Comments on: Rolling Your Own Exchange ActiveSync Client

By: Andreas

Andreas — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:05:03 +0000

Exchange likes clean servers best when installing
It’s difficult to say what happened, but it sounds like the virtual directories are messed up in some way.
I’d try rebuilding the ActiveSync virtual directory: http://my.opera.com/RavenOverride/blog/2009/06/17/how-to-recreate-all-virtual-directories-for-exchange-2007

By: Tom Sheckells

Tom Sheckells — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:44:16 +0000

Yes, it is just a Windows 2008 Enterprise Edition with RRAS configured as an SSTP VPN. I installed Exchange via the SP3 installer because that is the one that supports Win2008. So far, OWA and Outlook Anywhere (both over SSL) work. I think it is a settings/security problem since I had to make some security setting changes to get OWA to work. Unfortunately, I was dumb/hurrying and didn’t write down the changes (and I was being so good about that too). As I got it working, some MS updates came in and without thinking I rebooted my machine and lost the web page that had the updates I did for OWA and, obviously, I’m not remembering correctly what I did.

When I try https://localhost/Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync, I get “Bad Request” as the only response (well after I sign in) in Google Chrome and “This page not found” in IE, but the tab says “HTTP 400 Bad Request”.

The fix for OWA said something about that installing Exchange over an existing (not freshly installed) IIS 7 will not change some of the necessary settings to allow Exchange to work properly. Since I can’t find the article again, I don’t know what changes I need to make in IIS and/or the file system to let this work.

Do you have any other ideas?

Thanks for all of your help (and time) so far.

Tom

By: Andreas

Andreas — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 18:10:54 +0000

Yeah, HTTP 400 is a generic error so it could be a lot of reasons behind it.

The SSTP box is just a plain Windows Server with RRAS? And you installed the CAS role without any errors through the Exchange Setup Wizard afterwards?

While I haven’t atttempted it I could see it being problematic to get SSTP and “plain” HTTPS running on the same IP address. Does it work if you disable SSL for OWA/EAS and run it over HTTP? And similar – does OWA/EAS work with SSL if you disable RRAS? And are you seeing HTTP 400 if you attempt opening up https://localhost/Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync in the browser on the server?

By: Tom Sheckells

Tom Sheckells — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:24:22 +0000

Andreas,
I get the 400 running the full test and also with the Basic and Extended on your web site. I think that I have something wrong in my configuration but I just don’t know where to look to make a change. It is a very generic error. My situation is that I had one machine with SSTP running for VPN access to my systems and an exchange server on another system. When I got a smartphone (Samsung Droid Charge), I started trying to get OWA and Activesync working on the same IP as the SSTP. First I tried the WebFarm and Application Request Routing (ARR) but could not get them to work. So, I moved the CAS role from the existing Exchange box to the same box as SSTP. From my searching I found out that my problem was that I had existing websites on the SSTP machine and just adding CAS did not make all of the appropriate changes to get OWA and ActiveSync working. I’ve since gotten OWA working but am still having trouble with ActiveSync. I really appreciate any help or direction you can give. Send me an email and I can send you the test credentials if you think that would help.

By: Andreas

Andreas — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:57:23 +0000

There’s a bug in the UI so it doesn’t always look like you’ve selected a version. If you don’t select one it’ll default to 12.1 though, which should be correct for Exchange 2007 SP3. It’s also a bit weird if you’re getting this on the basic test – it doesn’t really make sense with the GET action. (This is slightly misleading on my part I guess.)
Have you tried my online test to see if it creates similar results? https://easmd.labs.mobilitydojo.net/Basic.
Do you get error 400 running the Full test as well?

By: Tom Sheckells

Tom Sheckells — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:38:45 +0000

Hi, I am getting the (400) Bad Request message.

Testing HTTP GET:
Response: The remote server returned an error: (400) Bad Request.
Explanation:
Possibly a protocol mismatch, for example using version 14.0 against an Exchange 2007 server.
Choose a different protocol version to emulate, and try to run test again.
Status: FAIL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Testing HTTP OPTIONS:
Allow:OPTIONS,POST
MS-Server-ActiveSync:8.3
MS-ASProtocolVersions:1.0,2.0,2.1,2.5,12.0,12.1
MS-ASProtocolCommands:Sync,SendMail,SmartForward,SmartReply,GetAttachment,GetHierarchy,CreateCollection,DeleteCollection,MoveCollection,FolderSync,FolderCreate,FolderDelete,FolderUpdate,MoveItems,GetItemEstimate,MeetingResponse,Search,Settings,Ping,ItemOperations,Provision,ResolveRecipients,ValidateCert
Public:OPTIONS,POST
Content-Length:0
Cache-Control:private
Date:Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:35:26 GMT
Server:Microsoft-IIS/7.0
X-AspNet-Version:2.0.50727
X-Powered-By:ASP.NET

Status: PASS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I know I am must missing something in using the test tool. How do I select the protocol version. I am on Exchange 2007 SP3. I see the little box on the screen with the 4 different MS-ASProtocolVersion selections available. How do I make a selection? I wanted to use 12.1 but I don’t know how to pick that one. Thanks for your help.

By: Andreas

Andreas — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:13:15 +0000

Sorry for the late reply – been away from my testing and developing infrastructure for a couple of days
Your XML looks good from what I can tell. Though if I’m reading the specs right this is correct behaviour for the first responses:
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee218515(v=EXCHG.80).aspx)
“Synchronization requires a priming of the system; therefore for each collection that the client wishes to synchronize, it MUST issue an initial Sync request by sending a synchronization key of 0 (zero). This request establishes a synchronization relationship with the server and initializes the synchronization state there. The server responds with an initial value of the synchronization key, which the client MUST then use to get the initial set of objects from the server. (From this point forward, client requests MUST always include the synchronization key that was received in the last response from the server.) The client then sends a Sync command request to the server with the response synchronization key and includes any changes that were made on the client.

If the client device has not yet synchronized a folder, there SHOULD be no client-side changes. The device MUST synchronize the full contents of a given folder, and then have its changes, additions, and deletions applied.

The response from the server indicates whether the client’s changes were accepted, and includes any changes that were made on the server. The server response also contains a synchronization key that is to be used for the next synchronization session for the folder.”

So, unless you are commiting changes this sounds like it’s by design. (I have encoded the wbxml and looked at the specs, but haven’t had time to run through the entire sync command against a server. Which I probably should test to make sure I’m understanding things correctly )

By: Dean

Dean — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:36:57 +0000

lol. Apparently I have a thing or two to learn about html. XML tags on an HTML page dont mix. Here we go again minus the tags…

FIRST REQUEST TO SERVER:
?xml version=\”1.0\” encoding=\”utf-8\”?

Sync xmlns=\”AirSync:\”
Collections
Collection
SyncKey 0 /SyncKey
CollectionId 6 CollectionId
/Collection
/Collections
/Sync

FOLLOWED BY:

Sync xmlns=\”AirSync:\”
Collections
Collection
SyncKey (SyncKeysentFromServer) /SyncKey
CollectionId 6 CollectionId
DeletesAsMoves/
GetChanges/
/Collection
/Collections
/Sync

Now you can piece my three posting together an make one coherent one. Sorry for the mess I made. I hope you can still anser my question.

By: Dean

Dean — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:30:40 +0000

Not sure what happened but my last post was missing the meat and potatoes of my post Here I go again…

Thanks for all the great info! I truly appreciate what you are doing for many of us who are struggling to learn this protocol. I have a question and was wondering if you can help me out. I got active sync going with the ping command. I have it set up to watch inbox activity (ServerId 6). When there i a change I call

0
” 6

and then send another request to the server with the synckey that was sent by it

0
” 6

Based on the protocol docs I should only be receiving the changes registered on the server. Instead of receiving just the change. I get my whole inbox sent to me. I have been banging my head over this for a few days and cant figure it out. Is there something I need to send the server that I updated the changes inorder to prevent it from sending everything rather than just the change? Thanks in advance, Dino

By: Dean

Dean — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:25:30 +0000

and then I send
“”
+ “”
+ “”
+ “”
+ “” + synckeysentbyexchange+ “”
+ “” + collectionid + “”
+ “”
+ “”
+ “”
+ “”
+ “”;