Re: VPN to Map Network Drive over Internet in Virtual Private Networking http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20420827 en Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:00:19 EDT Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:00:19 EDT Re: VPN to Map Network Drive over Internet http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20420930 DavidL555 : Ok. I think that makes sense.

I agree, if the local machine that Citrix is running on could do RPC over HTTP(S) to the exchange host, then why wouldn't you be able to do it through Citrix, right?

VPN from the Citrix machine to the exchange host to eliminate the need for RPC over HTTP(S) might be an option to look at if the above definitely doesn't work.

The VPN to the office might be a nice option. I still can't eliminate Citrix because I need another application over Citrix. While being able to the the network files locally might be nice, if I attach a file to my local Outlook copy, the file has to be tranferred over the net to me, so that might not be great.

Accessing Outlook over the Citrix server has always worked fine for me from a productivity standpoint, so if we could just get that to work with a hosted provider, I'd be happy ultimately.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20420930 Fri, 02 May 2008 11:52:46 EDT Re: VPN to Map Network Drive over Internet http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20420827 JoelC707 :
said by DavidL555 See Profile :

I was told the following by the network admin:
"According to the hosted exchange providers - for one technical reason or another, the http over rpc protocal that they all use to get hosted exchange, does NOT work on citrix."
I hate to sound just the opposite here but there is no technical reason why RPC over HTTP(S) will not work on Citrix. Do they have instructions for setting RPC over HTTP(S) up on any other workstation, such as your home desktop? If so then it means they do have it in place and short of any oddities caused by Citrix (I personally abandoned Citrix 3 years ago because of various oddities) it should work on the Citrix server just fine.

I don't think there would be any problems connecting my local outlook to the hosted exchange provider, so I don't think there's any need for a VPN tunnel to the exchange host.
The reason for a VPN tunnel to the hosting provider (and this would go between the provider and your office not your home) would be to give you the "normal" RPC access Outlook needs. Basically with a tunnel to the provider, you appear as just another node on their network and any and all traffic that can pass on your local network could pass across the tunnel to the hosting provider. This would make the Exchange server appear local, eliminating the need for RPC over HTTP(S) and also eliminating the need for OWA.

My thought was some sort of VPN to the company file server, so that I can use a local version of Outlook that's connected to the Exchange host and be able to attach/save a file off the remote file server. Does that make any sense?
Yes, that makes sense. This tunnel is the same kind of tunnel you would setup between your home desktop and your work network which is how you could map drives across it. I don't think it is needed though unless you also want direct access to your files without the need of Citrix. Basically if you can get RPC over HTTP(S) working on your local computer then there should be no reason why Citrix would stop it.

Edit: Here is a thread I found on this subject. It doesn't give a definitive answer but still: »www.petri.co.il/forums/showthread.php?t=5802
And here are some other links for you: »www.petri.co.il/configure_outloo···http.htm
»www.petri.co.il/testing_rpc_over···tion.htm

I checked on my TS server (Microsoft version of Citrix basically) and I have all the necessary options in Outlook 2003 to enable RPC over HTTP(s).]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20420827 Fri, 02 May 2008 11:34:12 EDT Re: VPN to Map Network Drive over Internet http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20420692 DavidL555 : Joel,

Thanks for the detailed response.

I was told the following by the network admin:
"According to the hosted exchange providers - for one technical reason or another, the http over rpc protocal that they all use to get hosted exchange, does NOT work on citrix."

I'd be more than happy to connect to hosted exchange using outlook through Citrix, but the statement above seems to eliminate that option. The Citrix server is local to the file server, so that would be fine, if it could be done.

The goal here is to be able to avoid using OWA, but still have some way to attach files that are on the remote file server to my emails. I am told that OWA through Citrix would work and I'd have the files local to that connection, but I don't want to use OWA.

I don't think there would be any problems connecting my local outlook to the hosted exchange provider, so I don't think there's any need for a VPN tunnel to the exchange host.

My thought was some sort of VPN to the company file server, so that I can use a local version of Outlook that's connected to the Exchange host and be able to attach/save a file off the remote file server. Does that make any sense?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20420692 Fri, 02 May 2008 11:08:07 EDT Re: VPN to Map Network Drive over Internet http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20420519 JoelC707 : What is the need for OWA? To put it simply, if Outlook on your Citrix server will not connect to the hosted Exchange server then your local desktop will not either. It sounds like you are stuck using OWA either way. In case you do not know how Exhcnage and Outlook communicate, let me explain. Exchange uses RPC to communicate with Outlook, something that every firewall will block and rightfully so.

There is a feature in Exchange called RPC over HTTP(s) which will essentially tunnel the needed RPC communication over HTTP(s). I'm sure EVERY hosted Exchange provider has this in place because they know that not everyone is going to like OWA and allowing RPC through each firewall is not an option. With this Outlook functions normally, just as if the Exchange server were local.

One other method for solving this issue is a VPN tunnel to the Exchange host. They may not allow this but it will give you the RPC level access needed to let Outlook work properly. If they do not allow VPN tunnels and do not support RPC over HTTP(s) I would honestly suggest the decision makers look for a different host because then your only option is OWA and you've already said you don't like that option (and I'd be willing to bet others in the company don't either). Even if I was fine with OWA, I still wouldn't want to do business with a provider like that.

And now, in the event OWA is your only option, here is something you can do. You could use OWA on the Citrix server and be right back working like you were. If the Citrix and file servers are at your office and you're trying to connect from home, a VPN will give you what you want. You can do a PPTP VPN or an IPSEC VPN. IPSEC is the better option and is built in to 2000 pro, which I do not believe a PPTP server is. The benefit of IPSEC is that you don't need a specific "server" like you do with PPTP, you're just encapsulating packets from one host to another. This requires support from your IT department who for one reason or another may not be able to help you. But it still goes back to my original point, you would still be stuck using OWA on the local desktop so why not use it on the Citrix server and not have to go through all this?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20420519 Fri, 02 May 2008 10:33:10 EDT VPN to Map Network Drive over Internet http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20420399 DavidL555 : What kind of solutions are available for mapping a network drive across the internet?

Let me explain the issue further.

Right now, I access my email by connecting via Citrix and opening Outlook which is conected to a local exchange server. Often I'm attaching/saving files and that's easy because in Citrix, I have access to the remote (to me) file server.

The local exchange server is going to be replaced with a hosted exchange service.

I'm told that accessing the hosted exchange service through the Citrix server doesn't work unless I go through OWA, which wouldn't really be a good solution.

So, now I guess I'll have Outlook running locally, connecting to a hosted exchange server, but I don't have access to file server locally.

So, I'm thinking, if somehow I could map a local drive to the remote file server, then I could attach/save files that way.

Any way to do that?

Any other solutions, I'm happy to listen to as well.

I'm not sure what OS the file server is running. It's probably Windows 2000 Professional.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20420399 Fri, 02 May 2008 10:06:19 EDT