Exchange 2010 RPC static port access

Hi, are you able to connect to those ports on the RPC virtual server using telnet? If so then I'd check the client config. You shouldn't need to do anything else on the virtual server. I assume you've followed the steps on page 16 of they deployment guide?

 

Thanks for responding Mike. Yes, I followed the steps on page 16 of they deployment guide and created the CAS array and reconfigured the databases to use the new array. I didn't use telnet to test the ports... I'll do that but I do see the services listening on those ports waiting for connections.

 

 

The IP address of the RPC virtual server is set to the IP address of my CAS Array. The IP address of my CAS Array is the same as the IP address of my HTTPS virtual server for OWA. Is that ok or should my IP address of the CAS Array be something totally different? (Not sure if this even matters).

 

 

Anyway, I can see my Outlook clients trying to connect to the CAS array but can't. The Outlook client connection status screen shows "connecting" briefly but gives up each time.

 

 

Again, this works fine when I have dynamic ports configured for RPC. The problem only happens when static ports are defined.

 

 

 

 

The OWA and RPC VIPs can share an IP address. I would check that those specific ports are reachable on the BIGIP, and do a tcpdump packet capture on the BIGIP (one for the client VLAN and another for the CAS VLAN) for both the dynamic and static port setups. You should be able to compare the two captures in wireshark and find out how the connection is failing. F5 support can help with this as well.

 

Here's something I tried that resolved the problem but I don't know why. I disabled "Port Translation" on the *rpc_mapi_virtual_server virtual server that points to the static RPC port on the CAS array. As soon as this option is enabled, the connection breaks. Why does disabling this option on the *rpc_mapi_virtual_server virtual server resolve the problem?

Port translation ensures that the BIGIP connects to the pool members on the service port you've defined for them. Disabling it causes the connection to use the original port of the connection, rather than the pool member service port.

 

 

Do the service ports of your pool members match the static ports you defined on the virtual server and CAS?

 

Mike, the service port for all my RPC-related pool members is 135. I guess that would explain things. I will change the service ports of my pool members match the static ports I defined and re-enable Port translation. I'll let you know how that goes.

Mike, that worked. Thank you for your help.

I'm having a similar issue, but can only find two of the three RPC port settings on the CAS side. I have three static ports set on the F5 (v10.2.2) but can't get the rpc_mapi_pool/monitor to come up. On the LTM I've set rpc_mapi to port 59594, rpc_address book to port 59596 and rpc_referral_service to 59595. I've added the registry key options for TCP/IP Port to the MSExchangeRPC to 59595 and the AB to 59596, but can't find an option for the other. What am I missing? The Technet Article only mentions two static port mappings: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/configure-static-rpc-ports-on-an-exchange-2010-client-access-server.aspx

 

 

Thanks

Hi, the MS documentation is correct. The referral service and address book ports were combined into one. You can remove or disable the LTM objects for the referral service static port. We are going to be updating our deployment guide shortly. Thanks for pointing this out.

So do you have to create 2 new pools to add to the static IP address Virtual Servers? Or how do you modify the existing pool which is shared between all 3 services as created by iAPP.

 

 

How come this isn't fixed in 11.1.0 (or at least it isn't mentioned in the release notes if it is fixed)?