, MCSA Messaging 2003
Microsoft Certified Trainer

If you feel this is an urgent issue and require immediate assistance, please
contact Microsoft PSS directly. Please check http://support.microsoft.com
for regional support phone numbers.

 

You can verify if your srv record is created in a command prompt. Go
to start, run and type in the prompt:

nslookup -type=srv _autodiscover._tcp.company.com

Look for srv hostname value. It should be your hosted providers mail
server.

If the srv record is created as according to the
testexchangeconnectivity test, then it could be the value of the
external webservices parameter is incorrect. You can see this by
pressing ctrl+right click on the Outlook Icon on the bottom right tray
and choose "TEST EMAIL AUTO CONFIGURATION" enter your email address.

Since you probably don't have access to check or change these; you
will have to call your hosted provider. They would be the point of
contact to set up your availability service if they support it in the
first place.


James Chong (MVP)
MCITP | EA | EMA; MCSE | M+, S+
Security+, Project+, ITIL
msexchangetips.blogspot.com

James,

I ran an nslookup on it, and comes back to John's MX record:
Non-authoritative answer:
_autodiscover._tcp.blackdiamondranch.com SRV service location:
priority = 0
weight = 0
port = 443
svr hostname = asp-4.reflexion.net

My feeling is that asp-4.reflexion.net is not the actual Exchange server,
and may possibly be a third party mail hosting provider that's forwarding
mail to John's Exchange server. If this server is SBS, then it may be using
the POP3 connector. Hence why I believe OOF is not working if truly the MX
record is actually a third party, even though the Exchange test says it
successfully resolved an Autodiscover record, which is just a resolution
test, nothing else.

I also notice both weight and priority are 0. Priority is ok, but the weight
should be 100.

I guess we'll need John to respond with more info on how it's all setup,
including if this is SBS 2008 with the POP3 connector.

Ace

 

I tried the NSlookup, I get this:
*** Server.DomainName.local can't find
_autodiscover._tcp.asp-4.reflexion.net: Non-existent domain

I also tried it with just reflexion.net and got the same message

When I do test Email Auto Config I get this:
AutoConfiguration was unable to determine your settings.

I'm going to contact the email provider next


You can verify if your srv record is created in a command prompt. Go
to start, run and type in the prompt:

nslookup -type=srv _autodiscover._tcp.company.com

Look for srv hostname value. It should be your hosted providers mail
server.

If the srv record is created as according to the
testexchangeconnectivity test, then it could be the value of the
external webservices parameter is incorrect. You can see this by
pressing ctrl+right click on the Outlook Icon on the bottom right tray
and choose "TEST EMAIL AUTO CONFIGURATION" enter your email address.

Since you probably don't have access to check or change these; you
will have to call your hosted provider. They would be the point of
contact to set up your availability service if they support it in the
first place.


James Chong (MVP)
MCITP | EA | EMA; MCSE | M+, S+
Security+, Project+, ITIL
msexchangetips.blogspot.com

 

Make sure of the DNS server to which you're connecting.

 

I called the provider and they now say we need a CNAME record. I checked
with Network Solutions, and it was there. But apparently it was configured
wrong. In the Alias box it should have been just AutoDiscover. Instead it
had autodiscover.domainName.com. It adds the domain name automatically, so
it had been doubled up.
I changed it... now I'll wait for that to replicate and try it again.



Yes that could be the case, just because you have an srv record will
not mean it will work. The srv record will need to point to an
Exchange server with the Autodiscover services. asp-4.reflexion.net
seems to be qmail not Exchange.

Your best bet would be to call the hosted provider and open up a
ticket since you really don't control the server.

James Chong (MVP)
MCITP | EA | EMA; MCSE | M+, S+
Security+, Project+, ITIL
msexchangetips.blogspot.com

 

That was it. The CNAME record. OOF just started working.

 

I haven't used CNAME records for the autodiscover feature, but if it works
for you, then I'm happy to hear it was resolved.

Ace