XWEB: How to Enable OWA on Two Independent Web Sites Under IIS

This article explains how to configure a server that is running Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) 4.0 so that groups of users can access Outlook Web Access 5.5 (OWA) by using distinct URLs.

When the OWA component of Exchange Server is installed on an IIS 4.0 server, the installation program creates an additional virtual root, called "Exchange," under the Default Web Site. This virtual root is configured by the OWA installation program in a specific way depending on whether or not the IIS server also hosts Exchange Server. After OWA is installed, users can type in http://FQDN_of_Server/exchange and access their mailbox from a browser. For example, users can type in http://www.company1.com/exchange, where www.company1.com is the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of the IIS server, and access their mail.

IIS also allows administrators to host multiple Web sites on the same server. You can do this by using multiple IP addresses bound to the same network adapters on the IIS server, by using host headers, or by using different port numbers.

For additional informations, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: After you configure the IIS server to host multiple Web sites, there may be situations where an administrator may desire to configure IIS such that one or more of those additional Web sites on that IIS server have an Exchange virtual root. Such a configuration permits users to type in http://www.company1.com/exchange, http://www.company2.com/exchange, and so forth, to access OWA.

To do this, the administrator has to add a virtual root called Exchange under the new Web site, and configure it appropriately. After the administrator does this, the properties of the new Web site have to be edited to load the Exchfilt.dll language filter file. To do this, follow these steps:

Note: This procedure assumes that a new Web site (called "Test," in this example) has already been created, configured, and tested by using any of the means described in articles Q190008, and Q228760, listed earlier in this article.

1. Open Internet Services Manager (ISM).
2. In the left pane, right-click the Test Web site, and then click New, Virtual Directory.
3. Type exchange as the alias to be used to access this virtual root, and then click Next.
4. For the Physical Path, enter C:\exchsrvr\webdata. The drive letter may be different in your case. Click Next.
5. Click to select the following check boxes: Allow Read Access, Allow Script Access, and Allow Execute Access.
6. Click Finish. The new virtual root should now appear in the left pane under the Web site.
7. Right-click the newly created Exchange virtual root, and then click Properties.
8. Click the Directory Security tab, and ensure that only the Basic, and the Anonymous options are selected.
9. Right-click the Test Web site, click the ISAPI filters tab, and then click Add.
10. In the Filter Properties box, type in Exchfilt.dll for the Filter Name, and C:\winnt\system32\exchfilt.dll for the Executable.
11. Click OK, click Apply, and then OK.
12. Open a command prompt, and type NET STOP W3SVC. Wait for the services to stop, and then type NET START W3SVC.
13. The Test Web site has now been configured with a virtual root called Exchange and is ready to be accessed.
    
    Note: Assume that the default Web site has been configured to be accessible using the http://www.company1.com URL, and that the Test Web site has been configured to be accessible using the http://www.company2.com URL.
14. The users can now type in http://www.company1.com/exchange and http://www.company2.com/exchange to access OWA.

NOTE 1: Please note that, after the Exchfilt.dll filter is loaded under the Test Web site, the status may show up as not loaded. This happens because the default Web site already has this same filter loaded. It is quite safe to ignore this "not-loaded" status.

NOTE 2: Also, note that if the administrator has configured the use of multiple Web sites using different port numbers instead of using Host Headers or binding multiple IP addresses to the network adapter, then the users would need to type in the port number after the FQDN to access OWA. For example, if the administrator has configured a second Web site under port 81, then the users would type http://www.company1.com/exchange to access the Exchange virtual root under the default Web site and http://www.company1.com:81/exchange to access the Exchange virtual root under the Test Web site. In the first case, the port number of 80 is assumed (and, hence, not explicitly specified, as it is in the second case) because that is the default port for a Web site.

For additional information, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: