Troubleshooting Remote Web Workplace


Most troubleshooting issues related to RWW involve network troubleshooting. Generally, if you can access any part of RWW, you can access all of the functions. There are times when this is not the case, but the design of RWW was intentionally kept simple, and as a result, most issues can be quickly identified and resolved.

The first step to troubleshooting any problem related to RWW is to see whether the problem exists when RWW is accessed internally as well as externally. In other words, you need to see whether the problem lies at the Internet boundary or on the SBS server itself. If you can access the RWW feature from the internal network but not from across the Internet, you need to check the firewall configuration to see what network access is being allowed. If you suspect that the problem may be on the SBS server itself, your best bet is to rerun the CEICW and let it reset the default settings for RWW and the network configuration. If you suspect that an external firewall might be at fault, check to make sure that ports 443, 444, and 4125 are open and directed to the SBS server.

Best Practice: Troubleshooting External Network Connectivity from Inside the Network

When you have SBS running in a two NIC configuration behind an external firewall, it can be difficult to determine whether a network configuration problem with the firewall or the external NIC on the server is the cause of the problem. One way to narrow down the source of the problem is by using a laptop and a small network hub. Figure 15.4 shows the network layout for this configuration.

Figure 15.4. Connecting a hub and laptop to the external network.


Connect the hub between the SBS server and the external firewall. This will not impact your Internet connection but will allow you to connect the laptop to the network between the server and the firewall. Connect the laptop to the hub as well, and configure the laptop with an IP address on the same subnet as the external NIC on the server. Now you can access the server as if you were coming from the Internet and eliminate any problems that the firewall might be causing.

If you can access the server resources fine from the laptop connected to the external interface but not from a machine across the Internet, you need to look at the configuration of the firewall first. If you cannot access the resources on the server from the laptop, you need to look at the server configuration first.


The remainder of this chapter provides some insights for troubleshooting problems where RWW cannot be accessed externally but can be accessed internally.

Cannot Connect to RWW

The trick to identifying the root cause of the problem that keeps you from accessing RWW from the Internet is to look closely at the error that you get in Internet Explorer. Not the generic error that appears at the top of the error page (although that can help narrow down the issue with some errors), but the HTTP error code that appears toward the bottom of the page, usually a 400-series error. In many cases, a quick Google search on the HTTP error can point you in the right direction.

For example, if you get this error when accessing RWW, "HTTP Error 403.6 - Forbidden: IP address of the client has been rejected," the Remote Web Workplace check box was not enabled during the firewall configuration portion of the CEICW. When RWW is not enabled in the CEICW, the IIS virtual directory for RWW has a restriction on which IP addresses can access the virtual directory, and those addresses fall in the internal IP address range.

On the other hand, you might get this error: "Cannot find server or DNS Error." This usually indicates that access to the site is not enabled. If you cannot access any of the secure sites on the server such as OWA, check to make sure that port 443 is open on your firewall.

Cannot Access Companyweb Through RWW

If you get a "The page cannot be displayed" error when attempting to access any of the Companyweb links, more than likely port 444 is not correctly forwarded to your SBS server. You can verify this by attempting to telnet to port 444 on your public network interface. If you get a "Could not open connection to the host" response from telnet, the port is not correctly forwarding to the server. If you get a blank screen after issuing the telnet command, the port did respond, and the problem lies elsewhere. You can only confirm this for certain by connecting from outside the network, or using the hub connected to the external NIC described in the preceding "Best PracticeTroubleshooting External Network Connectivity from Inside the Network," sidebar.

If you cannot access Companyweb through RWW because the menu items are not present, you need to rerun the CEICW and make sure that the Windows SharePoint Services intranet site is enabled in the firewall portion of the CEICW. If that option is not enabled, the RWW menu will not display the Companyweb items.

Cannot Remotely Control Workstations Through RWW

This can be one of the trickiest access problems to troubleshoot with RWW because so many pieces are involved. The first item to test is to make sure that you can make a remote desktop connection to the Windows XP workstation directly from another machine on the local network. You can do this with the Remote Desktop Client or by trying to telnet to port 3389 on the workstation. If you get no response from the workstation, you may need to check the firewall settings on the workstation to make sure that remote desktop is enabled.

If you can connect to the workstation directly, the next step is to test the RWW remote connection from a machine inside the network. If you can access the workstation directly but cannot get to it through RWW on the internal network, you need to check and see whether a process is listening on port 4125 on the server. By default, port 4125 does not have an active listener and will not show up in the output of a netstat aon command. When a remote control session is active, you will see a process active on port 4125 in the output of netstat aon, and that process will be the IIS worker process (w3wp.exe). If you find any other process listening on port 4125, you've got a misconfiguration or other problem on the server.

Finally, if you can connect to the workstation through RWW from an internal machine, test the connectivity from the external NIC using the laptop and hub test described in the previous "Best Practice" sidebar. If you can connect from the laptop but not from a machine across the Internet, your firewall is most likely misconfigured and not forwarding port 4125 to the SBS server.

One other error you might encounter when trying to remotely connect to workstations or servers through RWW is a Javascript error similar to the following:

Line: 272 Char: 4 Error: Invalid procedure call or argument Code: 0 


This error occurs when the client workstation attempting to make the connection has a screen resolution of 1600x1200 or greater, and you attempt to make a Full Screen connection to the remote workstation. Setting the screen size in the remote connection to 1280x1024 or less prevents this error, as does lowering the resolution on the client workstation to something lower than 1600x1200.




Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 Unleashed
Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 Unleashed
ISBN: 0672328054
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 253

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