Friday, July 22, 2005

Secure Password Authentication and Email

It appears SP1 for Small Business Server has many issues that really should be clarified before installation and thanks to the automatic updates Microsoft makes as a default with the SBS system, SP1 was to be installed whether you want it or not. True there was a patch that would prevent the download and eventual install take place but it was only a matter of time before you would have to install it. This is pretty much the way I felt when I first blocked the installation and managed to get a few more weeks before a new attempted installation occurred. I would notice this when my email started being bounced back to me stating there was a "delay" in the message being sent. Since installing the Linksys/Cisco vpn RV082 router which gave me the dual WAN capabilities I was looking for, it appeared it didn't like it too much when the SBS server wanted to take control via the UPNP. This being corrected I was next greeted with a problem when the SP1 install completed and I could not connect to the server. I figured two weeks of dealing with this was enough and finally took the server offline until the SP1 changes could be fixed. Unfortunately this was playing havoc with my email since each time the server would come online, it would go and retrieve my mail. I didn't think it would be too much of a problem since I could still read my mail from the server, however, what I wasn't aware of was that one account, which just so happened to be the main account, had the Secure Password Authentication turned on, which would still send mail but not receive. The other problem was that it would actually allow some mail but not all and so it wasn't until I actually was at a clients home yesterday where I emailed myself and then found I did not receive it that I knew something was up. Sure enough after spending a few hours in the exchange server I found the problem and the 186 messages that were blocked. Note that these were all legitimate messages that had already been screened from SPAM filters. This was 186 messages that required some sort of action. Needless to say it is now 12:15am and I have been at it for the past 6 hours and am happy to say all the mail has been processed. I apologize to any and all that had gone a few days without any response from me.