Exchange 2010 and Server 2008 R2

[notlob]

Hi Everyone

 

More of a "gotcha" than a request for help. Have just installed Exchange 2010 on a Server 2008 R2 member server. Install went fine (Jaap Wesselius' "Exchange 2010 - A Practical Approach" free ebook was great) but then the Exchange Management Console gave an error when looking for On-Premises servers.

 

The following error occurred when searching for On-Premises Exchange server:

 

[myserver.domain.local] Connecting to remote server failed with the following error messahe : The connection to the specified remote host was refused. Verify that the WS-Management service is running on the remote host and configured to listen for requests on the correct port and HTTP URL.

 

 

No amount of fiddling with WinRM or Exchange components would fix the problem. Reinstalled this, reset that, reconfigured the other. No joy.

 

Tried some basic WinRS commands as it looked more like a WinRM problem than an Exchange problem.

 

From the member server in question...

 

winrs -r:myserver.mydomain.local "dir c:\" [FAILED]

winrs -r:localhost "dir c:\" [sUCCESS]

 

DNS checked out, IP config checked out, now firmly in "WTF" territory. Saw the word "proxy" mentioned in an unrelated article and the penny dropped having had proxy-related issues in Windows 7.

 

The problem? No bypass list in the netsh winhttp proxy settings for the local machine. Can't believe Server 2008 R2 needs telling not to use the proxy server to reach itself but you live and learn.

 

The solution?

 

winhttp set proxy proxy-server="proxyaddress:tcpport" bypass-list="*.mydomain.local"

 

Exchange Management Console works great now.

 

A school boy error - it's my fault for not already having specified any bypass list for the local domain (which would have prevented the problem in the first place). I just hope this post can save someone else the hours I've spent on this.

 

Notlob.

[PiqueABoo]

Haven't played with Exchange 2010 yet.. so it needs WinRM then? [i have played with WinRM re. getting remote powershell prompts etc.]

[notlob]

From what I've read it seems that the Exchange Management Console is just a front end for lots of Powershell activity. WinRM was one of the prerequisites for installing Exchange 2010 but it's installed (but not enabled) in Server 2008 R2 by default.

[PiqueABoo]

From what I've read it seems that the Exchange Management Console is just a front end for lots of Powershell activity.

 

Absolutely - 2007 is like that too.

 

it's installed (but not enabled) in Server 2008 R2 by default.

 

So it is.. only on mine it's running and I'm 100% certain I didn't start it (maybe something else I installed did).