Zen Internet shocker

Well the horrible thing is that despite what Phil says most ISP's for
business accounts are fine with Exchange, including BT. As I said before
only NTL blocked Exchange IME to date. Even fucking Tiscali are open.

 

They're not blocking "exchange", they're blocking the RPC protocol,
which was only introduced as a communication mechanism in exchange 5.5
and 2000, was never recommended for connectivity over anything other
than a LAN, and and is flawed for secure internet use as it needs a lot
more ports open than just 135...

The current way to do things is RPC over HTTPS (using port 443) with
Exchange 2003 or as I've already suggested, run the whole lot over a
L2TP tunnel.

It's only because your sysadmin is incompetent that you're being reduced
to doing things in such a shoddy way, but if they had even half a clue
they'd have probably suggested this stuff already.

Feel free to send them a copy of this post.

 

You are right about the technical aspects but that hasn't been my point, has
it.

 

It's not. But by the same token your point is daft.... It's a bit like
objecting that a BMW dealer won't sell you an M5 with the alloys removed
and 4 spacesaver wheels installed.

 

No I think you missed my point a bit but never mind.

 

"I'm sorry, I'm not really into Pokemon"

 

And Windows 95 (I believe) - apeing the SUN RPC mechanism. Lots of
other applications than Exchange use RPC.

*Ding* *ding*

Anyone who doesn't use secure methods for linking offices together
deserves everything that they get. And since most people don't have the
capacity to have dedicated WAN links that means some sort of VPN -
which are not exactly rocket science. Even for Americans.

Phil.

 

Oh it's in loads of other stuff, my point was that exchange 4.0 didn't
use it, and 2003 has effectively replaced it.

 

I don't understand why Hog doesn't /want/ to route everything over a
VPN. It makes it secure, *and* solves any port-blocking related
shenanigans.

 

Muppet at the other end I believe. Standard American idiot who can only
do one task (as I discovered when I worked with them - most US IT
people are *very* specialised. Don't *ever* ask a network person to
touch a server, or a server person to look at a desktop. "I haven't had
the training for that" is the standard response).

It's not like Win2k3 doesn't have the ability to do it built in.

Phil.

 

I don't want to even ask about it. The responses get me all shouty. That
sums up the whole shebang.

That said I have sent a short but polite email suggesting https within a
defined time period.

 

Which ended up being my response to the "I can't do it as I haven't
been trained to" syndrome prevalent there. I used to point out that
there were two of us in the office doing *all* the IT (servers,
desktops, networks, phone systems[1]) and that while the other guy
generally left the networks to me (since that *did* need specialist
knowledge that he didn't have) we both supported almost everything and
that I didn't accept the "I can't" excuse - especially in someone who
was supposed to be a 'senior' IT person.

I wasn't Mr Popular with my US colleagues - or at least not with some
of them. The highly-functional ones I got on well with.

Phil.

 

Oh you need to talk to Zymurgy about his current life in Citigroup in
Belfast!!!

 

I think you'll find that alt.sysadmin.recovery is over that way --->

Phil.

 

as in medical recovery?